Ahnentafel

Today’s is a sad anniversary I came across while scouring the Find a Grave website for the relatives of one “Bottom Billy” Davis, so called because he bought all the bottom land east of Salem, (West) Virginia after moving to the area in 1792. “Bottom Billy” was the grandson of my 9GG William and Elizabeth (Pavior) Davis, making him my first cousin 9 times removed.

One of his other relatives (and also part of that massive migration of Seventh Day Baptist congregants mentioned here before) was Clarence Manly Whitford, son of Asa Maxson Whitford and his wife Catharine Coon. Clarence was the first cousin three times removed of “Bottom Billy,” and the fifth cousin 5 times removed of…me.

Clarence was born 14 August 1854 in Adams, New York. He is enumerated there with his parents and brothers (S.C., Edward Maxson, Asa Adelbert, and J. Myron) in the 1860 Federal Census and the 1865 New York State Census. By the time of the 1870 Federal Census, however, the family had moved to La Clede, Fayette County, Illinois, as they were enumerated there that year. Six years later, on 5 September 1876, Clarence married Orpha M. Crandall. I suspect she is also a cousin, as Crandall is another name common among the Seventh Day Baptist adherents, but I haven’t tracked her down as yet. Sadly, Clarence would not live to be enumerated with this new family in the 1880 Federal Census.

The Find a Grave entry for Clarence quotes The Sabbath Recorder, a Seventh Day Baptist newspaper started in 1844:

“The Sabbath Recorder,” Vol 36, No 8, p 3, Feb. 19, 1880.

At North Loup, Neb., Jan 14th, 1880, of hemorrhage of the lungs, Mr. Charles [sic] M. Whitford, in the 25th year of his age. Mr. Whitford’s home was at Farina, Ill. For many months previous to his death he had been steadily declining in health from the effects of diseased liver and lungs, and in July last, he left his home and family and came here, hoping to regain his health by a change of climate; but his disease had already too firm a hold on him. Learning that he could not long survive, he sent for his wife and little daughter; but they arrived twelve hours too late, and he expired at the residence of Dr. Charles Badger, under whose care he had placed himself, with only one relative, his brother-in-law, Mr. Alfa Crandall, to comfort him in his last hours; but brethren and friends assisted Bro. Crandall in doing all that could be done to provide for his comfort. The funeral service was held with the Church here on the Sabbath-day following, the attendance being very large. He was a member of the Church at Farina, and at the hour of parting he told his brother-in-law that ‘he was satisfied with his hope.’
O. B.

It is not mentioned in his obituary, but Clarence is buried at Hillside Cemetery in North Loup, Nebraska. And though Clarence does not appear in the 1880 Federal Census, he does appear in another type of census from that year: the 1880 U.S. Census Mortality Schedule. These schedules, enumerated in conjunction with the 1850-1880 Federal Censuses, listed information for those who had died the 12 months prior to the established census date. In looking at the record for Clarence in this schedule, I noted that (as I expected), his “hemorrhage of the lungs” was defined there as “consumption” (tuberculosis). What I was not expecting was the entry immediately after Clarence’s:

Horace M. Whitford, five months old and born in Illinois, had died, also of consumption, in July, six months prior to Clarence’s death. I confirmed my suspicions that little Horace was Clarence and Orpha’s son with a search of my own through the Sabbath Recorder archives:

It is even more poignant to note that Clarence’s obituary states that he left his family behind in Illinois to try to improve his health in Nebraska “last July.” This suggests that Orpha was on her own when baby Horace died at their home in Illinois at the end of that month. Her own obituary on Find a Grave notes that she and Clarence had had three children in total, two of whom died in infancy, so there is another lost baby I still need to identify.

However, happier times would come for Orpha, in spite of this latest tragedy that struck her 144 years ago today. The “little daughter” who traveled with her but was too late to see Clarence before he died was Lena Louise Whitford, 2 1/2 years old in January 1880. She would marry Theodore Byington Davis in 1900, and they would raise seven children. Lena would die in San Fernando, California, at the age of 77.

And what about Orpha? Nine years after Clarence’s death, she married his older brother Asa, who had been widowed the previous year. Asa and his first wife had had two children, then 17 and 9, so the family home was filled once more. Orpha died in April 1919 in Milton, Wisconsin and is buried in the Milton Junction Cemetery. She shares a headstone with her second husband, who outlived her by 15 years. I’d like to think that at the end she, like her first husband, was “satisfied with [her] hope.”