Research Library Surprise: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “At the Library”

Google Search on Archie Shields Turns Up Surprise Collection of Papers in Library Archives at University of Michigan

Archibald Shields: 1899-1965

 

Great-Uncle Archie Shields (brother of Grandmother May Shields Aird)  turned out to be a man of many surprises. My initial research unearthed his World War I military records, detailing his service with the Canadian Expeditionary Forces. This would have made perfect sense if Archie had been Canadian, but he was born and raised in the United States. How did he end up enlisting in Canada? While trying to solve this puzzle, I conducted a Google search on his name and military unit. To my surprise, the search pulled up his name as the subject of a collection of letters, papers and photographs held in a research library at the University of Michigan! I had to know more!

Passport photo of Archie as a young man

Apparently Archie's letters to family members from his time in the Canadian military were donated to the Manuscripts Division of the William L. Clements library sometime around 2019.  The materials are open for research, so can be requested for viewing and reading at the library. 

Vintage postcard of the William L Clements Library building

The library's information on the collection includes an excellent summary of Archie’s life, as follows:

“Archibald "Archie" Shields was born September 7, 1899, in Hamilton, Ohio, to Jane Mary Seller Pollok (1868-1954) and John Sutherland Shields (1865-1959). Both of his parents were originally from Scotland and resided in Dutch Suriname for a time before immigrating to the United States. Shields had four sisters: Mary "May" Seller Shields (1893-1988), Margaret Sutherland Shields (1896-1993), Bethia Jane Shields (1901-1978), and Ruth Dorothy Shields (1904-1995). In 1916, seeking independence, Shields ran away to Windsor, Ontario, Canada, and joined the 99th Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Following the war, Shields studied fruit farming at Michigan State University and worked for several years in Barahona, Dominican Republic. After returning to Detroit, he worked as a salesperson for Hudson's, Kern's, and the Foley Company. Archie Shields married Ruth Harvey Patterson (1904-1994) on July 2, 1928. He died on April 2, 1965, and is buried in North Farmington Cemetery in Farmington Hills, Michigan.”

The library also provided a synopsis of the collection’s contents, which sound absolutely fascinating. Here is the library’s description:

‘This collection is made up of 71 items, including 28 letters written by Archibald "Archie" Shields of Detroit, Michigan, to his parents and sisters while serving in the Canadian Expeditionary Force during World War I. Shields served in France on the Western Front and, while on leave, visited friends and family in Scotland. The remaining materials include documents, ephemera, photographs, printed items, and one VHS tape.

“The Correspondence Series is comprised of 28 letters written by Archie to his parents and sisters during his time in the Canadian Infantry during World War I. The correspondence begins when Shields's battalion mobilized in May 1916. He quartered in London, Ontario, Canada, for several weeks before traveling through Toronto, Montreal, and New Brunswick, to board the troop ship Olympic at Halifax, Nova Scotia. After arriving in England in early June, the battalion was stationed at Otterpool Camp in Kent, where Shields applied for a transfer to become a driver and the 99th Battalion dissolved into the 35th. Towards the end of September, Shields went to France as part of the 21st Battalion. Admitted to the hospital in March 1917 for "swollen glands and sore throat," he became a patient in the 16th General Hospital in France, 1st Southern General Hospital in Birmingham, and Hillingdon House Hospital in Uxbridge. Following his recovery, Shields spent time visiting relatives and family friends in Scotland but was punished upon his return for taking longer leave than approved. He took subsequent leaves to Paris and Scotland. The last of the letters is dated November 5, 1918.

RMS Olympic in WWI--troop ship that carried Archie to England

“Shields's letters include descriptions of camp life and military training (marksmanship, stretcher bearing, trench digging), requests for parcels, requests and comments on news from home (include fundraising efforts), notes on letters and packages received, comments on friends' and relatives' military experiences, and remarks on his own experiences (including censorship, shelling, and life in the trenches). Envelopes are included with most letters, many with an "Opened By Censor" label attached. Shields wrote some of his letters on YMCA "With His Majesty's Canadian Forces on Active Service" stationery.

Hat pin for Archie's battalion, the 21st Canadian

“The Documents and Ephemera Series contains a worn black wallet with two colorful military uniform bars, a small black flip notebook, three Canadian Expeditionary Force pay books, and items commemorating the installation of a memorial window at St. Paul's Anglican Church in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, in 2007. Contained in the black wallet are a photograph of Archie Shields in uniform, a 1922 10,000 reichsmark note, and a military pass. The black notebook contains names and addresses of acquaintances, military tactics notes, and brief journal entries respecting Shields's time at the front in France until his admission to the hospital in England; in its pocket is a torn scrap of paper with the header "Plantation Alliance, Suriname, Dutch Guyana." Laid into one of Shields's pay books are assorted papers, including a telegram from his Aunt Effie, railway tickets, calling cards (Clarisse Dalouze and Marie Dalouze of Trazegnies, Belgium, and Armand Loutz of Spy, Namur, Belgium), and a postcard from a watch repair shop.”

There are so many wonderful items in this collection that I want to see, read and copy for family records. The library provided so many tantalizing pieces of information--such as Archie’s agriculture studies in fruit propagation that led to work in the Dominican Republic, and his visits to Shields family members in Scotland--that I had not discovered through traditional research. The collection also includes photos that we have never seen. I checked with other family members, and none were aware that Archie’s papers had been donated to the University of Michigan Libraries. I assume one of his children made the donation, but I have no evidence to support my supposition.

Archie Shields later in life...

I am eager to visit the William L. Clements Library at some point to see the collection in person, as the materials are not available online. I am so grateful that I decided to Google Archie’s name! What a wonderful surprise!

Sources:

Archie Shields papers (1916-1918, 2007, bulk 1916-1918). Collection processed and finding aid created by Sara Quashnie, February 2019. Manuscripts Division, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan.

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/c/clementsead/umich-wcl-M-7108shi?id=navbarbrowselink;view=text

Shields, Archibald. Personnel Records of the First World War, Library and Archives Canada, http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.item/?op=pdf&app=CEF&id=B8864-S023. Accessed February 22, 2019

Aird, John Shields. Memoirs of John S. Aird, http://www.steveaird.org/Steve_Airds_Homepage/John_Shields_Aird_files/Memoirs%20of%20John%20S.%20Aird.pdf. Accessed February 20, 2019.

 

Tuberculosis’ Tragic Toll on Goode Family: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Free Space”

TB's Devastation in the Early 1900s

Charles Holmes Goode: 1870-1921
William Seaton Goode: 1877-1900
Ivy Louise Goode Settle: 1881-1901
Gertrude Goode Davis: 1887-1916
Irene Blanche Goode: 1889-1909

 

The family of Sarah “Fannie” Moseley, second great-grandaunt and sister of Susan Moseley Leachman, was devastated by tuberculosis early in the 20^th century. Between the years of 1900 and 1921, Sarah and her husband, James Thornton Goode, lost five of their adult children to the disease. Four were stricken in their early twenties, just at the point in their lives when they should have been forming families and establishing careers.

The first two decades of the twentieth century saw the first steps toward the treatment of “consumption” or more accurately, tuberculosis. Until 1900, doctors hadn’t really understood that TB was a contagious disease, and even into the 1920s there weren’t effective treatments other than fresh air, which helped to fight contagion and supposedly helped sufferers breathe more easily. Sanitariums were being established nationwide during this period to deal with those with severe infection, and many patients were sent to the desert Southwest in the hopes that the drier climate would help their lungs improve. Before 1900, one out of every seven humans had died of tuberculosis, showing how devastating the disease could be.

Tuberculosis was probably rampant in rural McLean County, Kentucky in the first two decades of the 1900s. According to Wikipedia, there was a severe outbreak in Jefferson County around 1900 that was referred to as the White Plague. The area around Louisville also had high caseloads, which were attributed to the damp, river-bottom air. A sanitarium was established in Jefferson County to handle the large number of seriously ill patients. However, most people still chose to nurse family members at home, as the Goode family did.

Quite probably, the Goode family members infected one another with the disease. They may have all been exposed during childhood, with the disease only becoming apparent as they grew older and sicker. Some TB sufferers were able to recover and lead a fairly normal life after infection, and it appears the Goodes hoped to do so. All of them had attended school as teens, and Charles, Ivy, and Gertrude all chose to marry.

Ivy Goode's marriage and death

Ivy, born in 1881, married in 1898 at age 16, dying just three years later at nineteen. She had no children. Fortunately, her husband, Frederick Settle, did not contract TB, and was able to remarry and have a family.

Marriage and death of Gertrude Goode

Gertrude was six years younger than Ivy, and in 1907 married James Davis, a funeral director and livery owner. By 1910, the young couple had a little daughter, Opal. They went on to have another daughter before Gertrude’s death in 1916 at only 28. According to her death certificate, her pulmonary tuberculosis had been present for eleven months, but I suspect she carried the disease for far longer.

Charles was considerably older than Ivy and Gertrude. He was born in 1870, and was a local farmer. He married an older widow with two children when he was 26. He succumbed to tuberculosis at age 51, on May 30, 1921. It is hard to know how many years he had been sick, or if he contracted it later in life from his much younger siblings.

Willie Goode's death and headstone

The final two deaths were very sad. Willie Seaton Goode, born in 1877, was only 23 when he died at his parents’ home. The youngest child in the family, Irene Blanche Goode, died September 8, 1909; she was barely twenty years old. They probably spent most of their lives as adults aware they faced a death sentence.

Irene Goode death and headstone

Surprisingly, Fannie and James Thornton Goode never seem to have contracted the disease, despite caring for at least two of their ill children. JT died at age 78 in 1923, while Fannie lived until 1940, dying at age 90.

With the introduction of streptomycin in 1943, tuberculosis patients received effective treatment that cut the death rate dramatically. Sadly, the Goode family was unable to take advantage of this new medical breakthrough. Their family had already been devastated.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_tuberculosis

https://www.wave3.com/story/29253927/tuberculosis-in-kentuckiana-history-and-treatment/

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/plague-gallery/

Brothers-in-Arms Become Brothers-in-Law : 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Service”

Civil War Service Leads to Familial Bond

George Washington Moseley: 1843-1907. Second Great-Granduncle
James Thornton Goode: 1845-1923. Husband of Second Great-Grandaunt.

 

While researching the Robert C Moseley Family Cemetery in McLean County, Kentucky, I ran across a photo of a monument honoring a Civil War infantry unit. I scanned the list of soldiers, and spotted two familiar names in the second line: the unit’s two lieutenants were Moseley family members, brothers-in-law George Washington Moseley and James Thornton Goode, the husband of George’s sister Sarah Frances “Fannie” Moseley Goode. As Kentuckians, these two men could have fought on either side of the Civil War—Kentucky never seceded but sent plenty of residents to fight for the Confederacy. However, these two men chose to fight for the Union. I needed to learn more about their service.

Monument honoring 35th KY Regiment

George Moseley was born March 23, 1843 to parents Robert Cartwright Moseley and Nancy Archibald Moseley. He was the third of their nine children, and the eldest of their two sons. Robert and Nancy were my husband’s third-great-grandparents. George was brother to Susan Elizabeth Moseley, Bruce’s second-great-grandmother.

At age 20, George enlisted in the 35^th Regiment Kentucky Infantry. According to Family Search’s wiki about the regiment,

“The 35th Kentucky Mounted Infantry was organized on the 26th day of September, 1863, at Owensboro, Kentucky, under Colonel E.A. Starling and mustered into the United States service on the 2nd day of October 1863. This Regiment was recruited under the most difficult circumstances; the State, at that time, being overrun with guerrillas, making it exceedingly hazardous for officers to recruit and retain their men in camp. It mustered out on December 29th, 1864 at Louisville, Kentucky.[1

The difficult task Starling faced in recruitment probably explains why two very young and inexperienced men, George at age 20, and his friend James Thornton Goode, only 18 years old, were given officer positions. George served as Col. Starling’s First Lieutenant, and Thornton was the Second Lieutenant. I wonder how the men serving under these two green officers felt about them. Did they resent having to follow their orders, or were they just relieved that someone other than themselves was tasked with a difficult job that put them in the crosshairs of the Confederate guerrillas?

Colonel E. A. Starling and two soldiers--could they be George and James Thornton?

I found this photo of Col. Starling online, with two “unidentified soldiers”. I wonder if those two obviously young men weren’t Starling’s two lieutenants? Having no photographs of George or Thornton in their younger years to compare to this photo, it is impossible to prove one way or the other.

The 35^th Regiment was a mounted unit, although not officially designated as mounted infantry. I was unsure of how mounted infantry differed from cavalry, but my research showed that cavalry units fought while on their horses, while mounted infantry used horses to move from one location to another rapidly, but they fought on foot. That was apparently how the 35^th Kentucky operated. Certainly moving by horse rather than on foot would have been necessary when fighting guerilla attacks—the unit would have needed to move very quickly.

Although George and Thornton served only a little over a year in the Union army, they saw a decent amount of action. According to the unit’s records on Wikipedia, the unit spent much of its time in central and eastern Kentucky repelling Confederate guerilla fighters from the area between the Cumberland and Green Rivers. In the fall of 1864, the unit was sent to Virginia as part of General Burbridge’s Expedition, and they fought in the battle of Saltville. They were sent back to Louisville in November 1864 and were mustered out in December. The unit lost eight men in battle, and an additional 49 men to disease.

Interestingly, both George and Thornton were still single men when they enlisted and served. After being discharged at the end of 1864, perhaps both men were suddenly aware of their mortality, and were ready to move forward and establish families. Perhaps they wanted to choose life and a future over the death and destruction they witnessed at war. Whatever their motivation, just months after returning home, both men chose to marry. George, being the elder at 22, picked a bride first. He married Mary Ellen Hancock on May 22, 1865. Mary was only sixteen, while George was 22. Interestingly, Mary Ellen’s brother John C. Hancock married George’s sister Ara Lavina just a few years later. Tragically, she died at only age 22.

Thornton took a few more months to court George’s younger sister Fannie. They married less than a year after his return on October 19, 1865. Fannie was only sixteen. Thornton was barely twenty.

George in old age

George and Thornton chose to remain in McLean County, Kentucky. They both farmed and raised families. George and Mary Ellen had at least eight children, while Thornton and Fannie had a dozen children! Both men received pensions as Civil War Veterans.

Civil War Pension card for James Thornton Goode

George died August 4, 1907 at age 64. He had been ill for several weeks, long enough for several of his surviving children to reach his bedside. 

Thornton died May 3, 1923 at age 78. According to his obituary, he had been legally blind for over fifty years! Someone found a poem in his family Bible that he supposedly wrote, which I include below (if he truly were blind, how did he write a poem?).

These two men began as brothers-in-arms and friends, accepting great responsibility at a very young age and serving their country with honor. They became brothers-in-law, their wartime bond becoming permanent.

Sources:

https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/35th_Regiment,_Kentucky_Infantry_(Union)

http://sites.rootsweb.com/~kymercer/CivilWar/Union/35inf/35inf-3.html

https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Mounted_infantry

http://www.civilwararchive.com/Unreghst/unkyinf4.htm#35th

The Fate of John H. Gregg’s Children: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Extended Family”: Part 1

 

California Dreaming: The Lives of Three Second-Cousins-Twice-Removed

Samuel Gregg: 1865-1888
Wallace Gregg: 1876-1944
Blanche Clementine Gregg: 1881-1975

The Gregg family built on their parents’ legacy of farmland and real estate in Southern California. I enjoyed learning about them, so will briefly describe their lives and pursuits. Sometimes extended family have fascinating personal histories, as these brief summaries of three Gregg siblings show.

The Extended Gregg Family circa 1915

Samuel Gregg:

Samuel was the oldest of the three sons that were emancipated as minors by their father in 1882. Samuel was 17 at the time, and probably helped to care for his younger brothers. He appears in an L.A. city directory in 1886 as a student at the University of Southern California. 

On June 11, 1888, he is listed in the L.A. Herald, along with brothers James and Gus, as a USC student. This is the last record I can find for Samuel. He apparently died November 5, 1888, and is buried in the family plot at Rose Hills Memorial Park. Strangely, there is no mention of his death in the newspapers. He was only 23. 

Wallace Gregg:

According to his obituary, Wallace became involved in real estate as a youth, helping the surveyors lay out the city of Whittier. He went on to run a walnut orchard (his grandfather’s property?), becoming manager of the Los Nietos Walnut Growers Association, and also director of the Whittier Citrus Association—appropriate as he was born in the city of Orange during his father’s years running a citrus nursery. 

His main business was the Wallace Gregg agency, which sold both real estate and insurance. The local newspaper, The Whittier News, was filled with his company’s advertisements for farmland, homes and building lots. One of the May 10, 1913 ads stated:

 “Houses, $1000 to $20,000. Any price you want, any location you may be looking for. We are selling them every day. Why? Because we have the goods to deliver. We make a specialty of houses—good homes in the city of Whittier, that’s why.”

Sale ads from single issue of Whittier News, May 10, 1913

He invested in a large Whittier furniture company, was president of the Rotarians, and founded and was president of the Whittier Building & Loan Association. He had quite the monopoly on real estate in the Whittier area: he sold it, insured it, and provided the funding and mortgages for the transactions. He was a very successful businessman.

Wallace married Mabel Smith of Los Angeles in March of 1904. They had three children, Wallace Jr. in 1908, Margaret in 1914, and Mabel in 1917. Wallace died at age 68 on September 17, 1944.

Blanche Gregg Vaux:

Blanche moved to Los Angeles with her mother around 1904, following her father’s death, where she met a German immigrant by the name of Richard Laux. They married September 9, 1911. According to the write-up of their wedding, Richard was a college graduate who moved to California two years earlier, and worked for a large New York firm in the “importing business.” The couple had an elaborate wedding at the L.A. Masonic Temple, with 300 guests and green and white decorations designed by the members of the Eastern Star, the Masons’ women’s group. 

Following the wedding, the couple moved to New York, where their three children, Alice, Katherine and Richard Jr., were born. Sadly, Richard died at age 40 on June 29, 1920. The couple were on an extended visit to Blanche’s brother Gus’s home when Richard suffered a heart attack. The newspaper report stated that, “Mr. Laux has been afflicted with a weak heart for years, but his death came very unexpectedly.” Blanche and her children moved back to Whittier to live near her family. She worked as a bookkeeper, and died September 15, 1975.  

Sources:

“Richard Laux is Called by Death”. Whittier News 30 June 1920.  https://www.newspapers.com/paper/the-whittier-news/22542/

Newspapers.com clippings from Whittier News. 

Findagrave.com

Gregg Family’s Early Years in California: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Fun Facts”

Covered Wagon Train to Running Citrus Nursery: Gregg Family’s Interesting History

John Henry Gregg: 1836-1891 (husband of 1^st Cousin 3x Removed)

Susannah Vaught Hargrave Gregg: 1842-1923 (1^st Cousin 3x Removed)

Robert Hargrave: 1816-1881 (Husband of 2^nd great-grandaunt Sisera Bland Smith)

 

First cousins three times removed might seem like too distant a family relationship to spend time researching, but sometimes these extended family members have the most interesting stories that bring our nation’s history to vivid, dramatic life. In this case, cousin Susannah Vaught Hargrave was born in Indiana, married John H. Gregg in Texas, and ended up moving to Orange County in the 1870s, a period before it even became Orange County! Since we now live in Orange County, I was intrigued, and began looking at newspaper articles about the family on Newspapers.com. To my delight, I ran across an absolute gem: a photo-studded feature story from the November 18, 1954 issue of the Whittier News titled “Descendants of Pioneer Gregg Family Tell of Wagon Train Trip from Texas.” This article provided a treasure trove of fun facts about the Greggs and their early years in California.

To fit the “Fun Facts” theme, I will recount the information in a bullet-point format.

• ·     The principal source of information for the article was John and Susannah Gregg’s youngest daughter, Blanche Gregg Vaux. Since she was born in 1881, years after many of the events took place, she may have some details wrong. In fact, she omits mention of her two oldest brothers altogether. Samuel and James, who died at 23 and 30 years old respectively, were 16 and 14 years her senior, so perhaps she little contact with them. However, her version of the family’s history follows the paper record quite closely and is worth recording. Therefore, I will recount her following stories as “facts”.

• ·     Robert Hargrave, Susannah’s father and Blanche’s grandfather, moved to California before his daughter and her husband John H. Gregg did. He traveled to Southern California by wagon train, arriving in 1867. He bought a ranch in the Whittier area. The article states that, “He saw irrigation water going to waste, and according to W. H. King (another area ranching pioneer) he dammed it into a reservoir, dug a channel, put in a water wheel, and built a grist mill on his ranch above Telegraph Rd. between Norwalk Blvd and Dice Rd. After turning the water wheel, the water drained into the lake for which Little Lake School is named.” (Note: a Rancho Santa Fe/Whittier area elementary school district is still named Little Lake, but the referenced school no longer exists, and I find no sign of the lake.)

Robert Eldred Hargrave

• ·    According to Blanche, this mill was one of the first two in the area, and her grandfather planted one of the first area apple orchards, pressing and selling apple cider as part of his ranching operations. She incorrectly claims he died in the 1890s. He died the same year she was born: 1881.
• ·    Blanche also fails to mention that her grandfather, a widower, had remarried and fathered a son before moving to California. His first marriage had produced only daughters. His second wife, Sarah, died at some point prior to 1877, when Robert married for a third time to a younger woman named Priscilla Hayes. Robert’s son, Robert C. Hargrave, didn’t follow his father into ranching; instead becoming a music teacher in San Diego!

Robert C Hargrave, music teacher

• ·     Blanche states her parents left Texas with a wagon train of 30 Texas families two years after her grandfather’s 1867 arrival. She was off by about two years. Her parents were living at Fort Concho, Texas in 1870 when the  federal census was taken. Since their fourth son, Lloyd, was born in California in 1872, they probably arrived sometime in 1871. Blanche also states that the Greggs traveled with their toddler son Gus. In reality, they also had the two older sons with them, Samuel, who was nearly 6, and James, age 4.

Wagon train in Texas

• ·    The wagon train supposedly started with 1200 cattle, but much of the livestock was stolen as the group passed through Indian lands in New Mexico and Arizona. They traveled through El Paso, Tucson and Yuma, Arizona before crossing into California, skirting south of the Salton Sea near the Mexican border. This trail, which must have been brutal as it passed through vast expanses of Sonoran desert, had been constructed a southerly extension of the U. S Government’s Pacific Wagon Road, made possible by the Gadsden Purchase of southern Arizona. The map below shows the importance of water to the wagon trains—the trail goes from one spring to another.

• ·     John Gregg lost most of his cattle during the long trek, and stopped in Gila Bend, Arizona to feed and water them for several months while the wagon train with his wife and children continued on to San Diego County, California. Susannah must have been both brave and tough to survive those last months on her own with three children under six to care for, as well as the wagon team.

Colorado River ford at Ft. Yuma--Susannah had to guide her team across by herself as John had stayed in Gila with their cattle.

• ·    The Greggs spent their first year in California in the San Diego area before moving to the Whittier area, then called Los Nietos, where son Lloyd was born May 9, 1872.
• ·    The Gregg family lived in “a little white house on the south side of what [was then known as Kings Lane and] became Washington Blvd. on the place later known as the Cole Ranch.” The area was known for walnut orchards, and the Greggs raised walnuts as well. This house was “longtime home of the Gregg family”. This property was very near Susannah Gregg’s father’s ranch, which was variously described as near the intersection of Norwalk, Dice and Telegraph Rds., so just a couple miles south of Washington Blvd.

Whittier area around 1900

• ·     John Henry Gregg also acquired land in what is now Orange County. “For a period [he] took his family from the little white house to a home in Orange, California, and he opened the citrus nursery which supplied many large orange trees still growing in the Orange-Fullerton area. The nursery prospered for a few years.” This is so amazing! The Greggs helped supply the orange growing industry that gave Orange County its name! The first commercial orange grove in the area was planted in 1875, so John H Gregg’s nursery must have been established shortly thereafter. By the 1880’s oranges were a two million dollar a year crop in the county, so a lot of nursery stock was planted in just 5-10 years, and Gregg took advantage of that.
• ·    According to Blanche, “a panic hit the country, ranchers lost their places to the subdivider, a Mr. Chapman, and John Henry Gregg came back to Kings Lane.” Chapman is of course banker and citrus magnate Charles C. Chapman, the man for whom Chapman University in Orange is named. I don’t quite understand what Blanche is accusing Chapman of doing. The Greggs continued to own their Orange County property until at least 1900 as we shall see in a future blog post about James Gregg, but perhaps the nursery business failed due to Chapman’s competition.
• ·    Blanche notes that she and her brother Wallace were born in Orange, so that establishes the years they lived there as spanning at least 1876-1881. Robert Hargrave’s 1881 death may have also led to the family’s decision to move back to the Whittier area as they seem to have taken over running his ranch as well. I have to assume that the 1882 decision to emancipate the three oldest sons (see my previous post) may have had something to do with the family’s need to manage all these far-flung properties. Did Samuel, James and Gus take over the Orange property for a few years?
• ·    John Henry then bought “sixty acres just east of John King’s ranch at the northeast corner of what is Sorensen and Washington Blvd., and grew walnuts.” This is now an area of small homes surrounded adjacent to strip malls and commercial properties.

Walnut harvest in Whittier area in late 1800s

• ·     Around 1887 John Henry bought a large house from the then-mayor of Los Angeles Henry Hazard, located between Hope and Grand Ave. near 29^th. This area is now a commercial district adjacent to the 110 Freeway, not far from USC.
• ·    After a couple years in that house, John Henry traded it to J. H. Lankershim for 110 acres in a newly subdivided area then called Lankershim, but is now North Hollywood. He planned to ranch the land, and moved the family back into the “little white house” on Kings Lane/Washington Blvd.
• ·    According to Blanche, following John Henry Gregg’s death in 1891, Susannah and the younger children moved to Los Angeles. However, census records find them living at 8 Painter Avenue in Whittier in 1900. They didn’t move to Los Angeles until about 1904, and were living at 1830 4^th Avenue. Susannah and Blanche were still there at the time of the 1910 census. Following Blanche’s marriage, Susannah moved in with her son Lloyd and his family, who were living at and running the Lankershim ranch John Henry had acquired years earlier.  

The facts set out in this feature article provide an amazing window into the wheeling and dealing life of John Henry Gregg. He may have started with nothing but a few head of cattle he brought from Texas, but he ended up with several pieces of prime real estate scattered around Los Angeles and Orange Counties. This land helped to set up some of his children for secure, comfortable lives. I loved discovering the Gregg family’s connections to the region we call home.

Sources:

https://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/workspace/handleMediaPlayer?qvq=&trs=&mi=&lunaMediaId=RUMSEY~8~1~204723~3002261

http://coastdaylight.com/ljames1/orange_history.html

Father Confers Adulthood on Three Minors: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “New to You”

1882 Legal Notice that Father Would No Longer Support Three Teen Sons

Susannah Vaught Hargrave Gregg: 1842-1923 (First Cousin 3x Removed)
John Henry Gregg: 1836-1891 (Husband of First Cousin 3x Removed)
Samuel Gregg: 1865-1888 (Second Cousin 2x Removed)
James Gregg: 1867-1899 (Second Cousin 2x Removed)
Augustus Hugh “Gus” Gregg: 1869-1952 (Second Cousin 2x Removed)

 

Nineteenth century newspapers contain the occasional surprise, from the amusing, such as articles about community controversies, to the seriously disturbing, such as casual references to racist attacks and Ku Klux Klan meetings. However, I had never seen anything like the newspaper legal notice published over the course of several days in the summer of 1882 by John Henry Gregg.  He was publicly announcing that he was no longer responsible for three of his minor sons and that he was basically making them “adults”. What in the world?

The text of the notice, published each of three days in August 1882 in the Los Angeles Times, reads as follows:

“Know all men by these presents: That I, John H. Gregg, of Los Angeles County, State of California, by reason of the provisions of section two hundred and eleven of the Civil Code of California, and in consideration of the natural love and affection which I have and bear for my children, Samuel Gregg, James M. Gregg and Augustus Gregg, do hereby relinquish to said children the right of controlling them and receiving their earnings during the remainder of their minority, and I do hereby, so far as in my power, invest them with all the rights, privileges and authority of adults.

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, this 24^th day of August, A. D. 1882.

John H. Gregg”

This type of notice was certainly new to me! I immediately checked the ages of the three young men in August 1882: they were John’s three eldest children, and were 17, 15 and 13 years of age! What did this notice mean? Was he actually kicking out a 13-year-old child to fend for himself? Where were the boys to go? How were they supposed to earn their keep? What would prompt such action by a father?

Who was John Henry Gregg? John was born in Texas in 1836, and married a granddaughter of Elias Guess Smith, Susannah Vaught Hargrave, in Hopkins, Texas on September 26, 1859. (That would make Susannah the first cousin of Rev. Willis Smith)

When the Civil War broke out, John enlisted in the 23^rd Regiment of the Texas Cavalry on July 10, 1862. He served in the Confederate Army as a private in the cavalry until March 5, 1865.

Following the war, John and Susannah moved their family to Fort Concho near what is now San Angelo, Texas. The fort was the base of the United States 4^th Cavalry, so possibly John continued as a cavalryman, but now for the United States rather than the Confederacy. The 1870 census listed him as a “stock driver” which, according to Wikipedia, was one of the tasks of the 4^th Cavalry, serving as protective escorts to stock herds as they crossed Indian lands on their way to market.

By 1880, the family had relocated. According to information one of John’s grandsons provided in a newspaper article years later, the family left Texas in a covered wagon, moving to California where they bought a walnut orchard. From there, they began expanding their land holdings and moved into ranching and farming in the Los Angeles basin. By the 1880 census, they lived in Santa Ana Township in what is now Orange County. The non-population schedule of the 1880 census shows that John owned 46 acres of land near Santa Ana worth $2000, and that he had five acres of orchard or meadow, and a few hundred dollars’ worth of stock.

So what happened in 1882 that prompted John to publish this bizarre legal notice? I at first assumed that John Gregg and his wife Susannah Hargrave Gregg were impoverished, desperate to feed their six children, and decided to send the three oldest sons out into the world in the hopes they could support themselves. However, my research indicates that John actually owned a considerable amount of land in what is now Whittier, North Hollywood, and Orange County. He was a rancher, raising cattle and also orchards of nuts and fruit. The family does not appear to have been destitute.

Additional property owned by John Gregg in 1880s near Whittier

I next tried to research Section 211 of the California Civil Code. I believe he was referencing what is now called the California Family Code, but it has been amended extensively since 1882 and I cannot find any online references that show the code as it would have read in 1882. All I can tell is that the section had something to do with child custody. This makes sense, as John Gregg was essentially giving up his parental rights to these three children.

But how could something so extreme have been legal, even in the more rough and tumble era of the 1880s? And what happened to the poor young men?

To my surprise, I found a Los Angeles Herald newspaper article dated June 11, 1888, listing all the students at the seminary of the University of Southern California—USC. Among the students were Samuel, James and Augustus Gregg, with their hometown listed as Fulton Wells. So how did the young men go from being tossed out by their father to college students? And where was Fulton Wells?

Google told me that Fulton Wells is now a neighborhood in Rancho Santa Fe, near Torrance, about 16 miles from the USC campus. I wonder how the young men travelled to school, or did they were live on campus during 1888? 

I have been unable to find records indicating where the boys were living between 1882 and 1886. I also found no indication that John Gregg’s sons were estranged from him, as both James and Augustus managed and eventually owned properties their father had acquired. Was the Fulton Wells property also owned by their father?

I have one hypothesis for John’s strange newspaper notice that is a kinder, more humane possibility than abandoning his sons. John owned land in at least three quite separate locations—miles apart and hours away in an era of horse and wagon travel. Perhaps he “emancipated” his three eldest sons in order to place them in charge of one or more of his properties. By granting them the rights of adults, they could handle any ranch-related business that arose without having to consult him. I am hoping this was the real explanation for the strangest newspaper legal notice that I have ever run across.

I will be adding additional blogs on the fates of John and Susannah’s children.

Sources:

Los Angeles Herald. June 11, 1888. Accessed through Newspapers.com.

Los Angeles Times. 15 Sep 1882 Legal Notice. Accessed through Newspapers.com.

Los Angeles Times. 18 Dec 1890. Accessed through Newspapers.com.

Los Angeles Times. 2 Feb 1891. Accessed through Newspapers.com.

1880 Federal Census. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/1276/images/31560_204073-00022?pId=1728567

1870 Federal Census. https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/7579590:7163?ssrc=pt&tid=81812584&pid=262382596284