Category: Taylor

M Is for…Military

M Is for…Military

Posted on by spuddled

For today’s post, I had grandiose ideas of making a simple list of all the relatives in my database with military activity. Then I realized even just providing a complete list of names would result in an outrageously long post. So instead, here is just a sampling of what I found.

Thomas William Davis, my 7th great-grandfather: born 15 May 1719 in Westerly, Rhode Island, he served as a captain in the 3rd Regiment, Monmouth County (New Jersey) Militia in 1777 and also from 1780-1781. He later moved to Monongalia County in what would become West Virginia, where he died in 1791.

Thomas Goolsberry Childers, my 1st cousin 6 times removed: this Thomas was born 31 January 1790 in Lincoln County, Kentucky. Records I found make him sound like an early-day Forrest Gump, so I should probably do some more research to verify claims that he: took part in the Battle of Tippecanoe, then was captured by the British during the War of 1812 and held prisoner for two years, then in 1832 fought in the Black Hawk War before moving to Texas and taking part in the Battle of San Jacinto with Sam Houston. Thomas died in Coryell County, Texas in about 1851.

Andrew J. Slatten was my third cousin four times removed: he was born somewhere around 1831-1833 in Illinois. In 1860 he was living in Des Moines, Iowa, and was occupied as a lawyer. Shortly after the Civil War broke out, he enlisted in Company D, 2nd Reg. Iowa Volunteers, Infantry. Less than a year later he was wounded at the Battle of Fort Donelson in Nashville in February 1862. Two months later he died in Saint Louis as a result of the leg and temple wounds he had received. He is buried in Des Moines’s Woodlawn Cemetery.

Find a Grave Memorial ID 38394272

Ozro C. Taylor, third great-granduncle: born 21 January 1847 in New York State, he enlisted 29 August 1864 in the 1st Regiment of the New York Light Artillery in Malone, New York. He enlisted as a substitute for a Seymour Gibbons; he was later mustered out at Elmira. He later moved to West Union, Iowa, where he was occupied in the livery business. He died 8 December 1890 “after ailing all fall.”

Ozro Taylor’s gravestone, West Union Cemetery

While most of the relatives I found were men, not all of them were. Mary Alice Evans, third cousin four times removed: born 18 February 1889 in Nortonville, Kansas, she served in the Army Nurse Corps between 16 February 1918 and 28 July 1919. She had been a nurse before the war and would continue her occupation after her military role ended. She died in 1948 in San Joaquin County, California, and is buried in the Stockton Rural Cemetery.

And last but not least from this random selection we have Ernest E. Bauer, half first cousin twice removed: born 14 January in either 1894 or 1895 in Gridley, Illinois, he left from Watseka, Illinois on 21 June 1918 to serve for six months during World War I. After his return he married Mary Yergler in Cissna Park, Illinois, in February 1920, and he died there in October 1966.

Tragedy at Resort, Michigan: the Death of Bert Burdell Jones

Tragedy at Resort, Michigan: the Death of Bert Burdell Jones

Posted on by spuddled

I have another sad story for you today. The subject this time is my third cousin three times removed, Bert Burdell Jones. He was born 3 November 1867 in Mason County, Michigan. He was the eldest child of James E. and Margery M. (Taylor) Jones. Margery’s parents were Elias and Sally (Willson) Taylor. Elias’s sister Mary Eunice was the second wife of my 4G-grandfather John Wilder Wilson, and these Taylor/Wilson connections produced the “Moses Taylor letters” I’ve discussed here before.

Bert appears in census records with his parents in 1870 in Kalamo, Eaton County, Michigan, and in 1880 in Little Traverse, Emmet County, Michigan. In the column in the 1880 census where infirmities are noted, next to Bert’s father’s name is noted “rupture.” This is one of those mystery medical descriptions I have yet to pin down; according to the Find a Grave website, James Jones died in 1883 at the age of about 45; whether this was related to his “rupture,” I do not know.

On 27 March 1890 in Harbor Springs, Emmet County, Bert married Minnie Caroline Dietz. He was 22; she was 19. Ten years later Bert and Minnie were enumerated in Resort, Emmet County, along with children Harold V., born July 1893; Dewey M., born April 1898; and what looks like Vyolynn (born April 1900), but in later records appears to be Verlyn. Bert is working as a day laborer.

The 1903 Petoskey, Michigan, City Directory lists Bert B. Jones as a farmer with 70 acres of land and a total property value of $1200 in Resort. In 1910 the family is still in Resort; no street names are given for the section in which they appear, but the enumerator has labeled it the “Jones Neighborhood.” Bert is listed as a general farmer; son Harold, 16, is a laborer in a lime kiln. M. Dewey and Verlyn E. are still in the household; Minnie is listed as having given birth to four children, but with only three still living. A daughter, Lottie L. Jones, had been born about 1896 and died 15 March 1897; she is buried in Greenwood Cemetery in Petoskey. Others in the Jones household in 1910 included Minnie’s father Amos Deitz [sic]; a German neighbor, Frank Newman; and a 5-year-old niece, Agnes Jones. Agnes was the daughter of Bert’s brother Sidney; though Sidney was still living, Agnes’s mother had died sometime between 1900 and 1908, and it was not unusual in these situations for motherless children to be taken into other households where they could continue to benefit from the influence of a mother figure.

Interestingly, by 1920, 14-year-old Agnes seems to have become so much a part of Bert and Minnie’s family that her relationship is listed as “Daughter” in the census. Verlyn is still living in the household, as is Amos Deitz, now 84, and a new addition, 5-year-old James Bradford Jones, Bert and Minnie’s last child.

It is difficult to say what happened over the next two years, as I have yet to find any newspaper articles or other sources that would provide more context. All I have is a very clinical death certificate for Bert. His death is noted as taking place on 5 May 1922 in Resort, and he is listed as a 54-year-old farmer who had lived in Resort for 41 years. Mrs. Minnie C. Jones is the informant, and the coroner has listed Bert’s cause of death as “Suicide by strangulation (hanging).” Bert’s Find a Grave memorial adds the detail that this death took place in his barn.

A couple of years after Bert’s death, Minnie married Peter J. McEwen, before dying in 1930 at age 60. Eldest son Harold, by age 24, was missing the fingers off his left hand at the first joint but worked as a railroad telegraph operator until his own tragic death in 1949 at age 56 when he was struck by a freight train in front of his station. Merton Dewey died in Kalamazoo at age 57, Agnes Jones at 59, and Verlyn at 69. The baby of the family, James Bradford, lived until 2001, dying at age 87; one hopes he found sufficient joy in his own life to mitigate so much tragedy.

Find a Grave Memorial ID 128957467
His Face Will Be Missed: Horseman Ozro C. Taylor

His Face Will Be Missed: Horseman Ozro C. Taylor

Posted on by spuddled

For every grim or simply sad death anniversary, there is a birthday to commemorate. On this day in 1847, my third great-granduncle, Ozro C. Taylor was born in New York State. His parents were Loring and Caroline (Caryl) Taylor, my 4G-grandparents, both of whom were born in Vermont. His eldest sister was Thesta Taylor, about whom I’ve written previously, and his second sister, Lucy Bridges Taylor, was my 3G-grandmother.

Ozro was enumerated with his parents and siblings in 1850 in Louisville, New York, and in Russell, New York in 1860. Four years later, at age 17, he enlisted as a substitute for a Seymour Gibbons1 and served in the 1st Regiment, New York Light Artillery, from 29 August 1864-17 June 1865. Of particular interest to me as a diehard Little House on the Prairie fan/nerd is the fact that he enlisted at Malone, New York, hometown of Almanzo Wilder. Sometime in 1865, Ozro’s father Loring died in Russell. I can’t help but wonder whether his death occurred before or after his son was mustered out of the military or if he was unable to see him again before he died.

By 1870 Loring’s mother Caroline had moved to Buchanan County, Iowa, where she was living with her eldest son Orric and his young family. Ozro was also married, though he was still living in Russell with his wife Helen (Carr) Taylor, 22, and their children Hattie, aged 2, and Charley, 4 months.

Sometime between the 1870 census enumeration and 1872, Ozro and Helen would follow Orric and Caroline to Iowa. Caroline continued to live with Orric’s family, though they, as well as Ozro’s family, now lived one county north, in Fayette County’s seat, West Union. By 1880 Hattie and Charley (now listed in the census as Charles M. Taylor) had been joined in the family by Millie, 8; Loring, 6; and Leon, 2.

Often our only glimpse into ancestors’ lives comes once every 10 years with census enumerations. We are lucky in the case of Ozro in that he appears numerous times in contemporary newspapers. Though in 1870 Ozro is listed as a farm laborer, by 1880 his occupation appears as “liveryman.” He and his brother Orric are said2 to have operated a livery business together in West Union between 1874 and 1877, at which time Orric became a West Union deputy sheriff. It seems plausible that Ozro continued in the livery business, as this affinity for horses is evident in many of the newspaper articles in which he appears.

The first of these that I found was in Davenport, Iowa’s Morning Democrat of 11 July 1884. In a listing of horses that were expected to appear at the Davenport track the following week, an “O. C. Taylor” from Ainsworth, Nebraska is noted as entering a chestnut mare, Flora P., and a bay mare, Mountain Girl. I have yet to determine when, if, or under what circumstances Ozro actually was in Ainsworth, but the next month he entered both mares in the Mahaska (Iowa) County Fair races according to the 28 August 1884 Oskaloosa Herald. A week later the Herald reported that Flora and Mountain Girl placed first and second, respectively, in the “Free for all Trotting.” In this article O. C. is noted as being from West Union.

In May 1885 Ozro entered the two horses in races at Sioux City, according to the Sioux City Journal of 28 May. Mountain Girl would race on the first day, and Flora P. on the third day. Mountain Girl is even called out as a “well-known trotter” who had a “close contest with Elmwood Chief at Minneapolis” two years previously. The Journal of 9 June 1885 confirms Mountain Girl’s entry for that day’s race, and two days later the same paper notes Flora P.’s entry.

A non-horse-related snippet in Cedar Rapids’s Evening Gazette of 24 August 1885 notes that “O. C. Taylor and wife…Sundayed in the city.” The following month, according to The Des Moines Register, Flora P. and Mountain Girl were expected to race at the Iowa State Fair.

The next entry I have found thus far appeared in the 26 June 1889 Evening Gazette. Here Ozro is noted as entering chestnut mare Lena Miller for the following day, and an article concerning that day’s races notes that Lena Miller took second place in two races, and third and fourth in two others. Two days later, Lena Miller placed third once, fourth three times, and second once. On 26 August 1889, The Gazette noted “O. C. Taylor of West Union is in the city for a week with the horsemen.”

The following year, in the 7 November 1890 Fayette County Leader, a small poignant article notes that O. C. Taylor’s “fast four-year-old, ‘Bixie,’ is dead.” And then little more than a month later the same newspaper noted the death of Ozro C. Taylor himself. The article noted that he had been “ailing all the Fall.” Ozro was only 43 when he died on 8 December 1890, and he was buried in the West Union Cemetery, as are numerous other relatives including his mother, who preceded him in death in 1887, and his brother Orric, who lived until 1898. Ozro’s wife Helen died 24 July 1923 in Spokane, Washington, and is buried in Fairmount Memorial Park there.

Interestingly, in 2012 I passed through West Union on a trek from Virginia (where I now live) to a high school reunion in Idaho. My mom and I stopped at the cemetery, which Find a Grave tells me has over 5000 gravestones, and I somehow managed to park my car on one of many cemetery lanes and walk straight to the Taylor plot. I still don’t know how that happened. Genealogical serendipity? The Fayette County Leader article announcing Ozro’s death notes that he was well-known in the region for his “trotting stock,” then ends by noting that “His face will be greatly missed at fu[ture] county fairs.” On his 177th birthday, I’d like to think we can all miss him just a little bit too.

Ozro C. Taylor Headstone
  1. New York State Archives. Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Civil War Muster Roll Abstracts, 1861-1900 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.Original data: Civil War Muster Roll Abstracts of New York State Volunteers, United States Sharpshooters, and United States Colored Troops [ca. 1861-1900]. Microfilm, 1185 rolls. New York State Archives, Albany, New York. ↩︎
  2. Portrait and Biographical Album of Fayette County, Iowa: Containing Full Page Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative Citizens of the County (n.p: Lake City Publishing Company, 1891). ↩︎

Amanuensis Monday – The Moses Taylor Letters

Posted on by agnette

In 1968, June Finten Everett transcribed some 57 letters written between 1842 and 1867 to her great-grandfather Moses Taylor in Michigan. The letters were written by various members of the family he had left behind in upstate New York. These copies were discovered by Arlene McAvoy in a file at the LDS Family History Center in Potsdam, New York; between 1997 and 1998 our cousin David Johnson connected with Arlene, and David shared his discovery with me.

Two of these letters were written by my great-great-great-great-grandfather, John Wilder Wilson. His second wife, Mary, was the sister of Moses Taylor (his unknown first wife was my 4G-grandmother). John Wilder was born February 22, 1807 in Louisville, New York. He married his first wife probably around 1830 and had two children: Charles (my 3G-grandfather) and Dana. After his first wife’s death he married Mary Eunice Taylor on April 20, 1839; she was born New Year’s Day 1818 in Louisville, the daughter of Elon and Cyrena (Carpenter) Taylor. Mary’s brothers Moses and Elias (who was married to John Wilder Wilson’s niece Sally) both moved to Michigan, and a series of letters traveled back and forth, including the two below written by John Wilder Wilson:

Massena, NY
Sept. the 20th, 1857

Respected Brother and Sister, After a long silence I now (take) my pen in hand to write a few lines to let you know that we are all well as usual at present. It is a long time since we have heard anything from you. I enquire of your folks often about you but I hear nothing. I was up to your Father’s last Sunday. They were all well there. They told me that Elias had been down (and) preached for them. He did not call on us so I can’t tell you much about them. Elen and wife made us a visit a month ago and David and wife and little girl made us a good visit about three weeks ago. They were all well then and doing very well. Emaline was the last I heard from her. We are on a farm on shares or rather (at any) rate we milk twelve cows on the place. The farm is hard and stoney. We do not raise much grain. We have a good deal of hay to cut to keep what stock we have and the meadows are rough, a good deal run out. We have of undivided stock 2 cows, 2 two years olds, 6 yearlings and 4 calves 30 sheep. I have a good mare 6 years old, 1 colt two years old and one sucking colt of my own and four hogs that are company stock and we have our two old cows that we took off from the island , but I shall have to sell some stock this fall to pay debts as we do not raise grain enough for our own use. We make considerable butter, but not enough to pay all expenses. But I am in hopes that in a year or two more that we shall get along better as our boys get up a little larger. They are very good boys to work and they help a good deal now. Our children (are) healthy and smart but poor John, he has fits and is very bad a good share of the time and is very troublesome to take care of. He fails a good deal for a year past. It’s not likely he will live long.

I must now tell you about our little fellow. He is about 7 months old now, smart and pretty healthy generally. We call him Frederick Elen. We have to be continued at home. We have so much to do, cows to milk and butter to attend to and the sick boy and baby and all. We can’t be gone overnight. We have not kept any hired help this summer. We all have to work pretty hard, but our children are growing and as long as we are all well I am none concerned but what we shall get along. And now I want you should write and tell me how you are getting along and how fast you are getting rich and what the chances are in your country for taking farms and what a man can do there with but little to do with for if the chances are pretty good I might be tempted to go there someday and try my luck in your country. I have not much news to write. It’s quite still times at present here. As to politics in this town we are most all republicans. As to religion I am just about as I used to be when you was here. I have not heard anything from our folks in Burlington this summer. If you see any of them tell them that we are all well and tell them to write to me and you just write a little about them for fear they won’t write right away. I suppose they are like me, they don’t get about writing very often. And give my compliments to Hosea and family and Harriet if she is there . I always remember the good visit we had when you and sister Taylor was there on the island with us. We do not hear from Samuel and Charlotte very often. If you do please mention it. Now please to write soon. Direct Massena village and I shall get it. So now bid you a good evening. I am, sir, yours respectfully

John W. Willson Mary Willson

Riverton, Mich
May 8, 1867

Brother Moses and Sister Dyantha,

I now sit down to write a few lines to you to let you know that we had not forgotten you. We are well as usual for us. We are growing old pretty fast and we feel the effects of old age pretty sensibly. Mary’s health has been very poor for a year past and mine has not been much better. We have been just able to keep about and do a little but we can’t do much.

We expected to hear from you by Elias when he came back from the east but we did not and we were some disappointed not to. Now there appears to be some thing wrong with regard to matters between you and Elias for I can hardly credit some of his statements. Now has he any reason to make such statements or is it all an imaginary exaggeration? We have heard from him now we just want an explanation from you. For my part it don’t trouble me much but it troubles Mary a good deal for she cannot believe that Moses has got to be such a man nor I can’t nor don’t. I let him say what he is a mind to and let it pass at that. I think that he is partially deranged by times for he has had trouble enough to make a half a dozen men crazy if all is true that he tells. Now I want this to be confidential betwixt your family and mine. I don’t want him to know that I correspond with you at tall. I don’t want to offend him and let him forget his trouble if he can so we hear what he has to say without any contradiction and let him tell his storys as he has a mind to.

We have commenced farming a little, plowing and sowing wheat but the weather is cold and dry yet. My letter did not get sent to the post office and has laid over so I will try again. It is now the 5th of May and we have a fine rain yesterday and last night but the weather is quite cool yet but clear and pleasant.

Elias was here to see us yesterday. He comes when he is in the neighborhood and has time. He works around at little jobs of carpenter work when can get chances. He talks of buying a piece of land some where in our neighborhood but whether he will or not I don’t know. He is so unsteady that we can’t tell what he will do. Moses and his wife have got a young daughter born on March the 11th. They are all well. Margery and her man are getting along very well and Marrion lives with them. My boys are all at home now and will put in our crops and then they will go to work out until harvest. Alice is married and lives in about half a mile of us. So now I believe I have got about done for this time. We send you our respects, not forgetting Gustus and wife and Lula . So I remain yours as ever.

J. W. Wilson

John Wilder and Mary Wilson had six children together, including John, the son mentioned in John Wilder’s letter as having “fits.” The 1850 census does list John, Jr., as an “idiot.” Other sources indicate John’s fits “ruined him” and made him a “cripple.” Mary Taylor Wilson died June 1, 1882; as yet John Wilder’s death date and place are unknown. It’s also interesting to note that John Wilder’s eldest son Charles Wilson married Lucy Bridges Taylor about 1857 in Louisville. Lucy was born in Louisville in September 1834, the daughter of Loring and Caroline (Caryl) Taylor. Loring had been born in 1805 in Chester, Vermont; Mary Eunice Taylor’s father Elon was born in Massachusetts in 1792 but married Cyrena Carpenter in Readsboro, Vermont, in 1811 – could the two Taylor families be related by blood as well as by marriage?

Wednesday’s Child – Thesta Tuttle of Louisville

Posted on by agnette

As I’ve said before, I love names. Sometimes a name catches the imagination for no identifiable reason. Such is the case with today’s “Wednesday’s Child.”  Little Thesta Tuttle was born April 18, 1847 in Louisville, New York.  Her parents were Philo Judson Tuttle (another great name) and another Thesta: Thesta Taylor. Thesta Taylor‘s younger sister Lucy Bridges Taylor would marry Charles Wilson; they were my great-great-great-grandparents.

Back to the Thestas. Thesta Taylor could almost be a “Wednesday’s Child” herself.  Born March 1829 in Louisville to Loring and Caroline (Caryl) Taylor, she married Philo on September 6, 1846 and died less than two years later, on May 8, 1848, some three weeks after giving birth to baby Thesta. One suspects her death may have resulted from complications from the baby’s birth.

Baby Thesta would not outlive her mother by many years. She died February 21, 1850 in Lisbon, New York, and was buried by her mother in the Louisville Community Cemetery. For those who are unaware, the town name is pronounced “Lewisville.” I had carried on for years and years, fondly referring to “Loueyville,” but was quickly corrected when we visited in June 2010 and explored the museum and cemeteries.

I hope Thesta is pronounced “Thesta”….