MARGARET OWENS

David and Jane’s youngest daughter, Margaret Owens is the only one of their children who didn’t leave Licking County, Ohio. According to the 1900 US census, she was born in May of 1846 in Ohio. She was the only one of their children to be born in the US. She stayed with her mother after her father died. She was living with Jane in the 1880 census, and stayed single until after Jane died. She married Elias Davis around 1892. I imagine that they lived on the “homestead” after their marriage, and there are several news articles in the Newark papers showing that they were residing in Newark area. Elias died on October 22, 1909 and was buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery. Margaret continued to live in Newark at least through 1915. Her brother’s obituary says that she is living in Columbus, Ohio in 1920, and I can’t find her in the Newark census, but I can’t definitively find her in the Columbus census either. Her sister’s obituary says that she is living in Newark as of January 1922. She died on February 19, 1924 and is buried in Newark’s Cedar Hill Cemetery. The 1900 census shows that she never had any children.


I just realized that the group picture I have that includes Maggie and her husband Elias was taken in Los Angeles California. Some of the other Owens, or maybe some of his family? Yes!! More questions, more research. As usual there are variations on the name, sometimes it was Davies, but usually was Davis, and was always Davis in the newspaper articles.

Sharing the Stories

The reason I’m doing this blog is to share information and pictures that have been left to me by my mother. I’m not interested in posting information that is already general knowledge, but I will clarify or correct that information if I can. I love doing the research part of genealogy, and I probably get just as excited as a gold miner when I find a new nugget of information. I can spend hours going through the things my mother left. What I don’t like too much is actually organizing everything that I have found, and that is bad because the knowledge is only in my mind and that will be gone someday. There are times when I get bored, when I hit dead ends, and when I would rather keep researching instead of organizing. Lots of times I wonder why I bother, because most people don’t really care. But last night when I was looking for more information on line, I was hit hard by the fact that I have information that no one else does. I was looking for more information on Walter Frank Gillmore. What I found were 4 or 5 family trees that knew his name and birth date, but none of them knew when he died. If they don’t know when he died, they don’t know the story of where and how he died. There are a number of family letters written around the time of his death that I have, and I know the story of his death. If I don’t tell about it, then the story will be gone, and for the generations to come that might care, they’ll never know. So, I’d better keep on working, and get as much done as I can. I’ll have to find those letters sometime soon and tell his story.

LOTTIE LEDFORD

I just can’t wait. I should try to find out some more information, but I’m too excited. Two of my grandmother’s pictures have interested me for quite some time. One had been identified as Ida Steadman, but that had been crossed out and it was labeled as Lottie Ledford.

The other one was labeled as Lottie Ledford’s baby. I had no idea how they fit into the family.

I finally realized, though that Lottie was a nickname for Charlotte and finally determined that the picture was one of Charlotte May Turner, daughter of Adrian Elbinas Turner and his wife Margaret F Lely. Lottie had married Millard Bynum Ledford in about 1898. Their son Millard B Leford was born in Baggs, Carbon, Wyoming on May 5th, 1899, and that is where they were living in 1900, where the census shows that her mother Margaret now Tree was living nearby.

After that I couldn’t find anything about her, so I was afraid that she and her baby had probably died, as I can’t imagine that Baggs Wyoming was a very easy place to live in, in the early 1900’s.

Then last night, I was looking at her more closely, and eureka!!! I found another family tree that showed that she had remarried to a Samuel Leslie Ward. Using that name I was able to find her in the 1910 and 1920 censuses and her death in 1947 in Longview, Washington. But what had happened to her first husband and baby? She had written a letter to my grandmother on Dec 10, 1902, and it seemed like she was with her husband and baby at that time. I kept searching, and found a record on the LDS site showing that the baby Millard had died on Jan 5, 1902 and had been buried in Clay County, North Carolina. Had her husband taken the baby and left her?

I searched further, and found a listing for the cemetery in Baggs, Carbon, Wyoming. There I found a record for Millard B Ledford, the father. He had died in October 1901 and was buried in the Baggs cemetery.

Had Lottie gone to visit her husband’s family after his death and her son died while they were there? Did she send her son to live with her husband’s family in NC, where he died? I don’t imagine we’ll ever know.

In her letter to my grandmother in 1902, she says that her brothers, Charley and Adrian (Eddy), are living with her and that “my baby and housework keep me busy”. BABY?? Her baby appears to have died, and he isn’t listed in the later censuses when she has remarried. I have a clue, though. Along with her first husband, I found a record for the Baggs Cemetery for an Alex Basco Ledford, 1901 – 1905. I don’t remember any other Ledford’s in that area in the 1900 census, so I believe that Charlotte had another baby around the time her husband died. I would guess that she may have sent her first baby to his father’s family, as she wouldn’t have had the means to support him and she probably had her hands full taking care of the new baby. I think the picture of the baby is probably Millard B Ledford. I doubt that she had the money to have a picture taken of her second baby, unless her brothers had paid for it.

George Nelson Spates

UPDATE


I looked again at the Soldier’s Home papers, and they put the amputation of the leg as taking place on 1 Oct 1868, in Auburn, Maine.

George Nelson Spates

I’ve been “conversing” by email with a wonderful new friend for a month or two now. His aunt had done a lot of work on the Turner genealogy, and he has continued that work. We swapped information on some of the family genealogy, and I got the better end of the deal. Just today he wondered about the date of death of Hannah Turner’s husband George N Spates, and I decided to do some research since I didn’t have an exact date on that. A couple of hours later, I have that information and quite a bit more. I hope this helps my friend, since he’s helped me so much.


George Nelson Spates was born on 2 April 1845 in Eastport, Maine, the son of Unknown Spates (possibly another George Nelson Spates) and Sarah B (possibly Reynolds). He had two sisters, and a younger brother named Simon Reynolds Spates.

On 13 Nov 1863, at the age of 17, he enlisted in Co K, Maine 29th Infantry Regiment. He served as a private in this unit during the Civil War. He mustered out at the end of the Civil War on 22 August 1865.

At some point in time he lost his right leg because of the war, as noted in the 1880 census. In August of 1894 he entered the US National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers at Togus. Kennebec, Maine. In Sept of 1895 he was transferred to the NW Branch Home at Milwaukie, Wisconsin. In Nov of 1904 he was again transferred to the Mountain Branch at Johnson City, TN. He was there until March 5, 1908, when he died at the GHI (Government Hospital for the Insane) in Washington, DC, where he was buried. Whether his body was later moved or that was originally a part of Arlington, he ultimately was buried at Arlington National Cemetery, site #17367.

Again, answers bring questions. His date of death on the papers from the Soldiers homes is 5-3-1908. Normally in military lingo that would be May 3, 1908, but if written or read wrong would be 5 March, 1908 which is the date given on the National Cemetery information.

The papers from the Soldiers homes give his height as 5’ 9” and blue eyes. He is listed as married, but gives his nearest relative as Simon R Spates, his brother, of Markville, Minnesota.

He applied for a military pension in September of 1865 (app# 89.487, cert# 257.040). Hannah applied for a pension on April 28, 1908, which answers the question of when he died. It would have to have been March 5, 1908, because May 3 would have been after her pension application date. Her application number was 891.140, and she received pension cert#668.073.

Among some of the family things that my brother has, is a picture of an unidentified man. The back of the picture puts the photographer in Chillicothe, Missouri. There was another Owens brother who lived in Missouri, but he didn’t live near Chillicothe, but Thomas J Owens lived in Dawn, Missouri, which IS near Chillicothe. I could be wrong, but I will make the assumption that this picture is of Thomas J Owens.

Thomas J Owens

According to the LDS records there was a Thomas J Owens, born to a David and Jane Owens on 8 Nov 1831 in Merioneth, Wales.

During the civil war, he was a private with C 27th Ohio Volunteer Inf, for almost 4 years from 1861 to 1865.

I found a Thomas Owen, age 40, in the 1870 census in Blue Mound Township, Livingston Co, Missouri. I was uncertain whether or not this was the correct Thomas, until I found a book in Welsh among my mother’s things. The book had “Thomas J Owens, Dawn, Missouri” written on the front page. Other items such as his obituary have since confirmed my belief that this is the correct Thomas.

He is listed in the 1880 census for Blue Mound as Thomas J Owens, widowed. All other Census records, and his obituary show that Thomas never married, but this census is definitely marked that he is a widower. I can’t find any information in cemetery records yet to show who he might have been married to. Was he married such a short time that it soon became as though he were just single, or did he not want his family back home to know that he had married? Was it just an error on the census or did he tell the census taker that he was widowed, since there was a young lady housekeeper living in the household at the time?

He is listed in the 1890 Veterans Census in Blue Mound Township. This shows that he suffered a “Gunshot in right knee”, “much disabled at present”. At some point in time he filed for a veterans pension. He was also a member of the Grand Army of the Republic, serving for a time as the post’s chaplin.

He was listed in the Blue Mound census in 1900, and continued to live there until around 1909, when he returned to Licking, Ohio.

He passed away on May 10, 1910, leaving the will that was discussed in an earlier blog.