Midwest Cemeteries

As Drew and I traveled back home from Minneapolis this week, our route from Minnesota to Virginia included two of my "bucket list" cemeteries. It was moving experience to stand at the graves of the ancestors that I have come to know through my research.

Ada Crofford

The first cemetery we visited was "Mound Prairie Cemetery" in Twin Lakes, near Kenosha on the southeastern corner of Wisconsin by the shore of Lake Michigan. We approached the cemetery on a long, lonely country road in the middle of cornfields that stretched as far as we could see.  Not too far away is a beautiful lake that appears to be in the middle of a resort community. 

Mound Prairie Cemetery is just ahead at the line of trees.

We turned into the cemetery, drove toward the back and parked. Methodically, we walked up and down the rows of gravestones looking for Ada Crofford's. Ada was my maternal great grandmother. I knew a lot about her life and this was a big moment for me. After a while, Drew called me over. Ada's stone was barely readable, but there she was next to Robert Luke, her son-in-law, and two of the Luke grandchildren, Catherine and Lowell.  

I stood for a few long minutes at this grave.

Looking back toward the entrance to the cemetery. Ada's grave
can be seen along the road to the right, beside the graves
of the Luke family.

My thoughts of Ada as I stood there were to marvel at how she lived in so many places and lived such a rough pioneer life only to end up in this place that had nothing to do with her life. She was born in New York. She had lived in Michigan, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Washington, Missouri, and Illinois. Then finally buried in Wisconsin. Her very life and death represents the restless spirit of the Old West. 

Drew and I searched in vain for my great aunt Miriam's grave. Miriam was my grandfather's sister. I have memories of receiving regular gifts in the mail as a child from Aunt Miriam. She was married first to Robert Luke, then to Mr. Darrow. We walked around for a good 30-45 minutes looking at every gravestone. I came to the conclusion that maybe she wasn't buried there after all. After I got home, I did some checking and found that she is buried there and we just missed it somehow. Here is a picture of her gravestone that I found online:

From Findagrave.com

I learned from Mom that Miriam's first husband Robert Luke was killed at age 40 by a train that hit his car. After further searching, I learned that two of Miriam's daughters, Emma and Catherine, twins, were also killed in separate automobile accidents. [Mom kept a gold bracelet that had belonged to her cousins.] Catherine and Robert are buried next to Ada at Twin Lakes. There was a news article about the three family tragedies:

John Dillingham

The next cemetery we visited was in Liberty, Indiana. We stopped first at the Brown museum in an old house in nearby Chesterton. The ladies who worked there were enthusiastic and brought out many binders of documentation on my ancestor, John Dillingham, who was an original settler in the area. We set out for Liberty, traveled down more country roads and almost missed the tiny plot of graves. The Dillingham monuments stood tall among the other worn headstones in the tiny family cemetery. A power substation was built next to the plot. 

From behind the cemetery looking toward the road.

Olcott, John's son by his first wife, Clarissa.
Olcott had traveled with John from Ohio to settle in Indiana.

Standing next to John Dillingham's gravestone.
Hannah's memorial is on the other side of the same
monument.

Later, a fellow relative in the Dillingham family (Cole) sent me a photo of something I missed seeing... the house of Olcott Dillingham, son of John Dillingham. It was right behind the cemetery but seemed like private property so I hadn't explored it. John Dillingham, my 3Xgg, probably lived in this house at the end of his life. Amazing to imagine!

Croffords from then to now

1806 Calvin V. Crawford was born in New York.  His Scottish born father, Horace, was known as the "Genesee Valley Millwright."   Milling was a major industry along the Genesee River.  Today, "Crawford" is a recognized name in Rochester.

1815 Anna Dillingham was born in Ohio.  Her family moved to Porter County, Indiana in 1836.  She married Daniel Lyons in 1837 and taught school in her father John Dillingham's home.  The Dillingham name is still important in Liberty and many descendants still live near the old family graves.

                                           

1839 Calvin Crawford married Anna in Porter County, Indiana.  He joined the military (Army enlistment states his birthplace as Vermont).  At some point, the spelling of his name changed to Crofford.

1846 Horace Calvin Crofford, the fourth of Calvin and Anna's seven children, was born  (2 of their children died young).

1860 Calvin and Anna moved to Rochester, Missouri, with their children Angeline, Chester, Horace, and Charles, and then moved to Lancaster, Nebraska.

1863 Horace Calvin Crofford was drafted into the cavalry during the Civil War.  His discharge was signed by U. S. Grant.

1864 Calvin Crofford received a Homestead grant of about 154 acres in Lincoln, Nebraska.  His son, Horace Calvin, was one of the witnesses to his settlement in the area, along with Sidney S. Pratt.  They attested that "he has built a house thereon, about 16 + 30 feet with board floor, two doors, and one window. He has since said settlement ploughed and cultivated about 70 acres of said land, and has made the following improvements thereon to wit:  has built a stable for 7 or 8 horses, a grainery and corn crib, dug a well, planted about 500 forest trees, and set out about 80 roads of hedge."  NOTE: this is where the name was first changed from Crawford to Crofford. It was actually crossed off and re-written on the Homestead document. 

1876 Little Big Horn.  Ada Clemina Hall, a school teacher at Fort Lincoln, wrote a paper in defense of Custer.  The Fort was abandoned in 1882.

Fort Lincoln, Dakota Territory

By 1880, Horace Calvin Crofford was working as a quartz miner in Custer County, Dakota Territory.  He married Ada Hall in 1891.  Horace became a respected sheep rancher and county commissioner in Custer.

 

Horace Calvin Crofford in the late 1800's

1894 Horace and Ada's first child, Horace's namesake, was born in Buffalo Gap, South Dakota.

1895, claiming self defense, Horace killed a young rancher in a dispute over grazing land near Lame Johnny Creek.  He turned himself in to the authorities, and was held by the sheriff at Custer. The family moved to nearby Newcastle, Wyoming, where Ada ran a boarding house to support the family.

Newcastle, Wyoming around 1905
http://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/newcastle-wyoming

1907 Ada's father Andrew Hall signed over to Ada the title to farmland in Weston County (near Newcastle). Horace raised stock and the three boys worked on the farm.  During this period Ada worked on several patented inventions.

My grandfather told lots of stories about life in the west.  One time, a horse broke into the feed storage in the middle of the night and ate a belly full of oats.  The oats swelled and the horse had to be kept moving all night long, everyone taking turns walking him in order to aid digestion and save his life.  

An influential event in my grandfather's life gave birth to a lifelong interest in rocks and fossils.  Near their home in Newcastle, Barnum Brown, a famous paleontologist known as "Mr. Bones," discovered the first documented remains of Tyrannosaurus Rex in 1902.  Family lore is that dinosaur bones were found on the family homestead.       ~Teresa Austin

Barnum Brown and his Tyrannosaurus Rex

http://discovermagazine.com/2007/mar/the-bone-collector








1916 Horace died (in Missouri, according to Findagrave.com), leaving Ada dependent on her oldest son, Horace, who was a telegrapher for the railroad.

1917 at the age of 22, Horace enlisted in the army. He was in Normandy during WWI.  He was discharged in 1919.  He was an electronics student at the American Bureau of Engineering (AMBU) Institute in Chicago, which is across the intersection from Mercy Hospital, on Prairie Avenue.  It is possible that this is where he met a nurse, Teresa Marie Allen.

Horace, 3rd from the right, front row

Teresa Allen

Mercy Hospital, Chicago 1910

AMBU Institute in Chicago, across from Mercy Hospital 

Interesting fact:  Mercy Hospital was named for the Sisters of Mercy.  Teresa lived in a boarding school and was trained as a nurse in Paris, Texas by the Sisters of Mercy at St. Joseph Hospital.  From a history of St. Joseph:  "The origin of St. Joseph's Health System dates to 1896 when the Sisters of Mercy operated a 16-bed hospital in a boarding school near downtown Paris, Texas. But a lack of funds forced the Sisters to give up their mission in 1910."

The Sisters of Mercy also had a hospital in Oklahoma City, where Teresa was working in 1920. The question is, how did she end up moving to Mercy Hospital in Chicago?  Whatever the reason, she probably moved to Chicago, possibly with her friend and fellow nurse, Maud Marshall.  Stay tuned....

Sources:
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/813.html
http://www.christushealth.org/EarlyinCHRISTUSStJosephsHistorySistersStruggletoEstablishParisTexasHospital


In 1921, the Sisters of Mercy took over a World War I Veterans’ Dispensary to offer medical and surgical services to the poor. http://www.mercy-chicago.org/legacy/history

1926 Horace and Teresa married. They moved to West Washington Street, Waukegan, where their children, Horace Calvin "Sonny" and Virginia Maude, were born at St. Therese Hospital.  Sonny and Virginia attended Spaulding Elementary School.  Teresa worked as a nurse at the office of Dr. Jolly, an ear, nose, and throat doctor.  Horace tried his hand in politics but jobs were hard to find after the war.

Horace with Sonny and Virginia

                                                                     
1942  In search of employment, Horace and Teresa moved with their family to Virginia.  Upon their arrival, they lived with friend Ed Suitor in Portsmouth.  Then they moved into a house in Norfolk.  Sonny attended Norview High School.  Virginia graduated from Maury High School in 1950.

Sonny worked all his adult life for the telephone company.  He married Jean Strong; they had four children, Calvin, Ronney, Cindy, and Mark.

1952 Virginia Crofford married John Beverly Zaun.  They had two daughters, Holly and Teresa.  Virginia taught piano, worked as secretary to a prominent and beloved congressman, was the administrative assistant to the Virginia Beach chief of detectives, and finally became Administrative Assistant to the director of city planning. Holly had three children:  Justin, Leah, and Reed Bernick.  Teresa had four sons: Adam, Joshua, Jonathan, and Andrew Austin.

Note: my grandfather Horace, who I called Baba, used to play mouth harp and harmonica, and sing songs like Yellow Rose of Texas, She'll be Comin' Round the Mountain, and Red River Valley.  I see now that those songs are directly out of his experience in the Old West. There is a Red River Valley in Fargo, ND, where his mother grew up, as well as in Paris, TX, where my grandmother Teresa grew up.

Croffords and Dillinghams and the travails of pioneer life

Our story goes back to Calvin V. Crofford, b. 1806.  I have found plentiful documentation on Calvin's life, but nothing about his parentage.  There is family lore about his father (possibly Horace Crofford or Crawford) from Scotland.  Ada Crofford wrote about Horace Crawford settling in the Genessee Valley in NY, who was known as the "Genessee Millwright." Calvin's wife, Anna Dillingham, is easy to trace, though there are questions about the identity of her grandparents.

John Dillingham > Anna Dillingham (m. Calvin Crofford) > Horace C. Crofford > Horace C. Crofford > Virginia M. Crofford > Teresa Zaun Austin

The most important documentation of the Crofford/Dillingham connection is the 1850 census from Porter, Indiana (see below).  It was a thrill to stumble upon the Crofford (Crawford) name while researching the Dillinghams!

The most colorful stories are linked in Ancestry to Anna's father John Dillingham, my 3rd great grandfather.  Here are some highlights:

• He was born in 1773, in New England (possibly Rhode Island, Connecticut, or Massachusetts - his father's family was from Cape Cod).
• His mother was a Quakeress.
• He was a seaman in his youth, once surviving a storm in which the men cast lots to see who would be sacrificed to feed the rest.  Thankfully, they were rescued by another ship near Hartford, CT.
• At age 21 he married Clarissa Olcott and had six children, all of whom died (two of them in the Fire Lands, part of the western reserve of Connecticut in what is now Ohio).
• He was enlisted to fight the Indians under General Wayne. He had many hairbreadth escapes from the Indians, as described in the stories.
• After his discharge, he returned to Connecticut with his little family, but later moved west to Genesee County in New York (until 1809), and then to the area near Cleveland, Ohio. 
• He married Hannah Hiccox (cousin of Wild Bill) of Cleveland, and had 14 - 15 children, most of whom died at birth. Among them were Sally, Ann, John, Hannah, Betsey, King, Esther, Olcott, and Comfort.
• John and his son, Henry, served in the War of 1812.  Afterward they worked as mail carriers on the route between Cleveland and General Harrison at Camp Seneca, surviving more close calls with Indians.
• In 1836, he pioneered by wagon train to Porter Co., Indiana where he died at age 90. 

The descendants of the Dillinghams play an important part in the history of Liberty Township and still populate this ancestral home.  The eastern third of Liberty Township in Porter County was known as the "Dillingham Settlement."  Liberty Township was a quiet and law-abiding community in spite of frequent episodes with Indians, fires, storms, and train wrecks.  John was known for sheltering "wayfaring men" as there was no inn.

Interesting notes:  
1) a history of Liberty Township mentions a "William Crawford" who owned land in the northeast part of the town (Calvin V's relation?).  
2) There is a Crawfordsville, Indiana  (Text, p. 59.) established in 1823 (Wickipedia) and named after Colonel William H. Crawford from Virginia.  Coincidence? I think this is different family, but still...
3) Several sources list John Dillingham as a "Welshman." One source says that John and Hannah were natives of "Wales and Connecticut respectively."I have not found evidence of his Welsh heritage, but it makes me wonder about the accuracy of my research.  
4) Hannah's last name can be spelled many different ways, making research a challenge... Hiccox, Hickok, Hekok, Hitchcock...

The history of Porter Country documents the marriage of Anna Dillingham to Daniel Lyons in 1837 and tells us that Anna taught school in her father's house (eight or nine students).   In 1839, she married Calvin Crawford, who was one of the first settlers of the nearby Jackson Township.  They had five children:  Angeline, Cylinda, Chester, Horace (my great grandfather), and Charles.  Many young men from Liberty fought for the Union in the Civil War (including my great grandfather Horace Crofford).  

1850 Census for Porter, Indiana.  My great grandfather Horace was three years old.

Common Threads

When I began doing research on my family tree, I wondered if I would find any shocking surprises like being cousins with my spouse or something. I actually did find a distant connection, both by surname and geographical location...but there was no accidental inbreeding as I feared!

I love finding unexpected connections. I discovered that direct ancestors of both of my parents certainly knew each other back in 1652. My paternal 9th great grandfather Thomas Judd was one of the seven founders of the Church of Christ in Farmington, Connecticut, and was a pillar in the church until his death in 1688. His children and grandchildren were baptized there. My maternal 8th great grandparents, Samuel Hickok (distant cousin of Wild Bill) and his wife Hannah, were members of the congregation at the same time and their children were also baptized in that church. There were only 84 proprietors of the town of Farmington at that time, so it was highly likely they knew each other well. 

Also in the 1600's, two of my mother's maternal and paternal lines were entangled together in Gravesend, NY. Thomas Applegate, my 8th great grandfather, came to America from Norfolkshire, England with his wife, Elizabeth. It seems that Thomas and wife both had issues with fiery tempers and loose tongues! Elizabeth was "censured to stand with her tongue in a cleft stick for swearing, reviling, and railing." Thomas was sued for slander by my 8th great grandfather Nicholas Stillwell, who was from a completely different branch of my mother's tree.  (Historical and Genealogical Miscellany: Early Settlers of New Jersey and Their Descendants, Vol. III, by John E. Stillwell, M.D.). 

General Custer keeps popping up in our family stories on both of my mother's maternal and paternal lines. My grandfather's mother, Ada Hall, was teaching school in Fort Lincoln, Dakota Territory, in 1876 when Custer left with his Cavalry for the Little Big Horn. She wrote that she let her students out of class to watch the men leave. Coincidentally, my grandmother's mother, Eva Allen, died in 1911 at Old Fort Supply, a residential hospital that was a former post for Lt. Col. Custer and the 7th U.S. Cavalry in 1868.

These are the stories that keep me addicted to genealogy!

I keep coming across certain common threads in our family history... for example, there are at least two pioneer schoolteachers in our lineage:
1) Ada C Crofford, Fort Lincoln, Dakota Territory, 1876.
2) Anna Lyons Crofford, Liberty Township, Indiana, 1837.
Each began the first school in her territory.

Custer House at Fort Lincoln

Gen. Custer appears in the unrelated stories of both of my maternal grandparents:
1) Ada Crofford, my grandfather's mother (mentioned above), was friends with Mrs. Custer and was teaching school in Fort Lincoln when Custer left for the Little Big Horn.
2) Eva L. Allen, my grandmother's mother, resided in a mental hospital in Oklahoma that was a former "Camp of Supply" from which Custer left to fight the Cheyenne Indians at the Battle of Washita.

I find this kind of thing fascinating.