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Here’s the card for my 2nd great-grandfather

and the reverse–

I got a copy of his pension packet a few years ago at the Oklahoma Historical Society.  And my grandmother, James Anderton’s granddaughter, had told me that he’d gone back to Alabama and died there.  Despite the state of Alabama telling me they couldn’t find his death record, I did find it later and he died in 1918.  And then a few years later, one of my friends found his grave for me.  He’s buried in Cochran Cemetery in Marshall County, Alabama.

The ODL website also includes the index for the Confederate Pensions, but looking through the cards that were typed in the early part of the 20th century shortly after the legislation passed 25 February 1915, gives me a better sense of the process.  Something about seeing the work of those old manual typewriters, with a red ribbon used occasionally, and the other various stamps–

Great-great grandfather James applied for his pension 3 short months after the passage of the legislation.  He lived out in the panhandle of Oklahoma, which, even today, can feel isolated from what goes on in the state capital 200 miles away.  I wonder how he got the word?

His wife of 45 years had died in April.  My grandmother told me that her grandmother Anderton had really wanted to go back home to Alabama in her later years.  They had come out to Oklahoma by 1904 when their son, my great-grandfather, married in Mangum, Greer County, Oklahoma Territory.  A few years later they all moved on out to the panhandle and received homestead land.  Three short months after he applied, his pension application was approved.  He apparently used the money to finance his return home.  His sons who had come west stayed in Oklahoma, with the exception of one whose wife had died.  The cemetery in which he is buried include Kirklands to whom I believe he is related.  His youngest daughter had married a Kirkland, and though I don’t see her name there, she may have buried her father where her husband’s family had property.

So it’s another Oklahoma resource online. It was initially fascinating to me to find that my Alabama grandfather’s military pension was available in Oklahoma. But the soldiers who had served as Confederates received pensions much later than did the Union soldiers, and then from the states in which they were living at the time rather than from the states from which they served.

Last Friday, I checked our library holdings for an index to Alabama wills.  Sure enough, I found Index to Alabama Wills, 1808-1870, indexed and published by the Alabama Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1955.  The entry for James Mitchell who died in Montgomery County provided the book (2) and page number (28), so I called the Probate Judge’s office late Friday, which, by the way, also had the index online at http://pjr.mc-ala.org/weblandrecord.  The clerk was very gracious despite my late call just before a holiday weekend, took my credit card number ($2.00), and today, I received the copy of the will.  It is difficult to read, but here’s what I believe it says: [suggested corrections welcome]

In the name of God.  Amen.

I, James Mitchell of Montgomery County and State of Alabama Considering the uncertainty of this mortal life and being of sound and perfect mind and memory and bless the almighty God for the same do make and publish this my last will and testament in manner and form following that is to say, I give bequeath and devise unto my beloved son and daughter John L. Mitchell and Mary Ann Doty all my land tenements goods chattle debts and effects of any kind or nature ?? whether real or personal lying in this or any other of the United States to be equally divided between them to have and to hold the same unto the said John L. and Mary A., their heirs and assigns forever and for the just and true appreciation of this my lasd will and testament, I do hereby appoint John S. Bailey the executor of this same hereby revoking all former wills by me made.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and affixed my seal this sixth day of February in the year of our Lord one thougsand eight hundred and twenty five and in the forty ninth year of the American Independence.

James Mitchell {seal}

?? ?? published and declared by the above named James Mitchell to be his last will and testament in his presents to have ?? unto [inscribed] our names as witness in the presents of the testator:

David/Daniel F/T Fitchell?

John Wood

M. A. Blakey

Benj Lang

Personally appeared before me in open court Daniel T. ??, John Wood, Micajah Blakey and Benjamin Lang who being duly sworn deposeth and sayeth that they were present and saw James Mitchell sign and acknowledge the annexed testament of writing as his last will and testament and that he the testastor was of sound mind at that time and that he together with the above named witnesses subscribed their names in the presents of each other sworn to and subscribed in Open Court this the 21st day of the February A.D. 1825.

Benjamin S. Bibb                                              Daniel T. ?Fitchell/

Judge County Court                                        John Wood

 

So, now, of course, I have to figure out who these witnesses are and what happened to these children.

It’s advice I’ve given lots of beginning researchers and I’ve recently encountered a situation that requires me to take my own advice.

Last year the Oklahoma Historical Society Research Division was fortunate enough to receive a grant to participate in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).  You may know this program as “Chronicling America.”  It is a wonderful, free site that provides digital images of newspapers published before 1923.  Newspapers from several states have been made available, and only recently, the first newspaper from Oklahoma was included.  These newspapers are keyword searchable, and I thought I should give it a spin.

My maternal grandmother’s family homesteaded in Beaver County.  I grew up in adjacent Ochiltree County, Texas.  So it is a part of the world I know fairly well.  I’ve written elsewhere on this blog about searching the Beaver County newspaper for an obit for my great-grandmother and instead finding a news story about her suicide.  My family did not “trade” in Beaver–they instead went across the state line to Perryton, Texas.

So while I didn’t think I’d find much, I thought I’d give it a whirl.  This time I found information about my grandmother’s grandfather.

James Anderton and his wife Sarah Davis Anderton came to Oklahoma Territory, probably about  1904.  There’s a record of a homestead filed 20 April 1905 in Beaver County and the subsequent “proving up” in 1910.  James and Sarah were in their early 60s when they came to Oklahoma from Marshall County, Alabama.  One of their sons homesteaded in Roger Mills County, but others, including my great-grandfather Robert, came on west to the panhandle.  My grandmother told me that her grandmother Anderton used to want to go back to Alabama, but she died in Beaver County, Oklahoma, 11  April 1915.  She is buried in Blue Mound Cemetery, a small country cemetery atop a slight rising in the western part of the county.

A few months later, in June, James applied for his Confederate Pension in Oklahoma.  He had served in Ward’s Battery Light Artillery from Alabama.  Oklahoma was the last state to offer pensions to Confederate vets, and James was awarded about $315 in September, 1915.  He evidently took his pension money and returned to Alabama.  He died in 1918 and is buried at Cochran Cemetery in Madison County, Alabama.

When I decided to try to search the Beaver Herald using the name “Anderton,” I expected to find several false hits on the name “Anderson.”  Instead what I found in the 15 Jan 1915 edition was an account of a the County Commissioners’ reimbursement to James Hood, for “helping arrest Jas Anderton and guarding him.”    In the same record, T. B. Jones is listed as being reimbursed for  ”car hire for Jas Anderton to Beaver.”  And then there’s the listing of B. W. Webber’s reimbursements: one entry for “board for Jas Anderton” and  one for  ”arrest of Jas Anderton, insane, guarding him and bringing him to Beaver.”

Insane?

Despite hearing lots about her family from my grandmother, I heard nothing of this incident.  Perhaps since she was 9, she wasn’t aware of it.  But my main question has to do with the nature of what precipitated this arrest.  The community where the Andertons lived was about 30 miles from Beaver, the county seat.  How did word travel to Beaver that an arrest out in the southwestern part of the county was warranted?  And what was great-great grandfather James doing to make this necessary?  Was it a case of dementia?  Was alcohol involved?  Seems like the record would indicate drunkeness if this was the case.

So many questions.  My next step for this incident is to look at court records in Beaver County courthouse.

Another example of being willing to take what is found and then needing to dig a little deeper.  As Michael John Neill said at the workshop I attended yesterday, we genealogists act like 3 year olds because we constantly ask “why?”

Beaver County, Oklahoma

Robert Anderton b. 1881 Marshall Co., AL – d. 1937 Hutchison Co., TX

my great-grandfather

(one of my favorite cemetery visits ever)

The day book of Robert Emmett Osborne (1828 AL -1910 AL)  or his son Herbert Walton.  I’ve seen pages like this in my dad’s papers–farmers are always “figuring” something–bushels to the acre, dollars per bushel,  calves per spring or some such.

A promissory note?  For rent for the month of June 1897 for Mrs. C. J. Gaye, $10 per month.

What appears to be a running tab at the local general store for one of the sons-in-law.  I had to do a little research to find out about “osnaberg” cloth.  I found it was probably the rough coarse cloth known as Osnaburg.

Tombstone for my 2nd great-grandmother Sarah Ann Davis Anderton (1841 AL – 1915 OK)

Buried in Blue Mound Cemetery

Beaver County, Oklahoma

Jonathan Osborne (c 1771 NC-1826 NC) 3rd great-grandfather
Jonathan’s father Christopher is my brickwall–the family brickwall for over 50 years. I just want to know where he came from and why he didn’t leave deeper tracks. My theory is that if I talk to Jonathan rather than his father Christopher I can find out more about the succeeding generation as well as the preceding one–conservation of resources, don’t y’know? Christopher

I want to know if Jonathan’s brother Christopher had children in his first marriage. I want to know why this Christopher’s mother-in-law, Mary Stutts Furr, disinherited her daughter, Catherine, his wife–did it have anything to do with Christopher’s first marriage or that in 1818 he moved to Alabama with other families to start Valley Creek Presbyterian Church in Dallas County, Alabama?

I want to know if Jonathan and Christopher had another sibling born after their father’s death in 1789–their father says something in his will about his belief that his wife might be pregnant. I also want to know who all his sisters married–there are names like Brown and Smith and Polk among Jonathan’s brothers-in-law and I want to know first names, marriage dates, and where this tribe ended up. Not too much to ask, do you think?

Delilah Jackson Landrum (1780 SC-1870 TX)4th great-grandmother
I’ve written about Delilah before. I first wanted to know here when I read my great Aunt Marge’s memoirs. She was writing about going to a youth camp where there were racial tensions. She was very much for accepting everyone, regardless of color or creed. She was discussing this with her father and he tells her, “You are very much like my Grandmother Delilah.” I found that statement fascinating because as far as I knew, her father, born and reared in Texas, did not have contact with his Grandmother Delilah who lived in Tennessee. On the other hand, she did spend her later years in East Texas with her youngest daughter, so perhaps he did know her. I love her self-possession when she refused to join the frenzy at the revival as I wrote about here. I have lots of questions about her Jackson family back in South Carolina, and I particularly want to know about the “Dutch fan” that her father left her in his 1817 Union County, South Carolina, will.

William Green Ball (1806 NYC-1881 IA) 4th great-grandfather

Dr. Ball is chosen as another bridge between generations. I definitely want to know more about his father–even though he was a young boy when his father died, he must know about his origins, and those of his mother. His parents were married in Baltimore, I think, in 1797, and then his father was a shipwright in New York City. After the death of his father, his mother and family moved to Clark County, Indiana and then some went on to Delaware County, Ohio. His sisters married well–one married twice, first to the district attorney and state congressman, and then to another attorney who was a national congressman. What was the basis of these sorts of alliances? And I also want to know what kind of medical training Dr. Ball went through–I believe he did that while he was living in Indiana, but who was his mentor and how did he come to that profession?

What can Dr. Ball tell me about his wife’s family? Why did they move from Tennessee to Indiana? Who was the minister, John M. Dickey, who appeared on so many of their records? How did his being an abolitionist fit in with their own beliefs?

It was Dr. Ball and his wife who reared their granddaughter Martha Jane after her father was killed enroute to “the West” and then her mother died shortly thereafter. How did they learn of their sons’ deaths? What were the circumstances under which those two sons were moving? Did Dr.and Mrs. Ball plan to join them in the west?

And, finally, what was the impetus for this man to move from New York City to Indiana to Missouri to Iowa to Kansas to Arkansas and then back to Iowa?

Sarah Ann Davis Anderton (1841 AL-1915 OK) Great-great grandmother
I don’t know very much about my Anderton and Davis lines from Alabama. There were about a zillion Anderton families in Marshall County and most of them were named John or James. I believe I have the right line back to a James Anderton, b. Virginia about 1760. This is not work I’ve done myself, but I believe it’s probably correct.

I don’t even have all of Sarah Ann and her husband James’ children all documented. Some of the older daughters stayed in Alabama when they came to Oklahoma after the Civil War. I always have questions about what makes a family move that far to an area that must be unfamiliar to them, not to mention what would possess them to move to the Oklahoma panhandle, aka “No Man’s Land.” Their granddaughter, my grandmother, told me that they did logging back in Alabama–they floated the logs down the river. That kind of work was certainly not a big draw here in Oklahoma. I suppose it was the opening of the land that drew them. They were still in Alabama on the 1900 census, but by 1910, they had “proved up” on their land in Beaver County, Oklahoma. I have their homestead files and they worked hard.

I found this picture of them in a county history, she’s on the left and he’s on the right. One reason she is dear to me is that she doesn’t appear to be “dainty.” And doesn’t he look like the stereotypical Civil War vet?

Sarah Ann is buried out in Blue Mound Cemetery in Beaver County, Oklahoma.

My grandmother told me she really wanted to go back to Alabama but she died before that could happen. Her husband James got his Civil War pension here in Oklahoma– he’d served in the artillery back in Alabama. He was approved and apparently went back to Alabama. Years ago, I sent for his death certificate only to be told that it could not be located. Then a few years ago, I was at Samford Institute in Birmingham, Alabama with some friends. The husband of that group was going out to do some research and I told him if her ran across a tombstone for James Anderton, to be sure to let me know. Amazingly enough, he did. He’s been my genealogical hero ever since. James evidently died in March 1918 and he’s buried in Cochran Cemetery.

Anyway, I have lots of questions for Sarah. Her mother’s maiden name was Campbell–another name I haven’t pursued due to the overwhelming amount of info and my lack of familiarity with records in that part of the country. Her father left all of his 1868 estate, 1450 acres, to his youngest son, Joseph Montgomery Davis, with the proviso that he care for the oldest son, William B. Davis. What were the circumstances that required this sort of care? The will did not stand and the estate was eventually equally divided among the widow and 8 children, including Sarah.

So those are the folks I want to interview, two from the maternal and two from the paternal. I want them to know how much I’ve enjoyed learning more about them and how much I honor their lives and their sacrifices. It’s not surprising that I’ve already written about some of these folks–their lives and times are the targets of some of my greatest curiosity.

I don’t know yet what we’ll have to eat, but I’ll definitely cook. I’ll bet those grandmothers could use the rest.