The Poynette Academy: 52 Ancestors 2024 Prompt “School Days”

 

Harriet Weir Green: Educator and Matron at Her Father’s School

Harriet Weir Green: 1848-1932 (Maternal 2^nd Cousin 3x Removed)

Susan Mary Weir, discussed in my last post, died at age 53, leaving two grown children and a husband. Susan’s husband, William Lewis Green, had served as schoolteacher while young, and then became a Presbyterian minister. After Susan’s death, he combined his two professions, opening a faith-based school in the small city of Poynette, Wisconsin. Susan and William’s daughter, Harriet Weir Green, became an indispensable member of the school faculty as both a teacher and school matron.

Harriet Weir Green was born in October 1848 in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, where her father, William, worked as a schoolteacher. William began serving as a church pastor in the 1850s, leading the family to frequently relocate. By the time Harriet was thirty years old, the family had lived in Wisconsin, Kansas, and Illinois. While Harriet’s brother William married and became a successful and wealthy businessman, moving to California, Harriet remained at home, probably caring for her parents.

Following her mother’s death when Harriet was 31 years old, her father took a ministerial position in the town of Poynette, Wisconsin. Harriet moved there with him. Around 1883, William decided to purchase an old hotel to convert into a school. According to a history of the school written by Emilie Heidemann, William wanted to give low-income children “a biblical alternative to public school” and train them to “lead ‘useful’ lives.” She stated that “Green developed a curriculum that incorporated the Bible’s words into various courses.”

Vintage postcard showing the Poynette Academy

William needed to staff his school when it opened in 1884, and I hypothesize he hired an experienced teacher from the area named Fanny Curtis. Miss Curtis had been involved in the organization of the Poynette Teachers Association in 1875, so was a long-time teacher.

William and Fanny quickly moved beyond a professional relationship, marrying January 1, 1885. Fanny was 33 years old. William was 59, twenty-six years her senior. Harriet was three years older than her new stepmother.

Harriet continued to live in the household, even as her father and stepmother started a family, having two little girls, Fannie Christina, born in 1888, and Margaret Ruth, born in 1890.

William Green put a lot of thought into the school and its curriculum. He had acquired fifty acres of farmland to support students interested in agriculture. In addition, he expanded the school building so that it could become a boarding school. The Heidemann article stated that:

“In 1887, Green had the institute building moved slightly west, and a new building constructed in the front. The old building then became a dormitory.

According to an entry from the Poynette Press dated Aug. 21, 1891, the autumn term of the institute commenced on the first Wednesday of September. Tuition in the primary department of the school was $3, and tuition in the intermediate and academic departments was $5.”

According to Harriet’s obituary, she began teaching at the academy in 1881, which cannot be correct as the Academy didn’t open until 1884. However, we can assume that she took on teaching duties from the beginning. The obituary described her as “widely known in Wisconsin as a Bible student” so it seems possible that she taught religion classes at the school.

The 1900 census provides some fascinating information about the Academy. First, Harriet, or Hattie as she was going by, had her occupation listed as “matron of school”, but her father, listed as “Dr. Green” although he was a minister not a PhD, had the occupation of “farmer”!

Two other teachers are included on the census, one a 28-year-old woman and one a 33-year-old woman. Their names were followed by the names of 26 boarding students. To my surprise, these students were far older than I had expected. They ranged in age from sixteen to thirty! Obviously, this Academy was more akin to a private college or trade school than a high school.

William Green’s health failed as he grew older. Poynette Academy actually closed for two years between 1901 and 1903 due to his incapacitation. A new school president took charge and the school reopened in 1903. The Heidemann article stated there were 38 students and five teachers.

William Green died later that year on July 28, 1903. He was 77 years old.

Tragically, his much younger wife, Fanny, developed breast cancer and died just three years later on January 6, 1906. She was only 54.

This left Harriet, then 57 years old, responsible for her two young half-sisters, who were sixteen and nineteen. She ran the household while they completed schooling. In addition, Harriet continued to teach at the Academy until it closed its doors in 1911 when it consolidated with Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Heidemann wrote:

“According to an article in the Poynette Press dated Feb. 3, 1911, while the institute was quite prosperous, ‘the improvement in free high schools and the introduction of their courses of such branches as manual learning and domestic science, had an undermining effect on the Poynette Academy, which finally dissolved in June, 1911.’”

Harriet’s half-sisters continued to live with her through their twenties. Her younger half-sister, Ruth, married and had a daughter she named Harriet Ruth Terry, a tribute to her older sister. Following Ruth’s divorce and mental health issues that left her institutionalized in Rock Island, Illinois, Harriet raised her young half-niece as well until her own health failed and half-sister Christina took over the household. Harriet Terry followed her aunt Harriet Green into the teaching profession.

Harriet Weir Green died December 20, 1932 at the age of eighty-four. She was buried in Poynette near her father, stepmother and eventually her half-sister Christina, who died in 1947.

The Poynette Academy building was repurposed first as a hotel, and then as an office building. It still stands on Main Street in Poynette, and houses several businesses as well as the Wisconsin Wildlife Federation.

Old Academy building today

Sources:

Poynette history: Main Street building was once Poynette Academy. Emilie Heidemann. lpnews@hngnews.com Dec 29, 2017. https://www.hngnews.com/lodi_enterprise/main-street-building-was-once-poynette-academy/article_480e4c83-067c-5e3b-b56e-e3ba48ef122c.html

https://www.newspapers.com/image/611062394/?xid=5591&clipping_id=142329635

1900 Census. https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/73546240:7602?ssrc=pt&tid=81812584&pid=262552947986

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/27139342/harriet-weir-green?

Seeing Double: 52 Ancestors 2024 Prompt “Changing Names”

 

Untangling the Married Names of Two Susan Mary Weirs

Susan Mary Weir: 1815-1897 (Maternal 2^nd Great-Grandaunt)
Susan Mary Weir: 1826-1879 (Maternal First Cousin 4x Removed)

I was very confused when I started working on Samuel Miller Weir’s daughter Susan Mary Weir. I was getting Ancestry hints showing two very different birthdates some ten-plus years apart, two husbands who lived in different states, and a variety of crazy death dates. I realized that there must be two Susan Mary Weirs, both born in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, and born to two different Weir fathers who were related to one another. But teasing out which woman was which was still amazingly difficult, in part because several other trees on Ancestry had connected the wrong married name to the wrong woman, and in part because one Susan Mary seems to have disappeared without a death or burial record.

So who were the two women’s parents?

Susan Mary Weir #1 was born September 25, 1815 to Samuel Miller Weir and wife Elizabeth Vanlandingham. Susan Mary Weir #2 was born in 1826 to James Weir and wife Anna Cowman Rumsey. Samuel Miller Weir and James Weir were brothers, so the two Susan Mary Weirs were first cousins. Samuel Miller Weir was a farmer in Paradise, Kentucky, while his brother James lived fourteen miles away in Greenville, Kentucky and was a successful merchant.

Susan Mary Weir #1 was reasonably easy to track once I had determined her married name. Her life followed a traditional path of marriage to a man from her home county, raising several children with him, and dying in old age.

Susan married on Valentine’s Day 1838. She was 22 years old. Her husband, Thomas Jefferson Rice, was 34, twelve years her senior, and farmed in Muhlenberg County. This was his second marriage. His first wife, Lucinda, had died in 1836, leaving him to raise their little daughter, Lucy, alone.

Susan soon had more children to raise in addition to Lucy. Susan and Thomas had four daughters (Elizabeth, Nancy or Nannie, Frances or Fannie, and Susan) and one son (Samuel Ezekiel) over an 18 year period. Interestingly, and even more confusingly for me, two of their daughters, Elizabeth and Fannie, married Rice cousins, so both their maiden and married surnames were Rice.

Susan’s husband, Thomas Jefferson Rice, died April 7, 1856 at the young age of 51 years. I have been unable to find his cause of death. Susan never remarried, raising her children alone. In her later years, she lived with her children’s families. At the time of the 1870 census, she was living with Elizabeth and her husband James Rice, and at the time of the 1880 census, she was living with Fannie and Francis Rice and their children.

Susan Weir Rice died October 13, 1897 in Muhlenberg County, and was buried in the Rice Family Cemetery in Greenville. The only death record available is her headstone. She was 82 years old.

Susan Mary Weir #2 had a rather interesting life and a mysterious death. Susan was the youngest of James Weir’s five children with his first wife Anna Cowman Rumsey. Her mother died in 1838 when she was twelve years old. Her father remarried a year later, and then married a third time in 1844 when Susan was eighteen. Sadly, her father died the following year on August 9, 1845, and her stepmother gave birth later that year to Susan’s half-sister, Ruth, who seems to have died early in childhood.

Susan married August 27, 1846, a year and two weeks after her father’s death. She was twenty years old, and her husband, a teacher in Muhlenberg County named William Lewis Green, was also twenty. William’s father was a judge, and another Green relative, Rev. Joshua Green, performed Susan and William’s marriage.

William became a minister, and by the time of the 1860 census, he was serving a Presbyterian church in Dane County, Wisconsin. The following article suggests he had held a clergy position in Green Bay and then in Watertown, Wisconsin. He and Susan had two children, William, born June 15, 1849, and Harriet, born in October of 1848.

The 1870 census found them in a new state, Kansas, where William was working as a minister in the town of Stanger.

Between those two periods, I found a rather unsettling newspaper notice. Over the course of several days during the month of September 1866, the Louisville Daily Courier ran notices of a “Commissioner’s Sale of Valuable Town Property in Hopkinsville, Ky”. The notice stated that the sale was being held as the result of a judgment rendered in the Christian County Circuit Court in a lawsuit. The plaintiffs were “William L. Green, Matthew T. Scott, Guardian of Harriet and William L. Green, infants of William L. and Susan Green, and Harriet Green and William L. Green”. The defendant was Susan Green.

What could this lawsuit mean? It appears to have been an attempt by William to gain control of land Susan inherited from her father. James Weir had considerable real estate holdings over several counties in Kentucky, and gave these Hopkinsville, Kentucky lots to his daughter in his will. See the relevant passage below. Apparently William took his own wife to court to force her to sell her inheritance to support her own children. This seems a very un-Christian-like action by Rev. Green. Interestingly, the county Commissioner who would be handling the land sale resulting from the suit was a Thomas Green, probably another member of the Reverend’s family. I wonder just how fairly Susan was treated in this lawsuit, and how many members of the jury were related to her husband.

The Greens moved frequently during their marriage. I wonder how much this could be attributed to a very unhappy marriage. I can’t believe that Susan wasn’t deeply hurt by William’s lawsuit. She probably felt helpless with her only assets stripped from her, leaving her totally dependent on William. Or perhaps she was physically or mentally ill, and was unable to manage her affairs, which led William to proactively control her assets. I wish I could find the records of the lawsuit that would explain her husband’s reasons for suing her.

Poor Susan seems to just disappear after the family left Kansas. Apparently they relocated to Illinois where they appear in the 1880 census in Peoria. By that point, the power in the Green family appears to have shifted to Susan and William’s son, William. Then 29 years old, young William appears as the head of the household, which includes his wife Bertha. He is working as a “commission merchant”. Also in the household are his sister Harriet and his father William. While William Sr. is still listed as a minister, his marital status now shows him as a widower.

So apparently Susan died at some point during the 1870s. I could find no obituaries or death notices for her in any of the various states she had lived, which is odd. I would have expected her hometown newspaper to have printed some sort of notice given her family’s prominence and wealth. The only record I was able to find was a Findagrave entry. It lists a Susan Green born around 1825 who died in December 1879 and was buried in the Springdale Cemetery in Peoria, Illinois, the same town where the rest of her family were living the following year.

While at this point, I have no definitive proof the Springdale Cemetery Susan is the correct woman, I found some information that supports my hypothesis. The Findagrave entry notes that Susan Green was “removed from cemetery Feb 9, 1923, cremated and shipped to CA by Wiltons Mortuary.” Susan’s son William became a very successful businessman involved in banking. He and his wife Bertha moved to Pasadena, California a few years before 1910. They lived in handsome homes there, and William’s obituary states he was “one of Pasadena’s foremost wealthy men.” 

One of the Pasadena homes William Green lived in around 1910.

He died January 1, 1923, and was buried with his wife in Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena. I hypothesize that his will may have provided for his mother’s body to be disinterred, cremated and buried with his body in California. The timing of her removal just weeks after his death is persuasive. Perhaps someday I will be able to find his probate records and prove my hypothesis.

As for Susan’s husband and daughter, I found some fascinating information about their lives following Susan’s death. I will present that in another blog post.

In conclusion, names can be confusing things in genealogical research. Names can be repeated across generations in a single family, or be shared by unrelated families who live in the same general area, and of course women’s names offer additional challenges as they change upon marriage.  The two Susan Mary Weirs are perfect examples of how names can be puzzling. While these two women were related and had the same birth name, they had very different lives—as different as their married surnames were.

 

Sources:

James Weir Will. Muhlenberg County Kentucky Will Book III, pages 72-75. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-9P3G-NK3?i=323&cc=1875188

Marriage record for William Green and Susan M Weir. Kentucky, U.S., county Marriage Records, 1783-1965. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/61372/images/TH-1971-28953-22538-3?pId=901860963

Commissioners’ Sale. Louisville Daily Courier, Louisville, KY. September 10, 1866. Newspapers.com.

Findagrave entries for Susan Rice and Susan Green. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/138666564/susan-m-green