Sunday's Obituary: Aunt Jane Bloomer

Jane (Payne) Bloomer

b. 14 Oct 1831 d. 1 Dec 1912

More like a death announcement than an obituary...

From the Mount Vernon Signal Newspaper dated Friday 13 Dec 1912

My paternal great grandfather, Oliver Morton Wallen, mentions "Aunt Jane Bloomer" only once in his diary. Jane was his paternal great grandmother's sister-in-law, wife of Nehemiah Bloomer, daughter of Moses and Nancy (Rucker) Payne. This is one time Oliver calls a person by a relationship name that is incorrect. Jane would have been a cousin by marriage, however, I suspect Jane was known to many in the Wabd area as "Aunt", perhaps because of her great age. She was quite likely an important member of our family.

Excerpt from Oliver's diary:

July 7, 1903 – Clurked and worked in the garden. About 9 o’clock P.M. Sarah gave birth to two babies, a girl and a boy. We christened them Sula Susan and Thomas Miller. Grandma Wallen waited on Sarah. J. C. Renner went after her for me. Aunt Jane Bloomer, N. J. Sercy and Carrie Renner were present.  

~Relationships of those mentioned in the above excerpt~

Sarah - Sarah (Davis) Wallen, wife of Oliver Morton Wallen

Sula Susan and Thomas Miller - twin infants of Oliver and Sarah Wallen

Grandma Wallen - Louisa (Tyree) Wallen, Oliver's paternal grandmother

J. C. Renner - John C. Renner

N. J. Sercy - Nancy J. (Payne) Searcy - daughter of Jane's brother John Payne

Carrie Renner - Carrie (Searcy) Renner, wife of J. C. Renner and daughter of N. J. Sercy

I'm not sure what they mean by "died of Paralysis". Jane's death certificate says cause of death was "Congestion of Lungs" with contributory cause as "organic heart trouble". Jane is buried in the Skaggs Creek Cemetery, Wabd, Rockcastle Co., Kentucky.

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Surname Saturday: BLOOMER

England to America

Descendant Chart: Robert Bloomer 1634 to Lisa Wallen 1952

A brief description of each generation from my 9th great grandfather, Robert Bloomer, to my 4th great grandmother, Elizabeth Bloomer Wallen, where the Bloomer line daughters out. 

1) Robert Bloomer b. ca. 1634 in Birmingham, England - Early (mid 1800s) family histories coincide on certain details: Robert was a foundling, adopted in infancy by the Bloomerings. He was kidnapped from the streets of England as a teenager and sold in America into four years of indentured service. Married Rachel ca. 1670. Lived in New York.

2) Robert Bloomer b. bet. 1671-1673 - Miller. Married Elizabeth Sutton (The Sutton lineage is where my father is twice descended from my mother's ancestor, Vincent Rongnion/Runyan). Lived in Rye, Westchester Co., New York. Filed a will on 12 March 1738/39.

3) John Bloomer b. bet. 1705-1710 - Mentioned in Rye, Westchester Co., New York from 1735 to 1740 and was justice of the peace in 1746. He married Berthia Fowler, daughter of John and Mary (Tatum) Fowler.

4) Nehemiah Bloomer b. ca. 1754 - Taylor. Left New York just before the Revolution and is found in Pennsylvania by 1777 and appears in tax records (Pennsylvania Archives, 3rd series p. 53) for Hampton Township in Cumberland Co., NY in 1778. By 1790 Nehemiah was in Wilkes Co., North Carolina. He married Elizabeth Ketcham, of Welsh descent, in New Jersey in 1773.

5) Daniel Bloomer b. ca. 1778 - Married Lucinda. Her maiden name is recorded by some as Defoe and by others as Looney. Neither name has been verified. In May of 1821 Daniel made an entry for 86 1/2 acres on the North Fork of the Clinch River in Hawkins Co., Tennessee. On 30 Nov 1836 Daniel bought 432 acres of land laying on both sides of the North Fork of the Clinch river near Wallen's Bend in the same county. His children are listed in his will.

6) Elizabeth Bloomer b. 12 June 1801 - d. April 1860. Married William Wallen/Walling, Jr. ca. 1820 in Tennessee. Family migrated to Rockcastle Co., Kentucky around 1851. Elizabeth gave birth to 10 children, two boys died as teenagers. This is where the Bloomer line daughters out and becomes Wallen all the way down to me. (click on descendant chart above to enlarge.)

For much more information on the descendants of Robert Bloomer I highly recommend the following book:

Bloomer, Robert John. The Bloomer Family in America, 1655-1988: a History and Genealogical Record of the Bloomer Family. Fountain Valley, CA: R.J. Bloomer, 1988. Print.

Sorry Michael, another "damned Anglish" pedigree in your bloodlines...but at least it's tempered with a wee bit o' Welsh!

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Wordless Wednesday: Geneva (Metcalf) Luenz

Geneva Metcalf, wife of William Luenz
(Maternal great grand-aunt of my husband, Mike)

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Tombstone Tuesday: The Little Blue River Browns

My husband Mike and I stayed in Indiana an extra day just so we'd have a chance to visit the archives of the Wayne county courthouse in Richmond, Indiana. As planned, on Monday, June 6th, we left camp early in the morning and drove for almost an hour before arriving at our destination. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the floor of the courthouse where the archives were located, I had a terrible headache. I never get headaches. For the life of me, I just could not focus efficiently and I finally gave up my quest after two hours of having no success at finding anything I'd come looking for.  I was deeply disappointed. A precious day of our vacation trip wasted! 

Or....maybe not completely wasted.

As we headed back to our campground we decided to take a detour and so we turned south at Cambridge City and drove through Connersville and then west again to Rushville. We drove around Rushville and snapped a few pictures of the rather gothic looking old courthouse and then we started back northward again on Road 3. I thought, since we were going that way, we might as well take a quick peek at the Reddick Cemetery where my maternal third great grandparents, Giles and Martha (Brown) Cook, were buried. I didn't need to as I'd been there with Mom in 1999 and had all the photos, but why not? I started giving Mike directions and suddenly realized we'd passed one of the roads I wanted to take so we detoured around this way and that and ended up coming upon another cemetery. I recognized the cemetery name but had never been to it before, Little Blue River Cemetery. Well, whaddaya know, another one of those "happy accidents"! My maternal 4th great grandparents, George and Rebecca Brown (parents of aforementioned Martha Cook), were buried here!

We pulled up to the cemetery and before the car came to a stop I had spotted their stone. Again (as in last week's Tombstone Tuesday blog), I had seen photos of George and Rebecca's tombstone so many times that it's familiar shape immediately caught my eye among all those other stones. It was not unusually shaped like the last one I wrote about, and it was a very plain and rather homely stone, but I easily recognized it from a distance, and, in my mind, it beckoned me...come hither!

This cemetery was surrounded by rich Indiana farmland. It was so peaceful and lovely all around that if it hadn't been so danged hot I would have pulled out a picnic blanket and stayed the rest of the afternoon. I did linger here a little longer and I walked among all the stones and photographed a number of them before we continued on our trek to the Reddick Cemetery.

Oh, how I wish I'd never gone back to the Reddick Cemetery! I would have been better off not knowing. But maybe I'll write about that awful mess next week. I'll have to call it something else though. Maybe "Tombstone-less Tuesday".....

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Sunday's Obituary: Sarah Samantha (Miller) Owen

Sarah Owen was my paternal great, great grandmother. 

A descendant chart can be seen by clicking this link

Obituary taken from the Fayette County Genealogical and Historical Society publication:
"Fayette Facts" Vol. 31, No. 2, pg. 30 at the Evans Public Library in Vandalia, Illinois.

           "OWEN, Sarah Samantha b 18 May 1839 Holmes Co., OH died at her home 4 May 1927 age 88y 1m 16ds. She was the dau of Benjamin and Elizabeth MILLER and came to this county at age 6. She m 30 Dec 1858 David B. OWEN and they were parents of 7 children - George Winfield, Ben McClellan, James and David B., Roxana E. DURBIN, Mrs. Dellas SIMPKINS and Lucretia TOWNSEND who died 7 Nov 1905. Her husband died 5 Oct 1919. Also surviving with the 6 children were 2 sisters, Mrs. Talitha ROBERTS of St. Elmo, Selecta OWEN, Aurora, MO and bro Ayres OWEN, 15 grandchildren, 37 great-grandchildren. Burial was in Fairview Cem. Vandalia Union 12 May 1927."

[A correction to the above obituary: "Selecta" should be "Electa".]

Click here to see the tombstone of Sarah and her husband, 

Rev. David Brashears Owen

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Wordless Wednesday - 1955 First Communion - St. Cecilia's Catholic School - Louisville, Kentucky

Joseph Michael (Mike) Logsdon (8 yrs. old)
Top row, 4th boy from the left.

St. Cecilia's School - May 30, 2011

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Tombstone Tuesday: Serendipity in Centerville

Joseph Grunden 1812 - 1855

I'll admit it, finding the tombstone of Joseph Grunden certainly falls under the definition of "serendipity". A definition of serendipity is when someone finds something that they weren't expecting to find....something they discover, by accidents and sagacity, that they were NOT in quest of. In the simplest of words, it means a "happy accident". 

But how many of these instances of serendipity can happen within a 20 day period before you get suspicious? I lost count of how many happy accidents I had on our trip through Kentucky, Illinois and Indiana earlier this year. Most probably had to do with tombstones but there were others, and then there was that one "accident" that didn't even have anything to do with genealogy. But I digress, so back to the tombstone of my maternal 3rd great grandfather, Joseph Grunden.

I already had a photo of Joseph's tombstone given to me by my very dear cousin Dorothy Hildreth (now deceased) about a dozen years ago. There is another photo of it on Joseph's FindAGrave memorial. I'd seen the photos at least a hundred times. I didn't need a photo and I just wasn't prepared to go looking for the tombstone. I didn't  have a clue as to the whereabouts of the cemetery anyway and I gave it no real thought. Somewhere in Centerville.

My husband Mike and I were through Centerville, Indiana along Route 40 three different times. On the first visit on Sunday, June 5th, we took our time and drove around looking at the wonderful historic homes and enjoying the rich history which is prevalent in all the small towns along the Old National Road. We spied a huge antique mall and thought we would come back to it, browse around and maybe eat our sandwiches in the parking lot before we moved on towards Richmond. I wasn't in Centerville to do genealogy. My ancestors had been there for only a short time on their move from Ohio. Joseph died there and afterwards his wife, Martha (Dungan) Grunden moved her family further west to Knightstown in the next county.

As we passed by the antique mall we saw straight in front of us a large cemetery. Out of curiosity we drove up to it. Did I mention it was large? I puzzled...was this the cemetery where Joseph's stone was? What WAS the name of that cemetery he was buried in? I said to Mike: "I'm not walking that whole cemetery looking for one stone that I already have a photo of." So, we slowly drove by and came to the next cross road. The large cemetery was on my right and as I looked to my left I saw another smaller cemetery a block away. I had a good view of it and even from that distance I immediately spotted the tombstone of Joseph Grunden. I knew it was his stone. It had a distinct shape because a large corner was broken off. I couldn't believe it! As we drove closer we saw the cemetery sign, "Centerville Cemetery". Aha, my memory of the cemetery name came back. This was it alright! I hopped out of the car with my camera in hand and walked straight up to that tombstone, Joseph Grunden's tombstone, broken and perfect.  I took my very own photo, paid my respects, took a few more photos of the whole cemetery, and we went back to that antique mall.

Tombstone of Joseph Grunden, Centerville Cemetery
Centerville, Wayne Co., Indiana

It was suspiciously odd in my opinion, that that stone stood out to me, among all the others, from that distance....like it had a halo around it or something. It stood there and beckoned to me like a lighthouse. "Come here, little girl."

Just a happy accident.  

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No Photographs of the Photographer

My mother talked about her grandparents quite a bit, all except for her paternal grandfather, Robert Noah Runyan. Mom never knew him and neither did her dad. Mom's grandmother divorced Robert when her youngest child, my grandfather Lawrence, was three years old. The older children knew their father a little bit though and there are stories....like the one about him getting caught photographing a nude model when his oldest daughter came by the studio to bring him lunch. Of course she ran home and told. You can see that story by clicking on this link.

I hate it that I don't have a photograph of him. I'm pretty positive none of his children had any to pass down. I think my great grandmother, Mary Darling Runyan, tore them all up. I wish she hadn't done that but I can't say that I really blame her. Alas, he's the only recent ancestor that I don't have an image of.

William N. Runyan

A distant cousin sent me two photos of Robert's only sibling Willie who died at the age of 25. Willie never married or had children so Robert's four children (there was a fifth who died in infancy) were the only descendants of Robert's parents, Michael and Frances Ann Whitley Runyan. William is buried in the Spiceland Friends Cemetery in Spiceland, Indiana.

Robert and Mary divorced in 1896 and Robert left for Indianapolis not long afterward and set up his photography shop there. I was able to find him listed in several of the city's directories. According to the 1902 directory his widowed mother was living with him in this tiny little house on Elm St. which we were able to photograph on June 3, 2011. 

I find that a little odd since his mother died in May of 1902 in Spiceland, however, the listing was probably from the year before and hadn't been changed.

The same day we were also able to find and photograph the building Robert worked out of and now I know why the address changed to the next residence from one year to another...it was a single building with two shops, two entry doors, two addresses, so I guess he was in one side part of the time and either moved to the other side or used both...maybe. 

Photography shop was in this red duplex
brick building on Prospect St. for quite a few years.

Robert remarried in 1907 to Celia B. White. He was her third husband. As far as we know, they had no children.

When he died in 1915, Robert's body was donated to the Indiana College of Medicine, but when his son Lawrence (my grandfather) married in 1917 the marriage records state his father was living in Indianapolis.

Apparently none of his family even knew he had died.

*Update! Correction: Robert resided at the house on Elm in 1907. His mother is listed at his place of business in 1902.

1902 Indianapolis City Directory

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The Reconstruction of Abraham Lincoln's Birthplace

Descendants of Austin Gollaher call this the Gollaher cabin!

Reconstructed birthplace of Abraham Lincoln
south of Athertonville, Kentucky on road 31E

Article from the Louisville Courier-Journal hand dated 1981 - Click to enlarge.
"The cabin was reconstructed in 1931, using logs from the Austin Gollaher cabin that stood a mile away."

Benjamin Austin Gollaher

Benjamin Austin Gollaher was my husband's maternal third great grandfather and responsible for having saved Abraham Lincoln from drowning in Knob Creek when they were boys. See my previous article: "Boy Hero Saves Life of Young Abe Lincoln".

The photo of the cabin above was taken by me on May 20, 2011. The newspaper clipping was given to me by relatives of my husband Mike. The photo at the right was given to me by Lou Lucas about a dozen years ago.

Gollaher cabin with modern addition. Framed in red is the original part used minus the rock fireplace.

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Tombstone Tuesday: Benjamin and Elizabeth Miller

Benjamin B. Miller

b. 1814  Pennsylvania  -  d.1892  Illinois

Elizabeth [Smith] Miller 

b.1814  Ohio  -  d. 1858  Illinois

married January 14, 1835 in Holmes Co., Ohio

My paternal third great grandparents
buried Post Oak Cemetery, Louden, Fayette Co., Illinois

This stone is, I assume, replacing an old or missing stone and appears to have been put in place by a grandchild, considering the inscription below the names. There are more complete birth and death dates to be found on various family trees but are somewhat suspect because none seem to be sourced. If anyone reading this has that source information I hope you will consider e-mailing me at the g-mail link towards the bottom of this page.

Photos were taken May 31, 2011.

Descendancy Chart

Miller tombstone and me

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Tombstone Tuesday: Clotilda Vincent Bean

Daughter of Lord and Lady Francis Vincent of Ireland

b. March 14, 1769 - d. September 13, 1864

Wife of Edward Columbus (John) Bean
Buried St. Joseph's Cemetery, Bardstown, Nelson Co., KY

Clotilda Bean

Clotilda was the paternal fourth great grandmother of my husband, Mike. She has an interesting history which I summarized a little over a year ago in my blog: Irish Ancestors: Clotilda, Daughter of Lord and Lady Vincent. 

On Friday, May 27, 2011, Mike and I visited the Bean Cabin which has been preserved and moved to Historic Old Bardstown Village's Museum Row in Bardstown, Kentucky. As stated in my previous blog, Clotilda's husband was killed by Indians while returning to Maryland for supplies. John Bean was also of Irish heritage. 

Clotilda never remarried, she raised her family of 8 children and prospered. She was a charter member and an active church worker at St. Joseph's Proto-Cathedral in Bardstown. Clotilda was 95 years old when she died and the tombstone seen here was erected by her slave, Joe Bean. 

Mike Logsdon and Clotilda Bean Tombstone

Descendancy Chart

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Treasure Chest Thursday: Digging up Evans Cemetery

Evans Cemetery, Fayette Co., Illinois

I really hadn't planned on spending much time or taking many photos in the Evans Cemetery in Hagerstown, just outside of Vandalia. The main stone I wanted to see was that of my 5th great grandfather, Jeremiah Evans. Jeremiah donated the land for the cemetery long ago and there were many of his family buried there along with other townsfolk, but he and his wife Mary were the only "direct" (is there any other kind?) ancestors of mine that had stones there. I'd already seen the two stones on FindAGrave.com [FAG] so I wasn't all that excited. They weren't in good shape and were laying on the ground and Jeremiah's appeared to be just a little piece of stone, the bottom part.

Big, BIG tree!

It was Wednesday, June 1, 2011 and Mike and I went early to beat the heat and we were the only ones in the cemetery. There was a giant tree that had fallen and uprooted itself and someone had been sawing it in sections for removal. It did quite a bit of damage in the fall and standing next to the hole the roots made I wondered if I might see bones down there.

(Click on the photo and see for yourself!)

All that was showing of Jeremiah's tombstone

As soon as my eyes fell on Jeremiah's stone I recognized it from the sad little photo on his FAG memorial. Next to it was his first wife Mary (Larimer) Evans. Mary's was a full stone but we could barely see the top part because of all the grass that had covered it. Mike started pulling away at the grass until he had it mostly uncovered. It wasn't easy work since he only had a stick to loosen the grass before pulling it up. Next, we moved on to Jeremiah's stone. I could see there was more than was showing but I didn't think it was much. Mike said "Lisa, I think the whole stone is there, I'm going to find out." and he began to work away at removing grass with his little stick. I was hot so I went off to photograph some stones that were in the shade!

Mike...hard at work, uncovering Jeremiah with a stick.

I don't know how many years Jeremiah's stone has been covered but after at least an hour Mike had the entire thing cleared. It was broken in pieces and mostly unreadable but it was the whole stone. I photographed it many times and when I got home I uploaded it to Jeremiah's FAG memorial and let the creator know that a new photograph of the stone was there. 

Now, thanks to Mike all Jeremiah's descendants can see the full stone...and lucky for Mike, he got to spend the rest of the day in a cool, quiet library, reading to his heart's content about his Kentucky pioneers...and probably their moonshine stills!

My point here is...which is the Treasure, the Stone or the Man? Bet you know what my answer is!

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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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Tombstone Tuesday: Christianna Townsend

Christianna Wheaton Townsend  

October 6, 1797 - August 28, 1872

Wife of Joseph L. Townsend, daughter of Uriah Wheaton

buried Yolton Cemetery, Avena Township, Fayette County., Illinois

My paternal third great grandmother.

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