Feisty Females: Neta Snook
When Amelia Earhart wanted to learn how to fly an airplane, the deal she struck with her parents required she be taught by a woman pilot. That pilot, Neta Snook, was a woman of many “firsts” – one of the first female aviators, she was the first woman accepted into a flying school, the first to run a commercial airfield and the first woman to run her own aviation business.
Mary Anita “Neta” Snook was born in Mount Carroll, Illinois on February 14, 1896 to parents Floyd and Adella Snook. At an early age Neta was fascinated with machinery and shared her father’s love of automobiles. Her father allowed her to sit on his lap at the age of four and steer his Stanley Steamer and taught her the inner workings of the car as well.
This article is no longer available for free at this site. It was re-written and enhanced (11-page article), complete with footnotes and sources and has been published in the November 2018 issue of Digging History Magazine. Should you prefer to purchase the article only, contact me for more information. This issue featured several articles on World War I, the Great War, including: “Mining Genealogical Gold: Finding Records of the Great War (and the stories behind them)”, “Rolling Up Their Sleeves: World War I and the Road to Suffrage”, “Pandemic! On the Home Front: Blue as Huckleberries and Spitting Blood” and more).
I invite you to check out Digging History Magazine. Since January 2018 new articles are published in a digital magazine (PDF) available by individual issue purchase or subscription (with three options). Most issues run between 70-85 pages, filled with articles of interest to history-lovers and genealogists — it’s all history, right? 🙂 No ads — just carefully-researched, well-written stories, complete with footnotes and sources.
Want to know more or try out a free issue? You can download either (or both) of the January-February 2019 and March-April 2019 issues here: https://digging-history.com/free-samples/
Thanks for stopping by!
Tombstone Tuesday: Ezekiel William Pettit
Ezekiel William Pettit was born in 1837 to parents Samuel and Polly Pettit in the province of Ontario, Canada, not far from the United States border in the township of Townsend. One source indicates that his parents were actually United States citizens, but there are some conflicting records that seem to indicate otherwise. Through the years, some census records indicated that Ezekiel’s parents were both born in Canada and some indicate they were born in New York.
In 1851 the Pettit family was enumerated in Norfolk County, Ontario and both parents were listed as being born in “Upper Canada” (there was a “ditto” notation for an entry above theirs). The family moved to Rockford, Illinois sometime after that census, perhaps 1852 according to one source, although a later record (the 1900 census) indicated that Ezekiel had immigrated in 1847 (probably a miscalculation since the family was clearly living in Canada for the 1851 census).
This is just a snippet as this article was enhanced with new research and featured in the September-October 2019 issue of Digging History Magazine. If interested in purchasing a subscription to the magazine, you can receive this issue for free upon request (see subscription details below).
Did you enjoy this article snippet? Yes? Check out Digging History Magazine. Since January 2018 new articles are published in a digital magazine (PDF) available by individual issue purchase or subscription (with three options). Most issues run between 70-85 pages, filled with articles of interest to history-lovers and genealogists — it’s all history, right? 🙂 No ads — just carefully-researched, well-written stories, complete with footnotes and sources.
Want to know more or try out a free issue? You can download either (or both) of the January-February 2019 and March-April 2019 issues here: https://digging-history.com/free-samples/
Thanks for stopping by!
Far-Out Friday: This Might Have Been a Victorian Thing (Get Me Out of Here, I’m Not Dead!)
A friend forwarded a story to me recently from Retro Indy (Indianapolis) about a device invented in the late eighteenth century, which led me to explore a bizarre series of patents granted from the 1840’s through the early twentieth century. The September 20, 1963 issue of Life magazine suggested that one peculiarity of the nineteenth century, the fear of being buried alive, may have been inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s creepy stories. Victorians had a “thing” about death.
This article has been removed from the web site, but will be featured in the September-October 2019 issue of Digging History Magazine. It will be updated, complete with footnotes and sources. Trust me — you don’t want to miss it! Other articles scheduled for that issue include “Ways to Go in Days of Old” and “O, Victoria, You’ve Been Duped!”.
I invite you to check out Digging History Magazine. Since January 2018 new articles are published in a digital magazine (PDF) available by individual issue purchase or subscription (with three options). Most issues run between 70-85 pages, filled with articles of interest to history-lovers and genealogists — it’s all history, right? 🙂 No ads, just carefully-researched stories, complete with footnotes and sources.
Want to know more or try out a free issue? That’s easy if you have a minute or two. Here are the options (choose one):
- Scroll up to the upper right-hand corner of this page, provide your email to subscribe to the blog and a free issue will soon be on its way to your inbox.
- A free article index of issues is available in the magazine store, providing a brief synopsis of every article published in 2018. Note: You will have to create an account to obtain the free index (don’t worry — it’s easy!).
- Contact me directly and request either a free issue and/or the free article index. Happy to provide!
Thanks for stopping by!
Ghost Town Wednesday: Silkville, Kansas (Socialism Doesn’t Work)
It would be more appropriate to call today’s ghost town a “ghost commune”, established by Ernest Valeton de Boissère in 1869. He was a wealthy Frenchman, born into a Bordeaux aristocratic family in 1810. When Napoleon III came into power after the Third French Revolution, de Boissère departed France in 1852 for political reasons and immigrated to America.
Did you enjoy this article snippet? Yes? Check out Digging History Magazine. This article has been updated significantly with new research and published in the July-August 2019 issue of the magazine. The magazine is on sale in the Digging History Magazine store and features these stories (100+ pages of stories, no ads):
- “Drought-Locusts-Earthquakes-B-Blizzards (Oh My!)” – Perhaps no state is possessive of a more appropriate motto than Kansas: Ad Astra per Aspera (“To the stars through difficulties”, or more loosely translated “a rough road leads to the stars”1). By the time the state adopted its motto in 1876, fifteen years post-statehood, it had experienced not only a brutal, bloody beginning (“Bloody Kansas”) but had endured (and continued to struggle with) extreme pestilence, preceded by severe drought and even an earthquake in April 1867. In the early days being Kansan was not for the faint of heart.
- “Home Sweet Soddie” – For years The Great Plains had been a vast expanse to be endured on the way to California and Oregon. Now the United States government was making 270 million acres available for settlement – practically free if, after five years, all criteria had been met. The criteria, referred to as “proving up” meant improvements must be made (and proof provided) by cultivating the land and building a home. For many their first home would be a dugout, a sod-covered hole in the ground.
- “Wholesale Murder at Newton” – It’s called “The Gunfight at Hyde Park” or the “Newton Massacre”. One newspaper headlined it as “Wholesale Murder at Newton”, another called it an “affray” and another a “riot”. Whatever, it was bloody, and one of the biggest gunfights in the history of the Wild West, more deadly than the legendary gunfight at the OK Corral.
- “Kansas Ghost Towns” – It might be more appropriate to call this Kansas ghost town, established by Ernest Valeton de Boissière in 1869, a “ghost commune” (Silkville). Nicodemus. There was something genuinely African in the very name. White folks would have called their place by one of the romantic names which stud the map of the United States, Smithville, Centreville, Jonesborough; but these colored people wanted something high-sounding and biblical, and so hit on Nicodemus.
- “The Land of Odds: Kwirky Kansas” – For some of us the mention of Kansas invokes memories of one of the classic films of our childhood, The Wizard of Oz. With a tongue-in-cheek reference this article highlights some of the state’s history and people in a series of vignettes – some serious, some not so serious (the real “oddballs”) in a light-hearted fashion. A rollicking fun article covering a range of Kansas “oddities” and “oddballs”, including one of the most dangerous quacks to have ever practiced medicine, Dr. John R. Brinkley.
- “Mining Kansas Genealogical Gold” – One of my favorite “adventures in research” is to discover obscure genealogical records or perhaps stumble across a set of records at Ancesty.com or Fold3 which turns out to be a gold mine of information. This article highlights some real gems available at Ancestry.
- “Chautauqua: The Poor Man’s Educational Opportunity” – During an era spanning the mid-1870s through the early twentieth century, Kansans, like many Americans across the country, anticipated the summer season known as Chautauqua, an event Theodore Roosevelt called “the most American thing in America”. By 1906 when Roosevelt made such an astute observation the movement had evolved into a non-sectarian gathering, where “all human faiths in God are respected. The brotherhood of man recreating and seeking the truth in the broad sunlight of love, social co-operation.”
- And more, including book reviews and tips for finding elusive genealogical records.
Since January 2018 new articles are published in a digital magazine (PDF) available by individual issue purchase or subscription (with three options). Most issues run between 70-85 pages, filled with articles of interest to history-lovers and genealogists — it’s all history, right? 🙂 No ads — just carefully-researched, well-written stories, complete with footnotes and sources.
Want to know more or try out a free issue? You can download either (or both) of the January-February 2019 and March-April 2019 issues here: https://digging-history.com/free-samples/
Thanks for stopping by!
Ghost Town Wednesday: Rome, Kansas
After Ellis County, Kansas was formed on February 26, 1867, the county’s first town site began to take shape in May when the Lull brothers of Salina opened a general store strategically close to where the Kansas Pacific Railroad track would lay. They called the town Rome and by mid-June several homes had been constructed.
One of Rome’s co-founders was none other than famous scout and buffalo hunter, William E. Cody, a.k.a. Buffalo Bill. He and business partner William Rose, a railroad contractor, saw dollar signs and expected to make thousands of dollars selling lots. When the town was surveyed in May there were already around five hundred people in and around the area of the town site.
However, according to Ghost Towns of Kansas by Daniel Fitzgerald, by mid-June Cody and Rose were giving away lots to anyone willing to put up a tent or build a house. Cody erected the first stone house and more followed, and soon the town’s population had grown to two thousand residents.
Bloomfield, Moses & Company opened a canvas-covered general store, Joseph Perry opened the Perry Hotel and Cody and Rose established their own general store. Other businesses, including saloons and gambling houses like the Lone Star, The Dewdrop Inn, The Occidental and The Last Chance, were established. With several hundred Union Pacific railroad workers laying track in the area, business was booming.
One of the original settlers, Mr. S. Motz, had this to say about the bustling little town: “The saloon business was thriving and continuous all day, all night; no halt, no intermission.” Rome became known as a strategic place to purchase fresh buffalo and antelope meat, pick up firewood from nearby Big Creek, hay for livestock and buffalo robes. Some people were just passing through and some were permanent residents, but by far the majority of the population consisted of railroad workers, soldiers, gamblers, “cut-throats” and prostitutes. Such was life in a “wild west town”.
Bill Cody and his partner must have been pleased with the town’s booming progress in such a short period of time and looking forward to cashing in. When Dr. W.C. Webb arrived in town and asked to join their partnership he was turned down. However, unbeknownst to Cody and Rose, Webb worked with the railroad and already had authority to establish town sites along the line.
In retaliation, Webb and his partner Phinneas Moore established the Big Creek Land Company in June and laid out the town site of Hays City about a mile east of Rome. Dr. Webb, with railroad authority, declared that Hays City would the location for the railroad depot. Strike one.
In addition, because of the flood potential of Big Creek, the grade of Rome’s rail bridge was raised three and a half feet, making Rome a sort of “walled city” – the raised bridge on one side and Big Creek on the other three sides. Strike two.
Despite all those obstacles, Rome continued to grow that summer, that is until the Hays City depot was completed. During that era so-called county seat wars often became bloody affairs, yet the competition between Rome and Hays City was mostly peaceful, save for one character by the name of “Judge” M.E. Joyce getting a bullet through his shoulder while arguing in defense of Rome.
A cholera epidemic struck the town late summer and most of the town’s residents, including Bill Cody and William Rose, became frightened and made their hasty exits. The only business left in town was with the soldiers of Fort Hays since the railroad workers had already moved on further west. The Perry Hotel moved to Hays City and became known as the Gibson Hotel. Gradually, other businesses folded or moved to Hays City as well. Strike three.
Despite its short history it had once been called the “Pioneer of Western Kansas”, but by 1868 Rome was no more. Hays City eventually became known as just “Hays” and grew to extend its borders west to the old Rome town site. All that remains as a reminder of Rome is a marker near the campus of Fort Hays State College.
Did you enjoy this article? Yes? Check out Digging History Magazine. Since January 2018 new articles are published in a digital magazine (PDF) available by individual issue purchase or subscription (with three options). Most issues run between 70-85 pages, filled with articles of interest to history-lovers and genealogists — it’s all history, right? 🙂 No ads — just carefully-researched, well-written stories, complete with footnotes and sources.
Want to know more or try out a free issue? You can download either (or both) of the January-February 2019 and March-April 2019 issues here: https://digging-history.com/free-samples/
Thanks for stopping by!
Tombstone Tuesday: Benjamin F. Cooley, Master Clock Maker
I came across an interesting story while researching my sister-in-law’s ancestors. Benjamin F. Cooley is her great-great-great grandfather, one of the early settlers of Grayson County, Virginia, and at the time one of the finest clock makers in the country. Here is his story.
Most family researchers believe he was the son of Abraham and Sarah (Reeder or Reader) Cooley, and if so, was probably born in Orange County, New York on August 3, 1774. He was their firstborn child after their marriage in 1773. Of course, this time in American history was volatile and records indicate that Abraham Cooley was a staunch patriot.
On April 29, 1774 New York committee members drew up a pledge and sent it around to all counties and towns:
Persuaded that the salvation of the rights and liberties of America depend, under God, on the firm union of its inhabitants in a vigorous prosecution of the measures necessary for its safety; and convinced of the necessity of preventing anarchy and confusion which attend the dissolution of the powers of government, we, the freemen, freeholders and inhabitants of ________ do, in the most solemn manner, resolve never to become slaves; and do associate, under all the ties of religion, honor, and love of our country, to adopt and endeavor to carry into execution whatever measures are recommended by the Continental Congress, or resolved upon by our Provincial Convention, for the purpose of preserving our Constitution, and opposing the execution of the several arbitrary acts of the British Parliament, until a reconciliation between Great Britain and America, on constitutional principles (which we must ardently desire) can be obtained; and that we will in all things follow the advice of our General Committee respecting the purposes aforesaid, the preservation of peace and good order, and the safety of individuals and property.
Abraham Cooley appeared on the pledge for the Cornwall precinct of Orange County, and later served as a private under the command of Captain Phenihas Rumsey’s company. Following the war, it is believed that Abraham and Sarah migrated to North Carolina and later to Montgomery County, Virginia, from which Grayson County was formed (and later Carroll County).
Benjamin married Jane Dickey on October 1, 1805 in Grayson County. In 1820 there were two adults and seven children enumerated, and nine other persons not Indians and not taxed (perhaps slaves?). Carroll 1765-1815, The Settlements: A History of the First Fifty Years of Carroll County, Virginia by John P. Alderman indicates the following children were born to Benjamin and Jane: Martin, Mary, William, Nancy, Rebecca, Eliza, Amanda, James Dickey (my sister-in-law’s second great grandfather), Elizabeth, John and Julia. The family lived on Coal Creek.
After Carroll County was formed from Grayson County, Benjamin’s name appeared on records for the first court held in the county for the term beginning June 1842 and soon thereafter he was appointed Sheriff. Two sources, Pioneer Settlers of Grayson County by B.F. Nuckolls and Footprints on the Sands of Time by Dr. Aras B. Cox, indicate that “Esquire Cooley was a useful and honored citizen, and had an intelligent and highly respected family.”
Dr. Cox wrote of Benjamin:
No modern Tubal Cain could have excelled him as an artificer in his superior skill in working metals. He made some of the finest clocks in the United States . . . [one clock] not only kept the usual order of time, but the days of the week and the month, and the changes of the moon.
Clocks and time pieces were few and far between at that time, according to Dr. Cox. “The twelve o’clock mark for the sunshine in the open door on the floor, was the only way many of the pioneers could tell the time of day.” Benjamin, or Esquire Cooley as Cox referred to him, decided to travel to Salem, North Carolina (perhaps in the early 1800’s) to learn how to make clocks under the tutelage of the Moravians.
Benjamin, believing the price they charged was too much, vowed he would not pay the price and would instead teach himself how to make clocks. He returned home and visited William Bourne, owner of a grandfather clock, the first one ever brought to Grayson. Its works were made of brass, showing the time and moon changes. When Benjamin asked if he might make a pattern of the clock, Mr. Bourne consented.
Benjamin took the clock apart, piece by piece, and made patterns of each. From those patterns he made clocks and sold them throughout the country.
In 2013 the Cooley family donated one of those clocks, previously displayed at the Carroll County Library, to the Carroll County Historical Society. It is described as seventy-eight inches high with an eight-day wind. The large dial features two sequences, one a smiling moon over a landscape and a similar moon over a seascape on the other side. A 30-day calendar is also included (The Carroll News).
Benjamin died on March 24, 1847 at the age of seventy-two. He is buried in the Cooley Cemetery in Carroll County. Jane, several years younger than her husband, died on January 22, 1872.
Did you enjoy this article? Yes? Check out Digging History Magazine. Since January 2018 new articles are published in a digital magazine (PDF) available by individual issue purchase or subscription (with three options). Most issues run between 70-85 pages, filled with articles of interest to history-lovers and genealogists — it’s all history, right? 🙂 No ads — just carefully-researched, well-written stories, complete with footnotes and sources.
Want to know more or try out a free issue? You can download either (or both) of the January-February 2019 and March-April 2019 issues here: https://digging-history.com/free-samples/
Thanks for stopping by!
Feisty Females: Sarah Campbell a.k.a. “Aunt Sally”
I ran across an article published in the January 13, 1878 issue of the Chicago Tribune entitled “The Women of the Hills” and written by a correspondent for the St. Paul Pioneer-Press. The correspondent wrote his thoughts on some of the more “colorful” women of the wild and woolly South Dakota Black Hills. He was particularly enamored with Martha Canary, a.k.a. Calamity Jane, calling her “an original in herself” and someone who despised hypocrisy, imitated no one and was “easily melted to tears.”
His list included Belle Siddons, a.k.a. Monte Verde, Kitty LeRoy, known as the queen of just about everything and a young woman known only as Nellie of Central City. His list of colorful characters ended with a paragraph on a “large negro woman, almost as broad as she is long” by the name of “Aunt Sally”.
Sarah Campbell was born on July 10, 1823 in Kentucky to an African American slave named Marianne. It’s possible that the slave owner was Sally’s father because it had been stipulated that Marianne and her children were to be set free upon his death. Marianne instead remained enslaved until her death in 1834.
Six days following her mother’s death, Sally was sold to Henry Choteau, cousin to St. Louis fur trader Pierre Choteau, Jr., who had founded Fort Pierre Choteau in 1832 as a trading post in what would later be called Dakota Territory. Sally, just eleven years old at the time, objected and filed an unlawful detainment lawsuit against Choteau in 1835. With the help of an attorney she won the lawsuit in 1837, and her freedom, and received one penny in damages.
Before her freedom was granted, Sally had been hired out as a cook on steamboats which plied the waters of the upper Missouri River in support of the lucrative fur trade business. After winning her lawsuit, she continued to work on the steamboats and married another steamboat worker from Illinois.
Together they had one son named St. Clair (or Sinclair). Little is known about her life during that time since African American history was sketchy at best during the nineteenth century. St. Clair’s name first appears on the 1870 census at Fort Randall in Dakota Territory where he operated a ferry service until his death in 1885.
According to BlackPast.org, Sally moved to Bismarck, Dakota Territory as a widow. She owned and operated a private club and was a laundress and midwife, affectionately known as “Aunt Sally”. The following year she made history, becoming the first non-native woman to enter the Black Hills when she joined George Custer’s Black Hills Expedition.
Aunt Sally, the expedition’s cook, served over a thousand men. Some have claimed she cooked for Custer, but he had written a letter to his wife and mentioned a cook named Johnson. According to an 1880 Black Hills Daily Times article, she cooked for John Smith, a sutler who sold provisions to the army. She was said to have been handy with a frying pan, not only for cooking purposes, but in fending off anyone who got fresh with her.
During the expedition Sally joined twenty other residents of Bismarck and formed the Custer Park Mining Company. According to True West Magazine, it was the expedition’s intentions all along to not only find a suitable site for a military post to address the Indian problem, but to check out rumors of gold in the Black Hills. After reaching French Creek, two miners began panning for gold and on July 30 found “gold in them thar hills.” Everyone wanted to try their hand, including Aunt Sally.
She called her claim “No. 7 below Discovery”, listed on an official notice posted on August 5, 1874 as belonging to Sarah Campbell. To this day, Custer County still show her claim in their records. One of the soldiers recorded in his diary that “Claim No. 7 below Discovery belonged to ‘Aunt Sally,’ sutler John W. Smith’s Negro cook. Sally’s real name was Sarah Campbell, a woman Curtis [the correspondent] described as a ‘huge mountain of dusky flesh.’”
William Curtis was a young reporter for the Chicago Inter-Ocean and the New York World. His interview with Sally was published on August 27 just before she returned to Fort Lincoln with the expedition, describing her as “the most excited contestant in this chase after fortune. . . She is an old frontiersman, as it were, having been up and down the Missouri ever since its muddy water was broken by a paddle wheel, and having accumulated quite a little property, had settled down in Bismarck to ease and luxury.”
She had anticipated the expedition, saying she “wanted to see dese Black Hills – an’ dey ain’t no blacker dan I am and I’m no African, now you just bet I ain’t; I’m one of your common herd.” One of the things she was known to tell everyone was “I’se the first white woman as ever entered the Hills.” As one correspondent who interviewed her put it, “of course it would be impolite in the presence of a lady to deny the soft impeachment, so I simply accepted the statement as in every sense true.”
Seth Galvin, who as a young boy was acquainted with Sally, claimed she called herself a white woman because “she was not very literate, and the term ‘white’ was the only word she knew. She meant ‘civilized.’” Whether she was literate or not the St. Paul Pioneer-Press correspondent claimed she was a “walking encyclopedia of matters and facts connected with this country.”
After returning from the expedition Sally vowed to return to the hills and continue prospecting, which she did, walking back into the Hills alongside an ox-drawn wagon. She filed a claim at Elk Creek and lived in Crook City and Galena, prospecting, cooking and serving as a midwife. Sally tried her hand at both gold and silver mining, filing a total of five claims, although only one, the Alice Lode silver mine was profitable. Fifteen months before her death she sold the Alice Lode for five hundred dollars.
When the silver boom came to an end, she moved to a ranch and adopted a son, planning to run a camp for miners and railroad workers. Aunt Sally died on April 10, 1888 according to her gravestone in Galena’s Vinegar Hill Cemetery, although a grave marker erected in 1934 marking the expedition’s sixtieth anniversary indicated she died in 1887.
She was quite a character, a beloved one at that, who participated in annual parades in her later years and enjoyed telling stories, while puffing on her pipe, about the Custer Expedition. The 1934 marker noted that she with her participation in that expedition she had “ventured with the vanguard of civilization.”
For more information, please see Sarah Campbell: The First White Woman in the Black Hills Was African American, by Lilah Morton Pengra.
Did you enjoy this article? Yes? Check out Digging History Magazine. Since January 2018 new articles are published in a digital magazine (PDF) available by individual issue purchase or subscription (with three options). Most issues run between 70-85 pages, filled with articles of interest to history-lovers and genealogists — it’s all history, right? 🙂 No ads — just carefully-researched, well-written stories, complete with footnotes and sources.
Want to know more or try out a free issue? You can download either (or both) of the January-February 2019 and March-April 2019 issues here: https://digging-history.com/free-samples/
Thanks for stopping by!
Ghost Town Wednesday: Eastonville, Colorado
While many of Colorado’s ghost towns were formerly booming mining towns, this one east of the Black Forest near Colorado Springs was an agricultural community. The area began to be settled in 1872 and was first called Easton when a post office was established at Weir’s Sawmill.
In 1881 the Denver and New Orleans Railroad, later the Colorado and Southern Railroad, began to lay track in the area. A train stop named McConnellsville was established a few miles northeast of Easton in 1882. The residents of Easton decided to move their town there in a “relocate or perish” action (Colorado Ghost Towns: Past and Present by Robert L. Brown, p. 93).
The area around Easton was found to be most suitable for potato farming, and for a time residents self-proclaimed it the Potato Capital of the World. Access to the railroad would have been essential for shipping their prized potatoes, so in 1883 the townspeople voted to move.
Not long after relocating another issue arose, this time over the name of the town. Postal officials requested a name change to avoid confusion with the town of Eaton in Weld County. On May 17, 1884 the town’s name was officially changed to Eastonville. With direct railroad access and agricultural development, Eastonville was poised to grow.
In 1886 there were around fifty residents, but by 1900 the town boasted a population of around five hundred. Three mercantiles (Russell-Gates Mercantile Company, Eastonville Mercantile Company and Foster Brothers General Merchandise) had been established, along with a meat market, bakery, livery stable, three hotels, a school, a drugstore and, of course, saloons.
Three churches, Baptist, Presbyterian and Episcopalian, were established. The Cheese family (highlighted in yesterday’s Tombstone Tuesday article here) were some of the first Episcopalians to settle in the area. The local newspaper was called the Eastonville World and the town had a baseball club and race track.
According to Brown, the first two decades of the twentieth century were the most prosperous for Eastonville. At least nine or ten passenger trains and the same number of freight trains passed through the town each day. Potato farming had become a booming business. The Colorado Springs Weekly Gazette reported in April of 1904 that Eastonville farmers and businessmen were arranging phone service for their homes and businesses.
One of the early settlers was interviewed in 1965 by Jean Evans of Monument. Charles Hobbs described the area as a “splendid farming community, and huge crops of grain and potatoes were grown. Two-pound spuds were common, and there was a great demand for seeds of these dry land potatoes from other growing centers.” Potato bakes were regularly held in Eastonville and Monument.
Trainloads of potatoes were shipped out of Eastonville and nearby Monument which meant there were plenty of jobs. However, people began to leave Eastonville in the 1930s after crop failures and drought. The quality of the potatoes dropped and with it the product market, and of course the Great Depression was also a factor.
Charles Hobbs believed that the automobile and truck led to the railroad’s demise, although the railroad was pretty much wiped out in May of 1935 when massive flood waters swept through the area. The May 29 forecast called for fair weather and only occasional showers in the mountain areas. It was raining Thursday morning, although not heavily, but intensified later in the day. Storm cells had merged and the sky was black. As Monument Creek began to rise flood waters swept through Colorado Springs and the surrounding area as other creeks crested. Eighteen people lost their lives.
Without railroad taxes the town had little in the way of finances to support its existence. The Gates Mercantile’s business was dwindling, although the Eastonville Mercantile held on for a few more years. Residents continued to leave as houses were torn down and moved away.
Today very few structures remain. The Presbyterian church was used was a community center for years and is still standing. The Eastonville Cemetery is still in use with over five hundred interments dating from the late 1800s to the present day.
Did you enjoy this article? Yes? Check out Digging History Magazine. Since January 2018 new articles are published in a digital magazine (PDF) available by individual issue purchase or subscription (with three options). Most issues run between 70-85 pages, filled with articles of interest to history-lovers and genealogists — it’s all history, right? 🙂 No ads — just carefully-researched, well-written stories, complete with footnotes and sources.
Want to know more or try out a free issue? You can download either (or both) of the January-February 2019 and March-April 2019 issues here: https://digging-history.com/free-samples/
Thanks for stopping by!
Tombstone Tuesday: Charles H. Cheese
Charles H. Cheese was born on February 22, 1856 in Illinois to parents George and Elizabeth Cheese. George, born in England around 1823, arrived in America on April 27, 1830 with his parents Edmund and Ann Cheese. The Cheese family were farmers in Cook County, Illinois and in 1850 George and Elizabeth were living with his parents with a two-year old child named Ann.
Edmund died in 1855 and George and Elizabeth’s growing family was living in Chicago in 1860 with his mother Ann. After George passed away in 1866 and was buried in Cook County, his family moved to Will County. However, sometime between the 1870 and 1880 census, some members of the Cheese family decided to head west.
By 1880 Elizabeth had established herself in Colorado Springs, Colorado and married R.W. Mason. Historical records indicate that she was one of the first Episcopalians in that area of Colorado and later worked as a cook at the historic Antlers Hotel. The hotel, built in 1883 twelve years after the founding of Colorado Springs, was one of the most elegant hotels in the West at the time.
The seventy-five room hotel was furnished with gas lights, steam heat, hot and cold water and a hydraulic elevator, according to the hotel’s web site. Amenities such as a music room, playrooms, barber shop and a Turkish bath were also featured. Built and financed by William Jackson Palmer, the hotel was named Antlers for the large racks of elk and deer antlers displayed throughout the facility.
Following its opening in June of 1883, newspapers around the country described it as “mammoth”, situated “on the rise of the plateau a few hundred yards from the depot” in Colorado Springs, “one of the most tidy and pleasant towns to be found in Colorado.” President Benjamin Harrison visited in 1891 and the hotel, a favorite destination for English tourists was nicknamed “Little London”. The hotel, destroyed by fire during an eight-block-long, wind-driven fire on October 1, 1898, was rebuilt in 1901.
Elizabeth, one of the early pioneers of Colorado Springs, passed away on December 30, 1894, three weeks following the death of her grandson, Everette, son of Charles and Clara Cheese.
Charles had migrated to Colorado and settled in the Colorado Springs area as well. He married Clara Belle Bristow around 1882 or 1883 and their first child George Willard, born on September 26, 1884, was named after his grandfather. Records indicate that Charles and Clara had at least ten children: George (1884), Everette (1886), Maria (1887), Charles (1889), Clarence (1891), Naomi (1893), Marjorie (1895), Harlan (1897), Gladys 1899) and Alberta (1904).
Everette died on December 7, 1894 at the age of eight. While it’s unclear the circumstances surrounding his death, it’s possible he died of either diphtheria or smallpox since both diseases had risen to epidemics that year.
George Willard Cheese died on June 26, 1902 at St. Francis Hospital in Colorado Springs, a victim of diphtheria according to his obituary. Willard a “model son with a bright future” was three months short of his eighteenth birthday.
Charles was a farmer and a successful cattle rancher, but following the death of his oldest child George, decided lease his large and valuable ranch and move his family to Eastonville so that his children could have the advantage of the high school at that place, according to The Weekly Gazette (22 Oct 1903).
In the spring of 1903, Charles purchased fifty-four head of cattle. The Weekly Gazette noted that he was “one of the oldest ranchmen in this county and he says that this is the most forward spring we have had in years. He has over 100 acres ready to sow in oats, and he says that the grass is starting rapidly.” By the end of 1903 Charles was about to build a saw mill on his ranch and “saw about 200,000 feet of lumber.”
Eastonville was about six miles way from Peyton where the family ranch was located. Charles was elected president of the Peyton French Coach Horse Society in 1904 and his family visited the ranch while their children were on school vacation. His family relocated to Colorado Springs by at least 1907 and most likely derived income from lease of the ranch land and saw mill operations, because it appears the family continued to reside in the city.
Some of their children later migrated to California – Myrtle (Maria), Marjorie and Harlan were living in Alameda in 1920 and Alberta married James Dodds there in 1933.
In 1914 Colorado Springs residents apparently believed Charles had died, but like Mark Twain, reports of his death had been greatly exaggerated. Word had spread that his son Charles, a college athlete, had dropped out of school due to the death of his father. Charles Senior, however, was in the best of health – Charles Junior had just decided to follow in his father’s footsteps and take up farming.
Clara died on November 6, 1923 at the age of sixty-three and was laid to rest in the Peyton Cemetery. On the day following his seventy-fourth birthday, February 23, 1930, Charles passed away and was also buried in the Peyton Cemetery.
Did you enjoy this article? Yes? Check out Digging History Magazine. Since January 2018 new articles are published in a digital magazine (PDF) available by individual issue purchase or subscription (with three options). Most issues run between 70-85 pages, filled with articles of interest to history-lovers and genealogists — it’s all history, right? 🙂 No ads — just carefully-researched, well-written stories, complete with footnotes and sources.
Want to know more or try out a free issue? You can download either (or both) of the January-February 2019 and March-April 2019 issues here: https://digging-history.com/free-samples/
Thanks for stopping by!
Surname Saturday: Whitebread
A couple of weeks ago the Cakebread surname was featured with an interesting story – this week it’s Whitebread. These two surnames appear to share similar origins dating back to pre-seventh century Olde English. The Old English word “hwit” meant white, “hwaete” meant wheat, and as the Internet Surname Database points out, “bread” is one of a few words that has retained its original spelling for at least fifteen centuries.
Like Cakebread, the Whitebread surname was an occupational name for a baker of bread. One name seen in medieval times, Whytbredson, could have been someone who was the son of a baker, or who perhaps was a baker like his father. A 1221 record, one of the oldest, shows William Witbred on the Suffolk Subsidy Tax Rolls, in 1254 Roger Wythbred was listed in Huntingdonshire church records and Robert Whetbred appeared on the Subsidy Tax Rolls of Sussex in 1327. Spelling variations include Witbread, Whytebread, Whatebread, Wyteberd, Witberd, Whitberd, Whiteberd and more.
John Whitebread arrived in Virginia in 1713 and according to an indexed record, his name appears amongst references to land patented by French refugees, likely the Protestants (Hugenots) who fled France after Louis XIV revoked the 1685 Edict of Nantes which had guaranteed freedom of religious worship.
Another Whitebread immigrant, Henry, arrived in 1773 and appears in an index of records from a comprehensive list from the Corporation of Lond Records Office, including Royal Pardons (1662-1693) and Transportation Bonds (1661-1772). Eleven years later another man came to America and became what I would call an “accidental Whitebread.”
Henry the “Accidental” Whitebread
Johann Heinrich Weisbrod was born on November 12, 1762 in Frankenberg, Germany to parents Ulrich and Agnes (Hibner) Weisbrod. According to family historian Samuel A. Whitebread, who recorded his recollections and research in Genealogy of the Whitebread Family in America, Henry’s parents belonged to the Evangelican German Reformed Church where he was baptized at the age of two weeks old.
Henry was catechized at the age of fifteen, confirmed and received into full membership of the church. As he neared adulthood, Henry decided to immigrate to America rather than become a German soldier, as all young men of a certain age were expected to do.
Whitebread noted that Frederick II often hired out his soldiers to serve under foreign governments in order to finance his own country. Perhaps Henry would have been sent to fight for the British so he decided instead to leave his homeland and strike out on his own in America. The Hessians who fought for the British in the Revolutionary War were from the Hesse-Cassel region where Henry lived.
He boarded an old ship and landed in Philadelphia on August 6, 1784 after a thirteen-week voyage. As a German in a land of English speakers, Henry found it hard to secure suitable work, but finally found employment on a “truck farm” outside Philadelphia. There he worked for several years before learning and earning enough to purchase a small farm of his own.
On April 8, 1790 he married Mary Danenheimer and to their marriage were born eight children, five of which were living when Mary died in October of 1805 (John, Daniel, Bernard, Henry and Mary). Between the time he became a widower in 1805 and his second marriage to Catherine Lesher in January of 1807, Henry Weisbrod became known as Henry Whitebread by “accident”.
The land he purchased had belonged to a lawyer, who as Samuel Whitebread surmises, believed in “Americanizing every thing possible, not excepting even proper names”. The lawyer, an acquaintance of Henry’s had begun calling him Whitebread instead of Weisbrod. When he drew up the deed papers, he wrote “Whitebread” on the deed, something Henry failed to notice at the time.
As more children were born to his second marriage (eight more) and those from his first marriage grew up, Henry desired to sell his small farm and move further up the Susquehanna River where land was cheaper. He found suitable land, purchased it and drew up a deed and signed it with his “old name” Weisbrod. The name change was discovered when the seller attempted to file the deed, however.
Henry returned to the lawyer and ask that the record be corrected but found it was too late to take such a measure. Instead the attorney advised that he draw up a new deed and sign it as “Whitebread”. According to Whitebread family history, this is how Johann Heinrich Weisbrod and his descendants came to be known as Whitebreads.
Samuel Whitebread, the grandson of Henry and Mary, recalled stories about his grandfather who he regarded as a “thrifty farmer”. Henry raised sheep and flax – wool for the winter and flax for summer clothing. Samuel recalled that as a young boy, “everything he wore, both summer and winter, was produced on the farm, except the buttons.”
Henry was a faithful and devoted church member who strictly observed the Sabbath, “a good citizen and at peace with his neighbors.” He died on October 28, 1828 just a few days short of his sixty-sixth birthday. He is buried in the German Reformed Cemetery in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania and his tombstone reads “Henry Weitebread” – perhaps a compromise between his original and his “accidental” surname.
Several of his children remained in or near Luzerne County. One of Henry’s descendants, great-great grandson Hertz, died on the beaches of Normandy on June 6, 1944. His remains were removed from a French cemetery and re-interred at Arlington National Cemetery in 1947.
Did you enjoy this article? Yes? Check out Digging History Magazine. Since January 2018 new articles are published in a digital magazine (PDF) available by individual issue purchase or subscription (with three options). Most issues run between 70-85 pages, filled with articles of interest to history-lovers and genealogists — it’s all history, right? 🙂 No ads — just carefully-researched, well-written stories, complete with footnotes and sources.
Want to know more or try out a free issue? You can download either (or both) of the January-February 2019 and March-April 2019 issues here: https://digging-history.com/free-samples/
Thanks for stopping by!