Illinois – A Deck of Ancestors

52W Mark V – Week 17: Louisa Thomas

My 4xG Grandmother, Louisa Thomas, had a short and difficult life. While she passed away when she was 35, she had married three times and had partaken in one of the great westward treks of American history, the Mormon Migration.

While by every account Louisa was possibly born on May 28, 1811, I have had a great amount of difficulty in determining where her birth occurred. I have not found any primary records on the matter. The few sources I have are secondary or tertiary in nature.

When I first learned about Louisa in the mid-1990s, what little I found indicated that she was born in “Berks” or “Berks County” Virginia. However, there is no such place.

There’s a Berks County in Pennsylvania, not Virginia. There is a Burkeley County in West Virginia, in the panhandle bordering Maryland, which would have been part of Virginia when Louisa was born. There was also a Berkley, Norfolk County, Virginia, but the town was annexed by the City of Norfolk and the Norfolk County no longer exists. There is also Burke, Virginia, an unincorporated community in Fairfax County, about 20 kilometers southwest of Washington, D.C. The death certificate for Charlotte Liggett, Louisa’s daughter, says Louisa was born in West Virginia. The entry for Louisa’s death in the Winter Quarters Sexton’s Records says she was born in Maryland.

Considering all this information together, it seems that Louisa was most likely born in Burkeley County, then part of Virginia, close to the border with Maryland.

Louisa’s parents are also largely a matter of speculation and were said to be James Thomas and Elizabeth Stevens. The one source I had that named Louisa and her parents was a family history of Louisa’s second husband, the Liggetts, which I first consulted in 2013. The current version of that document no longer mentions Louisa or her parents. However, after writing this paragraph, I came across a history of Scioto Township in Delaware County, Ohio, which includes mention of James and Elizabeth. Unfortunately, the book does not indicate the source of this information.

FamilySearch had a James Thomas named as Louisa’s father, but named a Catherine Simmons as her mother. There were no sources for this connection, so I edited Louisa’s entry on FamilySearch by disconnecting her from those individuals. As it stands, I have no actual knowledge of who Louisa’s parents might have been.

The fog of history continues with Louisa’s first marriage. She is said to have married Lazarus Absolom Beakley in 1835, when Louisa was 24. However, I cannot find any record of this marriage or of Lazarus himself, who is said to have been born in 1811 and died before 1837. One secondary source even suggested that his name was only Absalem, with no Lazarus as a first name. Lazarus and Louisa supposedly had a son. Not only can I not find a record of this child, I can’t even find anything indicating what his first name might have been. Most of what I have about this marriage comes from a memoire by George Burgess, who was born 50 years after Louisa died, so I do not consider it particularly reliable.

At most, the registration of Louisa’s marriage to her second husband, Conrad Liggett (my Great x4 Grandfather) names her as “Louisa Beakley”. For the longest time, I had assumed this indicated a previous marriage to a man with the surname “Beakley.” However, that was based upon the belief that Louisa’s surname at birth was Thomas. The record of her marriage to Conrad does not indicate she was a widow.

The registration of marriage for Conrad Liggett and Louisa Beakley. There is no indication that Louisa was previously married or whether Beakley was her surname at birth or that of a previous husband.

What if there was no Lazarus Absolom Beakley (given that I can find no record of him) and Louisa’s surname at birth was Beakley? I’ve been unable to find any record or mention of a Louisa Beakley, so that thought remains largely theoretical.

The real paper trail for Louisa begins with her marriage to her second husband, Conrad, as reproduced above. It’s the first tangible record indicating that Louisa even existed. Louisa and Conrad married on February 28, 1837 in Delaware County, Ohio. They had one child together, my Great x3 grandmother, Charlotte Liggett. It was a short marriage, as Conrad died on April 21, 1838, when Charlotte was only five months old.

With Conrad’s death, Louisa had to find work to support her family. As a result, Conrad’s parents, James Liggett and Susana Carr, took Charlotte in, possibly along with her half brother through her mother’s marriage to Lazarus Beakley. It is not clear if Charlotte’s grandparents had full-time custody and care of her or whether they only looked after her during Louisa’s working hours. Based upon the second-hand descriptions of their custody I’ve read, it appears that James and Susana had full-time care of Charlotte.

Three years and one week after Conrad died, Louisa married for a third (second?) time, to Aaron W. Cook. Aaron’s birth information I take with a grain of salt, because it’s exactly the same as what I have for Lazarus, and with an equally flimsy evidentiary basis. What is definitely far more certain is that Louisa married Aaron on April 28, 1841 in Delaware County, since there is a registration for their union in the Delaware County records.

The registration of Louisa and Aaron’s marriage.

Here is where the story becomes (allegedly) more dramatic. According to George Burgess’s memoire, Louisa and Aaron married in secret. Around the same time, the couple joined the relatively new Mormon church.

Shortly after the marriage, Louisa asked James and Susanna if she could take Charlotte home with her for a week or a weekend. However, Louisa never returned Charlotte to her paternal grandparents. In George’s words, they “ran off” with Charlotte and joined the Mormons in their westward migration. However, it seems to me that Louisa was well within her rights to keep her daughter with her, since her in-laws never had any form of legal custody of Charlotte.

George said that Louisa had three daughters with Aaron when they were living in Nauvoo, plus another child about 12 miles out of Nauvoo after the Mormons were driven out of there. I have no records of these children, so I have not included them in my database. Louisa and her youngest child died during childbirth. Allegedly – again! – because I cannot find any mention of a child in the record of Louisa’s death or that Louisa had died in childbirth.

After leaving Ohio, Louisa and Aaron apparently settled in Nauvoo, Illinois, where the Mormons had established a settlement and built a temple. However, in 1846, a few years after the death of church founder Joseph Smith, the Mormons were driven out of Nauvoo. This motivated the Mormons to migrate to what is now Utah, which was then still part of Mexico.

Because of the rushed departure from Nauvoo late in the year, the Mormons set up camp known as Winter Quarters, near present day Omaha, Nebraska. Conditions were rough and many of the trekkers died there. Depending on the source, anywhere from 350 to 2,000 Latter Day Saints perished at Winter Quarters. Louisa was one of those who died there.

An entry in the Winter Quarters Sexton’s Records shows that Louisa died on on November 16, 1846, about 19 miles up the river from Winters Quarters. Charlotte was only nine at the time.

“Loisa Cook. 36 years, 0 months, 0 days. Wife of Aaron W. Cook [her third husband]. Died 19 miles up the River from Winter quarters Bur[i]ed at the same place. [Died] Nov 16 1846. [Disease] chills fever. [Born] State of Mareland May 1811.”

While Louisa only lived for 35 years, I only have documentation I have for her only coves the last ten years of her lifen. What little there is shows short marriages, family strife, religious persecution, and an early death. Despite what I have found, Louisa remains a solid brick wall ancestor.

52W Mark V – Week 5: Rachel Franklin

Unless I go back to the 1600s on my maternal grandfather’s paternal line, I do not have much English ancestry. My most recent ancestors who emigrated from England are my Great x4 Grandparents, Rachel Franklin and Thomas Hadlond. They had seven children at the time they came over sometime around 1852, give or take a year, including my Great x3 Grandmother, Maria Hadlond.

Rachel was the fourth of ten (possibly eleven) children born to James Franklin, a shoemaker, and Mary Luker Eaton. I have found several iterations of Mary’s surname. She was baptized “Mary, Daugr of Eliz Luker”. The register entry does not name a father or husband, implying that Mary was illegitimate. A few pages later there is an entry for the 1792 marriage of Thomas and Elizabeth shows: “May 20, Thos Eaton to Eliz Looker by license.” Earlier on the same page of the register for the marriage is an entry for the baptism of “Charlotte, daur of Thos and Eliz Eaton.” It would be reasonable to believe that it is the same Elizabeth Luker/Looker in both entries, but not without some doubt.

Rachel was born on December 14, 1817, in Clanfield, Oxfordshire, which is located in the Cotswolds. All of Rachel’s siblings were born in Clanfield or the nearby village of Hailey.

Rachel married Thomas Hadlond three days shy of her 20th birthday, on December 11, 1837, in Charlbury, another village in the Cotswolds, just north of Hailey. Shortly after marrying, Rachel and Thomas were living in Finstock, a stone’s throw from Blenheim castle, the home of the Spencer-Churchill family. There they had their first child, Charlotte. The family was not in Finstock long, as my Gx3 Grandmother Maria was born in Cheltenham, Gloucester, in August 1838. Rachel bore five more children in Cheltenham. Rachel’s last child born there was Alice, in September 1850.

On November 23, 1846, Rachel was baptized into the Mormon church. I know little about the circumstances of her joining the church, but I’ve not yet found any evidence her husband Thomas did. This is evidenced by the fact that Thomas was not baptized into the church until a year after his death.

According to the 1851 English census, Rachel and her family were still resident in Cheltenham. However, sometime before 1853, the family moved to North America. It appears they entered by way of Canada, because Rachel gave birth to a son there in June 1853. By 1856, Rachel and her family were living in St. Louis, Missouri. In August 1858, Rachel gave birth to twins, Ella and Alphius, in East St. Louis, which is a suburb on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River.

Rachel died in St. Louis on March 29, 1879. She is interred at the Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis. She is buried only a few hundred meters from Dred Scott. She’s also not far from Adolphus Busch, although I think it’s lame that my ancestor is buried near the guy who made crappy Budweiser, while my wife’s ancestors are interred near Alexander Keith, who made excellent beer. Lame for me, anyway. Sadly, Rachel is also not far from Rush Limbaugh. Well, there went the neighbourhood.

Rachel and her neighbours. Dred Scott is north east, while Adolphus Busch is to the east.

52W Mark IV – Week 34: Card B8 Henry Lyman Cook

My Gx3 Grandfather, Henry Lyman Cook, is another of my maternal ancestors who were early converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons). He also may or may not have been one of the earliest practitioners of polygamy in the Church, although on closer examination it might be on a technicality.

Henry was born on July 8, 1803 in Kingsbury, New York, to Daniel Cook (1769-1825) and Miriam Fellows (1773-1830). Henry has deep roots in colonial New England on both sides of his family. Most, if not all, of his Gx2 Grandparents were in Massachusetts and Connecticut by the mid to late 17th Century.

I do not know anything about Henry’s early life before his first marriage, to Nancy P. Bingham, sometime around 1828. However, Henry and Nancy’s first child, Daniel, was born in Kingsbury in 1829, which suggests they were married in New York state. However, the young family did not remain in Kingsbury for long, as they were living in the Wisconsin Territory in 1831, where there second child, William, was born.

By 1833, Henry and family were living in Upper Canada, now Ontario, Canada. Their next five children were born there, with the last occurring around 1840. It was while the family was in Ontario, most likely Essex, that Henry joined the Mormon church in 1837. Henry’s obituary suggested he was living in Detroit at the time, which is less than 30 kilometers from Essex. However, it may be more likely that Henry went to Detroit to hear the missionaries and to be baptised into the church.

By June 1840, Henry and family were living in Quincy, Illinois, where many Mormons had settled. Nancy did not live long after the move; she died in Quincy in April 1842. Henry did not let the grass grow under his feet, as he married Mary Hoag on June 13, 1842, in Nauvoo, Illinois, another significant Mormon settlement.

^{Henry and Mary’s marriage registration}

I know very little about Mary beyond the fact she had married Henry. The marriage was short and abusive. According to the Nauvoo High Council Minute Books, Henry and Mary’s marriage “quickly proved disastrous”. Henry claimed Mary abused his children, set bad examples before them, and would frequently use expletives. Henry whipped Mary in hopes of controlling her.

In an academic paper regarding early Mormon polygamous marriages, author Gary James Bergera speculated that Henry and Mary either separated or divorced; however, he cited no evidence of a divorce. It is unlikely there was a divorce, as Mary and her next husband, John Wells Taylor, were charged with marrying while Mary was still legally married to Henry. According to the officiant of John and Mary’s marriage, John C. Annis, Taylor reported that he had purchased Mary from Henry “for her weight in cat-fish.” Given that Mary and John married on November 27, 1842, it is extremely unlikely that prior to their union there had been a divorce between Mary and Henry. John and Mary were subsequently excommunicated by the church on January 28, 1843.

Henry married for a third time, to Lovina Thayes, on November 5, 1843 in Nauvoo. As far as I know, Henry and Lovina never had any children.

^{Record of Henry and Lovina’s marriage}

In his paper, Bergera concluded that this was not a polygamous marriage because Henry and Mary had divorced. However, while the two had separated, I can find no evidence that Henry had divorced Mary before marrying Lovina. Thus, at least technically, Henry was a polygamist but not as a result of the growing Mormon adoption of the practice. Rather, he simply married Lovina regardless of his legal status with Mary. In any event, Bergera did not give any regard to Henry’s fourth marriage, to my Gx3 Grandmother Susan Turple, which occurred while Lovina was still alive and married to Henry.

While still in Nauvoo, Henry was ordained a “Seventy”, a level of priesthood in the Mormon church. He and his family fled Nauvoo in 1846 when the Mormons were driven out of the town. They resided in Winter Quarters, Nebraska, from about 1846 to 1848. This was a major Mormon encampment north of what is now Omaha that had initially been established to wait out the winter before they moved further west. Henry established himself in by 1850.

Henry married Susan Turple in Salt Lake City on September 28, 1853, less than two weeks after Susan had arrived in Utah from Nova Scotia via Boston. Together, Henry and Susan had four children. The couple spent most, if not all, of their married life in Goshen, Utah. Brigham Young had directed a number of Mormons to settle in Goshen, believing that a new roadway would run past that location. I’m not sure if the road envisioned by Young ever came to be. While Utah Highway 6 now runs through the town, it was built many decades after Goshen was founded.

Henry had a farm or a ranch in Goshen where he raised cattle. Henry had a cattle brand recorded on December 2, 1868, which was a capital “H” placed at the right jaw of the animal.

Sometime around September 1869, Henry developed gangrene in one of his legs, apparently due to some illness rather than injury. As a result, Henry’s leg was amputated above the knee, probably around the beginning of October. A November 10, 1869 newspaper account stated that Henry was recovering well, but it was not to be. Henry died in Goshen on November 17, 1869.

Henry was buried in the original Goshen Pioneer Cemetery, along with 18 others. A new cemetery was opened around 1880 and no further interments occurred in the Pioneer Cemetery. Many of those buried at the Pioneer Cemetery were relocated to the new cemetery, but there is no record of those whose remains were moved.

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