Frank Fielden

17 Monday Nov 2014

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Iva and Frank Fielden

Iva and Frank Fielden

Last week, my sister Brenda went on a tear and starting scanning and emailing me a bunch of old family pictures she’d dug out.  One of the pictures she sent me is the one on the left of Iva and Frank Fielden.  She then asks, “Who are they?”

Considering that I hadn’t spent much time on that part of the family in the past couple weeks, I couldn’t give her a solid answer.  I knew that Frank was our great-grandfather.  Iva, however, was causing me to draw a blank.  So, without further ado, here is my very meager attempt at a biography for Frank Fielden.

Frank was born January 29, 1898 in Kentucky to Arley and June (Bennett) Fielden.  At some point between 1898 and 1910, the family moved to Jasonville, Greene County, Indiana.  Frank married Zeda Mattox in Clay County, Indiana in the summer of 1917.  The following year, they had a daughter, Edeine.  According to Frank’s World War I draft card, and some census records, he supported his family as a coal miner.  On June 11, 1920 Zeda died, and Frank was left with a toddler to raise.  As was the norm back then, he handed her off to someone else to raise.  Edeine was raised by Zeda’s sister Iva and her husband Lester Bemis.  According to my aunt, Frank would visit Edeine, but she would cry when she saw him, so he moved out of the area.

In 1929, Frank married Julia Beatty and they lived in Hymera, Sullivan County, Indiana.  In 1933, they had a son George followed by Bobby two years later.  Julia died in March 1945.

Sometime between 1945 and 1958, Frank married Iva, pictured above.  The reason I give that date range is (a) after Julia died, and (b) my aunt remembers first meeting Frank between the years of 1958 and 1961, which is when the picture was probably taken.  The Frank in the picture looks to be in his 50’s or early 60’s which would confirm this.  At some point along the way, Frank moved to Pontiac, Michigan where he would live out his remaining days.  I vaguely remember meeting him once, probably at my grandmother’s funeral in 1979.  Frank died in 1982 at the age of 84.

Sarah Lewis Fielden

16 Sunday Nov 2014

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Sarah Lewis Fielden is my 3rd great grandmother.  Census records have her born in Tennessee in May 1841, possibly in Monroe County.  Her parents are currently unknown and there is some question as to whether her maiden name is Lewis or Frye.  Her marriage record to John Wesley Fielden, entered on August 21, 1856 in Jefferson County, Tennessee, has her listed as Sarah Lewis.

Sarah and John had eight children.  Some stayed in Eastern Tennessee while at least three of the sons moved north to Kentucky.

  • Alexander (ca 1857-?)
  • John L (1862-1927)
  • Calvin (1864-?)
  • Martha (1867-?)
  • Thomas (1869-1945)
  • Stewart (1871-?)
  • Arley (1874-1918) my 2nd great grandfather, married June Bennett.
  • Ethel (1883-?)

Sarah and John lived their entire lives in Jefferson County.  She died sometime between 1900 and 1910, based on census records.

Fielden Pedigree

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Monroe County, TN is located south of Knoxville, on the western side of the Smokey Mountains.
Jefferson County, TN is northeast of Knoxville.

Richard O and Sarah Rogers Bennett

15 Saturday Nov 2014

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Today I am looking into the ancestors of Richard O. Bennett and his second wife Sarah Rogers Bennett.  They are my 3rd-great grandparents.  Much of the information I have is based on an article found in the Ohio County (KY) Times on August 5, 1971, written by Agnes D Ashby.  The Bennetts and their descendants settled in and around Ohio County, Kentucky which is one county southeast of Owensboro, KY.

Richard Bennett was born August 1, 1810 in Kentucky to Joseph and Susanna Ceckerell Bennett.  I have no information on Joseph or Susanna.  Richard was first married to Mary Jane Briscoe, supposedly in Virginia.  They had 5 children: George, Ophelia, Ethel, Sallie Ann, and Samuel.  Richard’s second marriage was to Sarah C. Rogers.  She had been married twice previously, once to a Brown and then to a Maddox.  Richard and Sarah had one daughter, June, who is my great-great-grandmother.  Richard died March 1, 1897.

Interestingly enough, three of the daughters married Fielden brothers.  June married Arley on August 14, 1895; Ethel married John on September 23, 1885; and Sallie married Thomas on February 28, 1895.

also refer back to Fielden Pedigree

Mini-Summary: The DeMoss Line

14 Friday Nov 2014

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Pedigree of Samuel T. DeMoss (1918-1955)

Pedigree of Samuel T. DeMoss (1918-1955)

For the past two weeks, I have been exclusively researching my paternal grandfather’s branch of my family.  I have made some progress extending some lines and filling in some of the blanks.  On the right is my grandfather’s pedigree chart.  The rest of the Bunnell line can be viewed on yesterday’s blog post about Sarah Ireland.  While I’m not finished working on this part of my family, it’s time to move on to the next quarter of my ancestry.

Some of the highlights, for me, about this part of the family are:

  • All 4 3rd-great grandfathers fought in the Civil War
  • All 4 sets of 3rd-great grandparents have been identified
  • Some of the vital statistics of the older lines has been substantiated with accepted source documents
  • The Bunnell line can be traced back to 1640 and the New Haven Colony.  This means my ancestors on this continent date back almost as far as the Puritans who settled at Plymouth!

Next up, I’ll be focusing my energy on my paternal grandmother’s family which starts with the Fieldens.

Sarah Ireland and beyond

13 Thursday Nov 2014

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Pedigree of Sarah Ireland Reeve

Pedigree of Sarah Ireland Reeve

Sarah Ireland is my 4th great grandmother.  She was born in Cincinnati, OH in 1810 and married Joseph Reeve (son of Joseph & Martha Richardson Reeve) in 1829 in Brownstown, IN.  They had 10 children, 7 of which lived to be adults, including my 3rd great grandmother Louisa Reeve (who married Isaac DeMoss).  By 1850 the Reeves had moved west to Daviess County, then across the river to Knox County the following decade.

Sarah’s parents were James Ireland and Sarah Bunnell.  They were originally from the Philadelphia area, but moved to western Ohio and then into Indiana.  They, too, had several children who scattered over the years–one son eventually settling in Oregon.

Pedigree of Benjamin Bonnell

Pedigree of Benjamin Bonnell

The Ireland line can be traced back two more generations with limited information.  The Bunnell line, however, has been traced back five additional generations, as illustrated by the pedigree charts of Sarah Ireland and Benjamin Bonnell.  Vital records for the 1600’s and 1700’s tend to be minimal, however, the Bunnell/Bonnell line seems to be rather well documented.  The earliest couple in the line, Nathaniel Bunnell & Susanna Whitehead were born circa 1640-1650 in New Haven Colony.  Since New Haven was established in 1638 as a British Colony, it makes them some of the earliest born settlers in the New World.  The next step is to find rosters of those who settled in New Haven during those early years.

Oliver P. & Rachel Frost McCullough

12 Wednesday Nov 2014

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Oliver P McCullough (3rd great-grandfather) was born circa 1825 in Kentucky.  He married Eliza Grimsley in 1843 in Daviess County, Indiana.  As best as can be determined, they had four children: James, Mary, Perlina and Jesse.  The 1850 census has them in Elmore Township in Daviess County, then in 1860 they had relocated southward to Steele Township.  Oliver’s wife is listed as Rebecca in 1860, so it is unclear if this is Eliza or another wife.

Indiana marriage records has Oliver wedded to Rachel Frost in Knox County, IN, in July 1862.  This is  one month before he mustered with the 83rd Infantry, Company F in southeastern Indiana as a lieutenant.  He mustered out less than a year later, in June 1863.  In 1870, the McCulloughs could be found in Richland Township, Greene County (Bloomfield), along with Oliver’s mother Elizabeth.  In 1880, they were back in Daviess County.  Oliver and Rachel had the following children:

  1. Sarah (1863-?)
  2. William (1868-?)
  3. Emily Arabelle (1870-ca. 1904) m. Frank Cox (2nd great grandparents)
  4. Perry (1873-?)
  5. Thomas (1875-?)
  6. Miranda (1879-?)

Little is known about Oliver’s parents other than his mother’s first name was Elizabeth and she was born ca 1798 in Kentucky.  I have not been able to locate Rachel prior to 1862 and her parents are a mystery as well.  Oliver and Rachel’s whereabouts are also unknown after 1880.

80th Indiana Infantry, Company C

11 Tuesday Nov 2014

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The Civil War began on April 12, 1861 at Fort Sumter, South Carolina.  Initially, seven southern states seceded from the United States to form the Confederate States of America.  This number grew to eleven before it was all said and done.  In 1862 President Abraham Lincoln raised the call to arms among the Union States, requesting 300,000 volunteers step up and help bring an end to the war.

The men of Southwestern Indiana heard the call and the 80th Indiana Infantry was formed.  The regiment consisted of 1,049 men from several southwestern counties in the state.  The men were grouped in to 10 companies identified by letters of the alphabet.  About 100 men from Edwardsport mustered together at Fort Gibson in Princeton on September 3, 1862 to form Company C.  The 80th spent their first year battling for Kentucky before moving on to Tennessee and the Siege of Atlanta.  They returned to battle in Tennessee, then were shipped to North Carolina to fight under General William T Sherman in early 1865.  They war ended in April 1865, along with the assassination of President Lincoln.  The 80th finished out their duties at Salisbury NC where they were mustered out in late June 1865.  In the end, the 80th lost 237 men to death, 49 to desertion and 3 were unaccounted for.  A more detailed account of their battles can be found in the Civil War Index and the website devoted to the 80th Indiana Volunteer Infantry.

William Lankford

William Lankford

Members of Company C were all from the Edwardsport area.  Three men in particular, John S. Cox, George W. Winkler, and Isaac DeMoss, were my 3rd great grandfathers.  All three mustered in on September 3, 1862.  Unfortunately, not all of them came home.  John died at New Haven, KY on January 14, 1863.  George and Isaac fared better, mustering out on June 22, 1865.  While all three entered service as privates, Isaac finished as a corporal.

Of course, these three were not the only ones in my family’s tree that served in Company C.  Isaac’s cousin Samuel Reeve entered as a Sergeant and had attained the rank of First Sergeant by the time he returned home in 1865.  George had two of his extended family fighting by his side.  William Lankford, George’s brother-in-law, mustered out as a Sergeant after the war while Robert Gilmore, who married one of William’s sisters, was discharged early on April 24, 1863.

Blanche Cox DeMoss Robertson

10 Monday Nov 2014

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Yesterday, when I was reviewing my information on Blanche Cox DeMoss Robertson, my great-grandmother, there were some questions raised.

  1. My data said Blanche and Samuel I. DeMoss were married in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.  This concerned me because both were born in Knox County, and census records showed they settled in Knox and Greene Counties after they were married.
  2. Blanche’s obituary listed a sister named Jessie, however, I had not located her in the census records or vital records.  I wasn’t sure when she was born or which of her father’s marriages she was a product of.

Blanche was born 1894 to Frank and Arabelle (McCullough) Cox in Knox County.  She had an older brother Raymond and three sisters—May, Anna, and Jessie—according to her obituary.  As of the 1900 Knox County Census, Jessie had not yet been born and Arabelle was still alive.

The Cox family had always lived in Knox County, but I had a 1910 Census record showing them in Cape Girardeau.  Blanche wasn’t listed with the family in the 1910 census.  She was found in another household working as a live-in maid in Cape Girardeau.  The census also listed  a woman named Mollie as Frank’s wife and that they had only been married 3 years.  So, Arabelle was gone and Jessie couldn’t be located.

A copy of Blanche and Samuel’s marriage license was indeed found in the Missouri marriages database. It was obtained on December 22, 1911 and filed on December 26.  What I am curious about is how did this marriage come about?  Samuel was about 5 years older than Blanche and the Coxes had moved to Missouri a good 4-5 years earlier.  Blanche wasn’t even 18 at the time of the wedding, so how did they get together?  Was this an arranged marriage or was he coveting her when she was 12?  At any rate, Blanche and Samuel returned to the Knox/Greene County area and went on with their lives, having four children, one of which was my grandfather Samuel T. DeMoss.  Samuel Isaac died in 1945.  Blanche married Coen Robertson before my grandfather died in 1955.  She died in 1965.

Jessie’s whereabouts were still a mystery.  I stumbled across another researcher’s data on Ancestry.com which referred to the 1910 census where she was listed as an adopted daughter of Charles and Anna Rogers in Westphalia.  Her birth was circa 1904 which would make Arabelle her mother, and most likely Arabelle died in childbirth.  Since fathers did not raise their infants back then, Jessie was given to someone else to raise; that someone else being the Rogers’.  Today I discovered that Anna Rogers was Frank’s sister, so Jessie was raised by her aunt and uncle. Yet another aunt and uncle, August and Emerine Cox Begeman lived in the next house down the road.  By 1920, I had lost Jessie again.  She wasn’t with the Rogers’ who had moved to Greene County, her sister Blanche, or the Begemans.

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Westphalia is just down the road from Edwardsport  in Widner Township, Knox County.

John S. and Mary Cox

09 Sunday Nov 2014

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John S. and Mary (?) Cox are my 3rd-great grandparents.  John was born about 1819 in Kentucky.  According to another researcher, his parents might possibly be Gabriel Squire and Nancy (Gaston) Cox.  John and Mary were married sometime between 1846 and 1849 in Indiana.  Mary’s maiden name is unknown.  She had previously been married to an Azbell and had four children from that union.  In 1850 they were residing in Elmore Township, Daviess Co, IN and moved to Vigo Township, Knox County by 1860.  In 1862, John joined the 80th Regiment of the Indiana Infantry and fought the Civil War with his neighbors in Company C.  He was killed on January 14, 1863 at a battle in New Haven, KY.  He left behind four children of his own, including my 2nd-great grandfather, Frank Cox.

In 1870, Mary and her three youngest children are living with her son Thomas Azbell and his wife Nancy in Vigo Township.  By 1880, Mary cannot be located, but Frank is still living with Thomas.

Children of Mary Azbell

  • Sarah (1838-?)
  • Isabella (1841-?)
  • William (1843-after 1910) m. Sallie ?
  • Thomas (1846-after 1880) m. Nancy Chambers

Children of John S and Mary Cox

  • Emirine (1850-1934) m. August Begeman
  • Jemima (1852-?)
  • Frank (1855-1915) m. Arabella McCullough
  • Mary A (1858-?)