Capt. Joseph L. Townsend: 1812 New Jersey Militia

I am certainly pleased that my husband and I decided to make a visit to the EVANS Public Library (named for a descendant of my paternal 5th great grandfather, Jeremiah Evans) on our recent trip that included a 3 day stop in Vandalia, Illinois. I am even more pleased that I had my trusty Flip-Pal portable scanner with me. I discovered the library houses a large collection of the Fayette County Historical Society's publication called "Fayette Facts". For over a dozen years I had owned all the Fayette Facts that had previously been offered by the FCHS as back issues to the public...about 25 of them. But when I looked on the library shelf there were a good 40-50 issues there and most of them were copies I did not have in my personal library. I pulled them all from the shelf and sat down at an empty table and started going through the indexes for my surnames: Evans, Miller, Owen, Patterson and Townsend. It was Wednesday, June 1 and being a week day morning it was quiet in there, but my Flip-Pal was smokin'!

By far the most surprising and exciting item concerned my paternal 3rd great grandfather's military service and was found in Fayette Facts, Vol. 38, No. 4, pg. 36:

"WAR OF 1812 VETERANS BURIED IN FAYETTE COUNTY

            Joseph L. Townsend, born 1796 and died 1875 was a Captain in the New Jersey Militia. He married Christianna Wheaton and is buried at Howard's Point, Howard Township, according to Daughters of the War of 1812 records.

            Howard Township is now known as Avena and a check of these burial records indicated that Christianna Townsend, wife of J. L., died August 28, 1872, aged 74 years 10 months and 22 days and is buried in Yolton Cemetery. Joseph's grave is probably here as well."

            

Prior to seeing this short article I had found no clues of any military service for Joseph, not that I hadn't tried to find them. His family was from Quaker stock back in New Jersey but after they came to Illinois it appears they left that faith behind so there shouldn't have been a refrain from serving due to religious views, but I still failed to produce anything showing a service record for Joseph. This find was certainly a lucky break! It just goes to prove what I've heard over and over again: 95% of genealogical information is found in repositories other than the Internet.

A search on Ancestry.com's War of 1812 Service Records turned up two entries for a Joseph Townsend in the New Jersey Militia.  One shows a Captain in Read's Battalion and the other shows a Private in Howell's Regiment. Nothing about the online records proves to me that either of these entries is for MY Joseph Townsend. I guess the Daughters of the War of 1812 have already done this investigation for me. I'd certainly like to see a copy of the records myself though!

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Wordless Wednesday: Townsend - Patterson Marriage License 1863

Marriage License
Lewis Townsend and Mary Ann Patterson

October 18, 1863 - Fayette Co., Illinois

Lewis Townsend was son of Joseph Ludlam and Christiana Wheaton Townsend. Mary Ann Patterson was the daughter of Robert and Mary Root Patterson. For more information on this lineage see the notes at the bottom of my blog 

"An Original 1827 Ohio Wolf Bounty Claim"

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52 Weeks To Better Genealogy - Challenge #20 - Gov. Land Office Records

Evans Land Records in Vandalia, Fayette Co., Illinois

I've used the Bureau of Land Management - Government Land Office  web site to search for Federal land records of my ancestors for many years so I felt up to this week's Challenge #52 to do some further exploring and play around some with the search engines there. The first thing I noticed is they have more records added than when I last visited which gave me new places to check out.

I ended up back with some of the records I was already familiar with and those were the records of my early Evans ancestors. Jeremiah Evans and at least three of his sons, John, Aikens and Simeon (my ancestor), bought land in Vandalia, Fayette Co. Illinois back in the early 1800s. What I failed to notice before was the date on Simeon's record was over 6 months after his death. Since these purchases were prepaid I suppose it's fairly safe to assume the land remained in his wife's possession. However, she and her minor children returned to their home state of Virginia not long after Simeon's death. It would be interesting to know who ended up with the land. Did she sell it to his father or one of his brothers?  


So, this little exercise brought some new questions to be answered, another challenge to take on! 

Note: For those in my family who might not be sure who our Evan's kin were, I will explain. Hopefully most of you know of my great grandfather, Oliver Morton Wallen who wrote "the Diary" (see my blog: "In The Beginning..."). His wife was Sarah Frances Davis. Sarah's father was John Miller Davis, John's mother was Mary Ann Evans. Mary Ann's father was Simeon Evans, Simeon's father was Jeremiah. Clear as mud, right?

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