52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 8 "I Can Identify"

This photo features Ed Washburn, my great-great grandpa, in the 1930s. 

Ed was hired by the city to plow the sidewalks. This photo was taken in front of the Ellshoff home on Maple St in Marshall; if you look closely you can see the Elshoff children looking out the front window of the home.

The large building on the left hand side was a woolen mill. Eldridge S. Janney, an attorney with failing eyesight, came to Marshall from Palestine, Illinois, in 1853, built a mill, and started business with Mr. Alexander. Their newspaper advertisements urged the public to bring their wool to the mill in exchange for woven blankets and garments. By 1856 the mill was “going full blast”, but it burned in 1858 and was replaced with a brick building. From 1869 to 1875 the mill was advertised as belonging to Janney and Son. Thomas Janney was selling knitting machines. E. L. Janney died in 1875, and in 1876 Lyman Booth and Co. had possession of the mill and was putting it in “tip top order”. The new mill must not have been successful, because articles in 1883 and 1899 by the editor of the newspaper were urging the public to bring a woolen mill back to Marshall to help the economy. In 1908 John Rademaker came to Marshall and started his first bottling works in the old woolen mill building. In 1911 it was the home of the Judd Harlan stock barn. The building was sold in 1914 to Robert Thompson, and in 1915 a new vending machine factory was starting business there. In 1919 it was used as a warehouse for supplies used in paving the National Road. A “Dinky Railroad” was built to carry the materials to the building sites along the road. Eventually the woolen mill building fell into disrepair, and it collapsed in a “cloud of dust” in the 1940s.

I have a few photos of Ed that I’ve collected over the years and they almost all show him with one of his horses. I wish I had known him - I'd love to hear all about the horses that he knew over the course of his life. I have a feeling he might just be the one who passed the love of horses down to his grandson, Dwight, who passed it down to his son, Robert . . . my dad, who passed it down to me.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 7 "Outcast"

 

 Outcast

 

 Benjamin Franklin Pargin, 4th great granduncle, was born in Lawrence County, Illinois in January 1842. He headed west sometime after serving in the Civil War.

                        Benjamin Franklin Pearrygin stands in front of his cabin near the lake that still bears his name.

 

Karen West (https://methownet.com/grist/features/namingpearrygin.html) wrote this biography of Ben and his life as an outcast, mostly likely by his choice:

B.F. "Ben" Pearrygin scouted the Methow Valley in 1887, one year after it opened to white settlement. He claimed land on the lake that bears his name and would have taken up squatters rights until the land was surveyed and he could file for a homestead.

In 1888 he showed brothers Emil and Albert Ventzke around and advised them where to take up squatters rights. The Ventzkes were Prussian/German immigrants whose parents settled in Wisconsin. Emil, who was about 21 years old, settled near Cub Creek, and Albert, who was a few years older, near Rock View on the north fork of the Methow River, now more commonly known as the Chewuch River. (Their brother Fred Ventzke, a surveyor, took up a homestead near Winthrop in 1898.)

Little is known about Ben Pearrygin. The most complete, and unflattering, description of him is in an excerpt from a letter dated Jan. 21, 1916. It was written by Guy Waring, who founded Winthrop, to Professor Meany at the University of Washington. Meany had inquired about the origin of local place names. Waring said, "Pearrygin Lake ... was named after Benjamin Franklin Pearrygin; who was the third squatter in the valley and who located on this lake's shore. He was from Southern Illinois and had the appearance of one's ideal Portugese Pirate. I have little doubt that he was of Southern European descent and originally a "Perugino." He was undoubtedly an evil man and, I suspected, had sold his soul to the devil but had not collected the pay! He met his death by falling out of a barn loft while drunk and died after five days of agony that more than expiated all his sins. He was a merry soul, withal."

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 6 "Social Media"

My "Social Media" story about an ancestor comes from an early form of social media for family researchers . . . Rootsweb message boards. 

Several years ago a man reached out asking if I had more info on Sylvia Moore. Sylvia was the second wife of my great great grandfather, Charles Samuel Moore. 

Charley had been a mystery to me for some years before I pieced together a little more of his story. He was raised in Edgar County, Illinois where he married a local girl and they raised a family. The 1930 census shows Charley and his wife Dolly, my great great grandmother, at home in Paris, Edgar Co, Illinois with several of their children. Then he and Dolly disappeared. I found each of them in later records on the west coast, each with a new spouse. Charley in California with Sylvia, and Dolly in Washington with a man named Fred Gilson.

I didn't know much about Sylvia so I wasn't able to answer many questions for the gentleman who reached out to me, but he had some exciting news for me! He remembered Charley, knew where he was buried, and it was actually this man's family who had a headstone placed for Charley at the cemetery in California. They had monkeys engraved on the stone because, he remembered, Charley always had a pet monkey! 

 

Then he found and very kindly sent me the only photo that I have of Charley Moore - in his junkyard with his pet monkey. 💓
 

 

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 5 Oops!

 

"Oops!" When I read this week's prompt for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge, one story immediately came to mind. This is the story that my boys, who claim no interest in our family history, ask for  me to tell most often.

Our illustrious - or not! - Civil War ancestor, George Samuel Sult. 

George was born in the late fall of 1842, the first child of Jacob & Georgiana Sult, in Butler County, Ohio[1]. By 1860 several more children had joined the family and the Sults had moved a little further west, to Indiana[2].

George joined the Union Army 1 February 1862, in Indianapolis, Indiana, when he was 19 years old, enlisting as a private in Company K of the 52nd Indiana Infantry [3].

The company was on the move from nearly the moment that George joined. Here's a timeline of their movements [4]:

February 1, 1862: Regiment raised in Rushville & Indianapolis, Indiana

February 7, 1862: Left Rushville, Indiana for Fort Donelson, TN

February 12–16, 1862: Victory at the Battle of Fort Donelson

February 16, 1862 - April 18, 1862: Garrison at Fort Henry, TN

March 11, 1862: Action at Paris, TN with light casualties. Withdrew

April 18, 1862: Moved to Pittsburg Landing, TN in the aftermath of the Battle of Shiloh

April 29, 1862 - May 30, 1862: Advance on and sieged of the town of Corinth, TN as General Henry Halleck pursued confederate General P. G. T. Beauregard in retreat from Shiloh.

June 1, 1862 - July 21, 1862: March to Memphis, Tennessee, via Grand Junction, LaGrange, and Holly Springs

June 4, 1862: During the march to Memphis, Colonel James M Smith resigned and Lt. Colonel Edward H. Wolfe assumed command

July 22, 1862 - September 1, 1862: Duty at Memphis, TN

September 2, 1862: Action near Memphis, TN

September 17,1862: Durhamsville

September 30, 1862, to January 18, 1863: Garrison duty at Fort Pillow, Tennessee, and operations against guerrillas in Tennessee and Arkansas .

September 19–25, 1863: Expedition to Jackson, MS (as a detachment)

September 28, 1863 - October 5, 1863: Expedition to Covington, Durhamville, and Fort Randolph

The unit went on to serve until the end of the war, officially mustering out on 10 September 1865.

George Sult's time in the military was short though - OOPS! - in October 1862, just a few months after joining when he was stacking firewood in camp and gave himself a hernia [5]! His Civil War pension record is quite extensive and details the health struggles that he faced the rest of his life [6]. Many of his associates who wrote letters for his pension application described him as "a small yellow man."

On 25 November 1863 George married Mary Davis [7]. Sadly, Mary passed away just a few years later in September 1865 [8]. George then married Nancy Joslin  25 March 1869 [9]. They had four children - Theodore Wesley, Mary Etta, Rose Zella, and Ollie Belle [10]. Mary Etta is my great great grandmother.

 

George passed away 18 July 1893 in Sullivan County, Indiana [11]. He is buried in Center Ridge Cemetery with a military stone despite his "Oops!" moment that cut his military career short [12].

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[1] 1850 U.S. census, Cincinnati Ward 6, Hamilton, Ohio; Page: 163; Image: 168, George Sult; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com : accessed 27 January 2023), citing National Archives microfilm publication M432 roll 689.

[2] 1860 U.S. census, Spencer, Jennings, Indiana; Page: 269; Image: 271, George Sult; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com : accessed 27 January 2023), citing National Archives microfilm publication M653 roll 271 .

[3] U.S., Civil War Draft Registrations Records, 1863-1865; George Sult, digital image, Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com : accessed 27 January 2023).

[4] U.S. Department of the Interior. (n.d.). Battle unit details. National Parks Service. Retrieved January 27, 2023, from https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=UIN0052RI

[5] George Sult's pension application; service of George Sult (Pvt., Co. K, 52d IN Infantry, Civil War); Case Files of Approved Pension Applications ..., 1861–1934; Civil War and Later Pension Files; Record Group 15: Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs; National Archives, Washington, D.C.

[6] ibid.

[7] Indiana Marriage Collection, 1800-1941.

[8] George Sult's pension application; service of George Sult (Pvt., Co. K, 52d IN Infantry, Civil War); Case Files of Approved Pension Applications ..., 1861–1934; Civil War and Later Pension Files; Record Group 15: Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs; National Archives, Washington, D.C

[9] Grant County, Indiana, Marriage Records Volume I Book C (Sept 1831-June 1, Compiled by--Grant County Genealogy Club; Book: 4; Page: 209.

[10] George Sult's pension application; service of George Sult (Pvt., Co. K, 52d IN Infantry, Civil War); Case Files of Approved Pension Applications ..., 1861–1934; Civil War and Later Pension Files; Record Group 15: Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs; National Archives, Washington, D.C

[11]Find A Grave (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 28 January 2023), memorial page 52952032 , PVT George Samuel Sult (1842 - 1893), created by "Wabash Valley Genealogy Society Cemetery Committee"; citing Center Ridge Cemetery, Sullivan, Sullivan, Indiana, USA.

[12]Find A Grave (http://www.findagrave.com : accessed 28 January 2023), memorial page 52952032 , PVT George Samuel Sult (1842 - 1893), created by "Wabash Valley Genealogy Society Cemetery Committee"; citing Center Ridge Cemetery, Sullivan, Sullivan, Indiana, USA.