Family Notes

 This is the 4th and last post focusing on my great grandparents and where they were in 1900. The three previous posts are: James Cornelius Spencer (1866-1928) and Mary Addie Winfrey (1870-1944) Enoch Franklin Morris (1877-1938) and Ella May Biddle (1872-1965) James Lawrence McDaniel (1873-1944) and Midia Belle Meeks (1876-1947) The final pair of great grandparents is Clark Pittman (1851-1931) and and Lucinda Greenlee (1864-1900). The Pittmans were a prolific and also long-lived bunch. The earliest in America was Richard Pitman, who was a Quaker settler in New Jersey in the late 1600s. He lived to be 89 and died at Pennsauken Creek, near present-day Camden. The inventory of his estate was valued at $145 and included "9 old books." It was his grandson, another Richard, who would move the family to Bedford County, Pennsylvania, near the Maryland border. This was not a single-family exodus, but many families, all moving around the same time. By now the Pittmans are not Quakers b...

 This is the third installment of my series of posts on my great grandparents. In this one we're looking at James Lawrence McDaniel (1873-1944) and Midia Belle Meeks (1876-1947) of Spencer County, Indiana. In the 1900 census James and Midia (spelled Mida in this census) are renting a farm in Huff Township, Spencer County, Indiana. Their first daughter, Cora, is 3 years old. James and Midia have been 3 years married at this point. By 1910 they are back in Hammond, Indiana, where James' parents live, and they are again renting a farm. In the 1920 census they are in Vanderburgh, Indiana, and James is a laborer in a flour mill. And somewhere between then and the next census they move to Columbus, in Bartholomew County, where daughter Emma Grace, my grandmother, will meet and marry James Franklin Spencer. The 1930 census-taker put down James as a farm laborer who did not, by the way, own a radio! James was the son of Joseph McDaniel and Margaret Price. In the 1900 census these two a...

 This is the 2nd post in a series looking at my great grandparents, focusing particularly on the 1900 census. In this case we'll be looking at Enoch Franklin Morris and Ella May Biddle. They were my great grandparents on my mother's side. Their daughter, Ethel, was my grandmother. Enoch Franklin Morris (1877-1938) was born in Jennings County, Indiana, as was his wife, Ella May Biddle (1872-1965). This is rural southern Indiana. The biggest city in Jennings County is North Vernon, which in 2020 had a population of 6608. In the 1900 census, the 23 year old Enoch Franklin Morris lived in Columbia Township (population today is still under 1000), in the northeast corner of the county. Enoch and Ella May got married in 1898. In the 1900 census Enoch is listed as a farmer. He can both read and write (not always a given). The same is true of Ella May. Their first child, daughter Lanora, is only nine months old at the time of the census. Enoch was a farmer and later also a trustee of th...

  The father is William Wellington Spencer (1862-1925), my great grand-uncle (the brother of my great grandfather, James Cornelius Spencer-- see previous post ). The wife and mother is Maggie Hoskins (1862-1925). The family lived in Pellville and then Hawesville, Hancock County, Kentucky. William was a farmer and then a miller who owned his own mill, and toward the end of his life a grocer (according to his death certificate). The picture was taken, I suppose, circa 1892. The eldest, standing in back, is son Alois (b. 1884), then in front of him the next eldest, daughter Viva (b. 1886), and sitting on her father's knee is Ethel (b. 1889), and then the baby on her mother's lap is daughter Farrie D. (b. 1891).

My great grandparents were, on my father's side: James Cornelius Spencer (1866-1928) and Mary Addie Winfrey (1870-1944) James Lawrence McDaniel (1873-1944) and Midia Belle Meeks (1876-1947) And on my mother's side: Clark E. Pittman (1851-1931) and Lucinda Greenlee (1864-1900) Enoch Franklin Morris (1877-1938) and Ella Mae Biddle (1872-1965) In the next few posts I intend to look at each of them in term, answering the simple question, where were they at the time of the 1900 census? In this post I am going to look at James and Mary Addie Spencer. James and his family were temporarily split up in 1900. James (who seems to have gone by his middle name, Cornelius, or Nealey for short) was at the time of the census a patient in the Western Kentucky Asylum for the Insane. Evidence from his 1928 death certificate would suggest that he might have been suffering from the ravages of venereal disease. Where were his wife and children at this time? Well, 4 of the 5 children were living with...

 In the name of god I Cornelius Spencer in the county of Daviess and state of Kentucky being of sound mind and memory and considering the uncertainty of this frail and transitory life do therefore make ordain publish and declare this to be my last will and testament. I give and bequeath to my beloved wife all my land and appurtenances situated thereon, the land consisting of about 45 acres be the same more or less--said land lying in the county of Daviess and state of Kentucky and now possessed by me. I also give and bequeath to her (my wife) all my household and kitchen furniture consisting of beds, beding [sic], chairs, stove, clock, table and everything pertaining to the house that I now possess. I also give to my wife one cow, five hogs, and four sheep. In witness whereof I have hereunto subscribed my name this the 25th day of August, 1885.                 His Cornelius X Spencer                Mark...

 We're still looking at Thomas Pittman, my 2nd great grandfather. Early in 1850 his wife Rebecca died from typhoid fever. Her 4 month old boy, Thomas, also died around that same time (cause unknown, according to the Census).  Aside: the nine-page "Mortality Schedule" for Monroe County, Ohio, 1850, is full of interesting commentary by the Census taker. Each page contains his remarks concerning the quality of the soil (limestone or clay or black loam) and the types of timber present in the area. On page 5 he mentions the "almost entire failure" of the previous year's wheat crop, it having been struck with rust. On page 8 of this listing of deaths he records this strange comment: "Perhaps the most interesting phenomena I can record is if I may judge from the number of children enumerated this must be a fruitful soil." Cause of death on most often old age, consumption, whooping cough, typhoid, croup, among others. On the bottom of page 9 we have the fo...

 Thomas Pittman, son of William Elias, was born in 1809 at Licking Creek, Pennsylvania, and died 84 years later near Gnaw Bone, Indiana. His father took the family to Monroe County, Ohio, somewhere around 1820. Monroe County had only just been organized in 1815, and in the 1820 census it has just 4,645 people. Monroe County is about 210 miles due west of Licking Creek. Licking Creek was in Bedford County at that time, and in the same 1820 census Bedford County had over 20,000 people. Perhaps the Pittmans were something like the Boones, and wanted only to go where they were no longer in sight of another man's chimney smoke.  The road they would have taken might well have been the famed National Road . Construction had begun in 1811, following part of the old Braddock trail to Pittsburgh. By 1818 it had been completed to Wheeling (about 50 miles north of Monroe County). In Green township the Pittman Family, William Elias and the children, settled down to farm the land and put do...

Elias Obediah Pittman  (1765-1839) was born in Fulton County, Pennsylvania, down along the Maryland border, at a place called Licking Creek. He was my 4th great grandfather. Sometime shortly after the end of the War of 1812 he moved his family to Ohio, as did many other of his siblings and Pittman relatives. He died in Richland County, in the north central part of the state. Many Pittmans also lived in nearby Morrow County, at a place called Mt. Gilead.  Elias was married to  Sarah Truex  (1762-1839). They had at least seven children together. Of these seven, two would eventually move to Nodaway County, Missouri, three to Elkhart, Indiana, and two more would stay on in nearby Morrow County, Ohio. Elias' oldest son was  William Elias Pittman  (1784-1861), my 3rd great grandfather. He would have been in his early 30s at the time of the move to Ohio. I'm not sure how long he stayed, but by the time of the 1840 census he was living in Nodaway County, in the far...