One Photo, Many Emotions

Consolidated Coal Company Miners of Frostburg, Allegany County, Maryland.

 

 

I'm really lucky to belong to a closed Facebook group for Western Maryland History. This group has amazing members who know the goods when it comes to the history of my ancestors' homeland in Western Maryland. Document from the earliest times back in the early 1700s to now, members of the group bring obscure and overlooked oddities, often with links, and a short citation. There have even been some uploaded documents, especially maps. They're crazy about maps! Memories too get posted there. We have one thing so obviously in common: we love the land and history of our ancestors!

 

The above photo, taken in the early 1900s, got posted recently and there was a large and strong reaction. It's a group photo of a shift of coal miners all working in the very hazardous conditions that was the very nature of coal mining on what was called The Big Vein along George's Creek in Western Maryland. Men came, often with their families, from Wales, Ireland, and Germany, as well as north from the coal fields in Pennsylvania to the area for the work. It was hard and dirty work but it was a sure way to earn a decent living for your family, if you weren't killed in the process. Strikes were common as the mine owners tried once again to wring extra profits out of the operation by cutting the miner's salaries. But all-in-all, if a man was going to earn a living by coal mining, this was one of the best places to do it.

It's the faces of the miners that hooks everyone who sees the photo. The faces and expressions are clear. Young men, older men but no very old men. By the time a man reached middle age here he was too worn out and his body too damaged to work very hard. Young boys worked with their fathers and brothers for half-pay. They worked side-by-side, and lost limbs or lives in the same way as the men but earned half.

On the Facebook page, posts appeared under this photo. The comments were heartfelt, even emotional, rather than the cool factual comments that typically get posted. This photo was different. You see, many of us have strong men of the coal mines as our ancestors. Bit by bit, the lives of these miner came together as posts popped up.

 

I looked at it for the first time searching for my grandfather and great grandfather but I didn't see them there. My great grandfather Daniel Williams, who came from Wales to the area to work the mines, was a supervisor at one of the Ocean Mines, so he wasn't in this picture which appears to have been taken elsewhere. My grandfather Lee Kelly worked in the Borden Mines but he did so at a time later than this picture. But just from the looks of the picture, they could easily have been here because they would have fit right in.

There's my great grandfather Daniel Williams, second from the left, with a mining crew.

 

That's my grandfather, John Lee Kelly, about 1930 when he was working in the mines. That's Dad second from the right. No one knows who the kid on the left is.

 

 

Back to the photo up top. Do you see their lunch buckets? There in the front. Everyone had one. These men worked hard doing manual labor that burned a lot of calories, so they had big appetites. My Grandpop Kelly called it a dinner pail because that's what he called the mid-day meal. You can see the size of the bucket and imaging what all went in there. Lots and lots of food. No salads. No kale. No quinoa.

 

Look how clean their faces and garments are. Obviously this photo was taken at the start of the day when the men were on the way to the mines. By the end of the day they were covered in coal dust. Some homes had a "wash house" out back, for laundry but also as a place where the miners of the family could wash up and change clothes before entering the house. Grandma Kelly's house had a big back porch were Grandpop washed up.

But the killer detail in this big group photo is the lamps on the hats. And I don't use the word "killer" lightly. Those were carbide lamps and if the coal dust got bad or there was gas leaking from the mine, the carbide lamp would cause an explosion.

One of the members of the Facebook group posted that his ancestor raised canaries to be sold to the mining companies. If the canary died, well....

The mine caused all sorts of other businesses to prosper in the area. My great grandfather Gustav Zeller owned a "tonsorial emporium" or barber shop that had big bathtubs where the miners could have a bath on Saturday. He was a prosperous man!

Great grandfather Gus Zeller's barber shop on Main Street, Frostburg, Allegany Co., MD. Notice the oversized barber pole!

That's him. Can you tell he was a barber? Look at that mustache.

The 100 year anniversary of Frostburg happened in 1912. It might be said that the area reached it's prosperous zenith then. The population of the area was around 15,000 and they all came to town on Saturday, market day. Frostburg hummed on a Saturday afternoon as miners and their families came to Main Street. Those miners in the photo? Wonder how many had a Saturday bath at great grandfather Zeller's barber shop?

 



One Lovely Blog Award, Part 2: Share Seven things about yourself

 

Randy Seaver over at the Genea-Musing Blog passed on to me the One Lovely Blog Award and you can read all about that here. I was very happy to receive it from such a prestigious blogger who is on every Best Of list! But of course there are catches that usual come with awards and this one included what felt to me like a catch:

Share seven things about yourself 

Seven things about me?! And I'm assuming that the seven things should be at least a little interesting, shouldn't they? That's gonna be real hard. So here they are and you'll soon see why I am balking at this part of the honor;)

1. I don't like to talk about me very much. I'll share if it's helpful to someone else but otherwise who wants to hear all about me? No one. Oh, sure I'll tell a story from my point of view but that simply serves the story. Therefore, this is going to be hard. So here I am wasting one of the seven with a statement that I don't like to share things about myself... there, that killed one of em';)

2. I was born in the same county that Mom and Dad were born in, all of my grandparents were born in, and 6 out of 8 of my great grandparents. Those two were born in Wales and Ireland, that being Daniel Williams (1852 - 1920) the coal miner from Wales and Catherine Elizabeth (House) Whetstone (1865 - 1947) born in Ireland. The county I was born into is Allegany County and it's a lovely lush green piece of mountain Maryland heaven. When I'm visiting Mom I don't have to go far to find all the home places. And I can really appreciate it from afar now that I live in Southern California and don't have to shovel their record setting snow accumulations.

3. At my core I'm just a country girl with city leanings. I love the freshness of the woods and am happily surprised when I see a springtime stream and can go looking for tadpoles and wildflowers. Sure, sure, everyone enjoys a real upscale restaurant in the city or a Broadway play that just opened to rave reviews, but at this point in my life I've had my fill of city life and I'd rather have a pot of fresh vegetable stew on the stove in my own home. For years I lived in Manhattan but I feel right at home on this Southern California canyon with the skunks, raccoons, opossums, grouse, hummingbirds, a rattlesnake or two, and the rare coyote and all manner of critters and birds.

4. To me the most useless thing in the world is having the common cold. Can't think. Use up all the tissues in the house. No appetite. Useless waste of time. Now whose idea was that?

5. I'm short. All these young people are tall. I don't like it.

6. I think best either in the shower or in the car by myself taking a ride to nowhere in particular. Because we live in Southern California and there's water conservation going on, long thoughtful showers are out. A lot of us think best while going on a car ride. By ourselves. Having a car full of people is counterproductive to thinking, don't you feel? I've been know to be deep in thought and driving to a specific destination only to be suddenly shaken out of a reverie and realize that I'd completely forgotten where I was going. And of course I'd passed the exit I wanted. Don't laugh. I bet you've done that too!

7. I like to do indexing. When FamilySearch was running their 1940 census project I was a cheerful participant. Then when we all pitched together to break the world record for the number of indexers indexing in one day, I was there. The records I seek out are death certificates. I really like them. Texas are my all time faves. If I get a bunch of them from a geographic area over a couple of years, well I could do that indexing all day long. And I read those death certificates too so I'm a slow indexer. I find them fascinating because they tell a lot about a community. Number of gunshot deaths, density of clogged arteries or heart attacks, a rash of infant deaths. I can't help but wonder why.

Well, see I warned you that I don't like to talk about myself. Next time I need to tackle the list of blogs that interest me and that I want to pass this One Lovely Blog Award on to. I've only got 15 to give out so that will be difficult. I think we're in a sort of Golden Age of genealogy blogging. Yes, picking out 15 will be real hard!

My Mountain Maryland.

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Wow! The Lonaconing Journal! Who knew?

Mom and I had talked about the "Lonaconing Journals" a couple of times and we even thumbed through her copy on one trip back east from here in San Diego where I live to the little mountain town of Frostburg in Western Maryland where our ancestor lived and Mom still lives. One of the great sagas of our family that carried through the generation of the 1800s and into the 1900s is that of the coal miner. Mining was the occupation put on many a census for the men of the family from that first wonderfully descriptive census in 1850 down to about 1940. That's over 100 years of the hard, crippling and low paid work of mining.

"The Lonaconing Journals" is by a woman who really knows her way around the coal mines of Allegany County Maryland, and that's Katherine A. Harvey. The proper and full title of this work is "The Lonaconing Journals: The funding of a coal and iron community, 1837 - 1840". Published in 1977 by The American Philosophical Society, it was I've been told, a master's degree thesis. This work along with Ms. Harvey's PhD dissertation, "Best-dressed Miners: Life and labour in the Maryland coal region, 1835 - 1920", Cornell University Press, 1970, is all you'd ever need when trying to imagine your coal miner ancestors, especially if the come from Western Maryland. Of all that I've ever read about coal mining and coal miner's families in the area, these two are the very best!

Here's how Harvey describes the facts of the Lonaconing Journals:
The Lonaconing journals, kept by the super-intendents of the George's Creek Coal and Iron Company, cover the period 1837-1840. Their setting is the recent Appalachian frontier, and their subject is the building of an experimental iron furnace and the development of its adjacent company town in western Maryland. The principal figure in these activities was John Henry Alexander (1812-1867), topographical engineer for the state of Maryland, professor of mining and engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the founders of the National Academy of Science, a member of the American Philosophical Society, and author and editor of works on many topics.
Harvey states on this same page, page one, that the Journal chronicling the earliest days of the company miraculously survived all moves and destructions of other company documents, files, and papers! It is a window into a point in local history not otherwise available.

It paints the picture of an area in the first days of a boom time. The lives of the miners here - mostly immigrants from Wales, Ireland, England and Scotland with a few from Germany - were better than miners elsewhere and they were more prosperous too. When they moved into the area back then, miners brought the entire family and the area had as a result a much more stable population, unlike other mining town where the miners were almost always single men. This was a relatively peaceful and prosperous mining community.

Don't want to paint too idyllic a picture of it all. There were wage disputes, attempts at unionizing that met with management's resistance and dirty dealing, and awful strikes. The ill or injured miners and their families were sometimes summarily evicted from their cottages because they could no longer work. It was a hard life by today's standards but a pretty good deal for the miners of the day and much better than they were going to get in Pennsylvania to the north and West Virginia to the south.

Mom's ancestors along her father's line, the Williams family,  were almost exclusively coal miners in the George's Creek Mine Field in Allegany County, Maryland until the 1920s. The Williams family's patriarch, Daniel, came from Wales from a line of coal miners, and all worked in the Western Maryland mines from about 1841 to the time of the Roaring Twenties. Mom's father, Camey or more formally Cambria and given the very traditional name for Wales, was brought to the mines to work at a young age. His father, Daniel Williams, immigrated to work there and became a supervisor. He eventually got the fever of owning a mine during the boom times of WWI and purchased one in Mt. Savage near his home place in Ocean, Maryland where he worked for the Consolidation Coal Company. He then bought another mine over in West Virginia. The West Virginia mine, as best Mom and Aunt Betty can figure out, was rich in tin. After he passed it was eventually lost for unpaid taxes. The Mt. Savage mine property is still in the hands of one of Daniel's descendants.

Daniel and his progeny weren't the only miners who came from Wales on Mom's side. The most famous is Benjamin Thomas and his family. Below is the ships' passenger list for the Barque Tiberius where his family is listed. You can see that Benjamin and four of his sons are listed as "colliers" or coal miners.  My great great grandmother, Diana, is just 6 years old!

 

 



 

 Benjamin Thomas and family were recruited in Wales by the Consolidation Coal Company and as such their passage was paid for by the Company and they arrived at the Port of Baltimore in July of 1837. The Company had been busy with their engineers and workers building out the mine and iron works. All was ready for the miners to get to work making a profit, and they did in the fall of that year. And their plans were BIG! Once the whole operation got going, there were was a superintendent, four managers, numerous clerks, and 400 mine workers working under them. Periodically the Journals noted that a couple more families from the Tiberius had arrived, found lodging and were ready to work.

The passages included in Harvey's book are excerpts from the complete set of Journals. She admits to leaving out much of the technical details. Included are some passages from the actual journals kept by John H. Alexander from 1837 to 1840 with a lot of technical description about how the furnace was built as well as some of the more innovational aspects of the entire projects. But the day-to-day stuff about the miners is the real fascinating material.

A post office is established. Local clay gets turned into bricks and those bricks get put to work on many projects and were even used as floors in the dirt floor "shantees" or very modest cottages purchased from farmers nearby. Blacksmiths were hired. Blacksmiths up and quit, likely hired away by mines in neighboring states. Boarding houses popped up for the few single men but mostly housed families until they could find a proper house or cottage. Roads got built, men were injured.

The activity continued at a fast pace until the usual harsh Western Maryland winters gave the whole project a reason to slow down.
February 21.-Mercury stands at -1 at 7 A.M. The mornings have been so cold for several days past that the stonecutters at the hearth could only work in the afternoons.
February 22.-Thermometer at 7 A.M. stands at --9. It is so cold that a number of hands could not work out of doors. Carpenters again stopped working at the molding house in consequence of the severe cold.

Some newly hired workers just don't work out.
February 23.-John Thomas, who has been here since October last and was intended for a furnace keeper, will persist in getting drunk and has been discharged.
I have no idea if this John Thomas was the son of our Benjamin Thomas, listed on the Tiberius manifest above.

And more accidents happen. Snow comes in March and again in April finally making a last appearance in May. Talk about harsh weather!

In Volume 2 of the Journals, the details of the lives of the miners working for The Consolidation Coal Company were recorded. This is the very best description of the terms of employment and daily life under the Company I've ever had the great pleasure to read!  Rules like no dogs being kept in the heart of the winter without the specific approval of the superintendent are noted and a directive that  houses must be kept clean and tidy, making a pleasant appearance. It was set out in writing that the miners must work from sunrise to sunset all days of the year except Christmas and Sundays. And most importantly, no distilled spirits and no drunkenness. Ever. At all. And if the rule was violated, people were fired.

On page 46 I read this.
February 19.-The night passes off quietly. The revelers at Buskirk's pass the sentinels by keeping high up the hill. Benjamin Thomas, miner, and wife stopped by sentinels in a state of intoxication.
WOW! That's our Benjamin Thomas! He and Hanna (Evans) his wife were drunk. Now that's well worth knowing! So the story is that they and others would scamper up the hillside and move as quietly as possible through the woods to get to the home of the Buskirk's where liquor was served. Everyone knew about it and most found their way, often on a Saturday night. And of course the mining company knew. It was no problem at all for them to wait in hiding for intoxicated miners and their wives as they loudly stumbled home.

It always amazes me how such juicy details are hidden and waiting for us to find them, deep in an obscure record. If Mom hadn't been so curious about the life and times of her ancestors she might have skipped the "Lonaconing Journals" in search of some index or listing with less of a beating heart. But she didn't. She found it in a local library and copied out the pages. Her notes from this time when she first read the Journals are a treasure to me. It's like she's right here with me, and we're finding it all over again!

Daniel Williams (1852-1920).

 

 

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Mom and I have fun with the 1870 US Census

Mom, who was 96 years old just last month, has been doing genealogy since the early 1970s, only recently announced to me that she was retiring from it. She might have trouble seeing the computer screen due to eye issues, but you can't dampen her interest. We were talking about the copies of death certificates I'd received in the mail from my guy at Maryland State Archive that were for Mom's mother and father and Dad's birth certificate. We had such a good time exploring every line and wringing every last drop of meaning out of it! You get that, don't you? "He died of what???"

The only great grandparent I now don't have a death cert for is Dad's paternal grandfather, Gustav Zeller (1858-1927) and that request is in. He was born and died in Frostburg, Allegany, Maryland, a small mountain town in Western Maryland as so many other of my ancestors. In fact my parents, grandparents, and six of my eight great grands were all born and died there.  If I want to find out who was doing what about 1870 I check out the census for good old District 5 in Allegany County, that's Frostburg.

US Census 1870, District 5, Allegany, Maryland; Roll: M593-566; Page: 148A; Image: 299.

My Zeller family.

After Mom and I had some fun with death certificates we went on and chatted about how much we like just browsing census pages before and after the page on which our ancestor appears. We agreed that for us the most fun census to browse is the 1870. You see, Frostburg was on the upswing then. Coal mining, the railroad, ironworks, and brickworks all fed the main pipeline of prosperity. And merchants followed and built strong businesses. The region drew immigrants like a great big magnate from the British Isles and Germany especially. Hard work and great promise drew my own ancestors from Ireland, Germany and Wales about 1840. The head of household in the 1870 census was often listed as having a surprising amount of personal wealth.

The first thing that struck me was the uncommon names for the German states. My great great grandfather Charles Wm. Zeller (1829-1901) had immigrated from Wurtemburg in 1851. He returned a year later and married Anna Mary Bruening. They were back in Frostburg in time for the 1860 census and he was listed as a confectioner and she a milliner or hat maker. Doesn't that sound like a fun couple? His son and my direct ancestor and great grandfather was Gustav. But what of all these different German states? Look at part of the census page to see, below.

When I look at the 1870 census the families listed right before my Zeller family are from Hesse and  from Prussia. My Zellers are listed as born in Wurtemburg. Where was that? I had to know and German history is not my strength. So off to Wikipedia which you can see here. I won't take time to explore here what the unification was all about but you can go see for yourself. Here's a map from that page showing where everything was after unification. You might have to go to the Wikipedia page to see the full map. Look at the golden color area. That's where the Zellers came from and where Charles returned to marry Anna Mary Bruening.

Thanks, Wikipedia!

The neighbors listed past the Zeller family were also from the German states as well as Ireland, Wales and England. It seems to me that every-other head of household was not from Maryland or the adjoining states of Pennsylvania or even West Virginia but were immigrants. The churches in town served the diverse population and my own ancestors worshiped at St. Michael's Catholic Church (Irish), the Welsh Shiloh Congregational Church, and the Lutheran Church. My Zeller people, you might think, could have worshiped at the Lutheran Church but they were Catholic. It was the old-line Revolutionary War families who were Lutheran.

And what of local prosperity? There was plenty of work to go around and pay day brought locals and those living in adjacent town to Frostburg to shop. Saturday night downtown was a busy place!

 

Frostburg, Allegany, Maryland. Main Street, about 1900.

Charles Zeller's confectionery and sweets shop prospered and his family grew too. Here they are in the 1870 census and look, he owns $2000 in real estate.

 

 

Other families are doing well and buying up real estate too. George W. McCulloh living three residences away has $30,000 in real estate and his wife has $5000 in her own name. He's a banker. Edward Hoffman a brewer from Saxony had no real estate holdings but his neighbor Albert Holly from Hanover, also a brewer, is holding $9000 worth of real property. Their neighbor Thomas H. Paul from New York is a machinist and has $16,000 worth of real estate holdings and $7000 of personal property. Yes, it sure looks like a prosperous little mountain town. Opportunity abounded!

 

Mom and I had a real good time on the phone reviewing the Frostburg 1870 census. We just don't get people who don't get us;) Imagine, not enjoying looking at the census!

 

 

Gustav Zeller in the white barber's coat standing on the front steps of the first electric trolley that came to Frostburg. Notice his hand touching his hair... to signify that he was a barber? He was a super promoter!

 

Gustav Zeller again, this time close-up so we can see his grooming.

 

Gustav's father, Charles Wm. Zeller.

 

 

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Stories from Mom and Aunt Betty: Part 4, He bought two mines

This story was told to me in part by Mom and in greater detail by Aunt Betty. I just hope I get it all right but I'm sure that eventually I'll be corrected if need be. On one visit back east to see the family, I stopped by Aunt Betty's and we got to talking about the ancestors. "Daniel Williams, your great grandfather, owned two mines, a coal mine in Mt. Savage and a tin or silver mine in West Virginia," she said casually. WHAA? Oh, yes it's true, but the visions of him as a coal (or tin or silver) baron vanished when I learned the rest of the story. So here goes, and I'm going to give you the whole enchilada because it's a tasty one.

It all starts with my great grandfather, Daniel Williams (1852-1920) who was born in Wales to a coal miner father, Thomas Williams (1815-1868). Daniel's brothers are also listed as coal miners in the Wales Census records. Presumably, these men knew what they were doing when mining coal. They were multi-generational miners and learned from father to son and brother to brother. And none were lost in a mining disaster.

They lived for who knows how many generations in Strata Florida, near Tregaron, in the county of Ceredigion or Cardiganshire in Wales. There were tin mines in the area and we wonder if the Williams men once worked there. Mining skills are relatively similar for the various materials taken in Wales so it would have been no problem for them to be mining tin and then move to coal and end up in shale, which were all plentiful in Wales at the time.

Mom went there and stood in the ruins of the big Abbey at Strata Florida soaking in what was left of the memories and dust of the ancestors. Buried there is Dafydd ap Gwilym (c. 1315/1320 – c. 1350/1370), which might be translated into present day English as David Williams, who was one of the leading poets of the Middle Ages, certainly of Wales and all of Europe. He possibly died of the Black Death. Mom claims him as our own, baring solid evidence to the contrary, which we're hoping we never find.

Strata Florida Abbey

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Old Thomas who was born about 1815, married Jane James in 1841, and his sons started arriving right after. By then, even the once bountiful southern coal fields in Wales were starting to get mined out. There was too little work for too many men so wages were on a downward slide. (The Academy Award winning film "How Green Was My Valley" depicts a typical Welsh mining town and it's trails, and is worth a viewing if this interests you.)

Old Thomas died around 1868 in Tregeron, and afterward his family moved from Cardiganshire to Breckonshire. Just about that time the Consolidation Coal Company, with offices in Baltimore, Maryland and London, had its eye on the Western Maryland coal fields with their rich and mostly untouched big veins, began recruiting in Wales. Daniel Williams must have been ready to jump at a new opportunity because that's just what he did. Sometime about 1872 or 1873 (I'm confused about this) he sailed to America.

At the Consolidation Mine Company in Ocean, Allegany, Maryland he put down roots, and married Miss Jane Price (1862-1939) of Wellersburg, Pennsylvania on 28 October, 1878. In the 1880 US Census Daniel is listed as working as a coal miner, with wife Jane and son James just a year old. And so family life began in earnest.

Jane (Price) Williams and Daniel Williams.

Possibly their wedding portrait.

He built a career working for the mining company and was a solid member of the community and a home owner. Here's what Aunt Betty has to say about him from her notes:

Notes on Daniel Williams

As far as we know, Daniel lived in Midland and Ocean, MD after he arrived in the United States. He was Foreman of Mine No. 16, Consolidation Coal Company. He was a member of the George’s Creek Valley Lodge of Masons in Lonanconing, Maryland. He was selected to take a large lump of coal from Ocean Mines, Maryland to the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. He was elected as a Trustee in the Ocean School District #18 on June 22, 1907.

I see two sentences and glean some further information about Daniel from Aunt Betty's write up. He was an Ocean School District Trustee. I knew that he valued education and was willing to save and pay for it because he paid for his son Joe Williams to attend the Peabody Institute of Music in Baltimore. So I'm guessing he was also a saver.

And then there's the trip to the Chicago World's Fair in 1893 to take the large lump of coal to be displayed. I keep searching the Frostburg Mining Journal, a true treasure trove if you have ancestors in the area, but as of yet not met with luck: there are a lot of pages and the text is small. That must have been quite an honor for him and surely covered by the local weekly newspaper that loved to trumpet about the accomplishments of its citizenry. I need to keep looking for that article!

One by one, his seven sons grew and had the opportunity to go work in the mine with him. Joe went to study music. Jimmy, the oldest, was a minor league baseball player and ended up in Texas. My Grandfather Camey disliked working in the mines and made his career elsewhere. The rest of the boys worked in the Ocean Mine Number 16 if they wanted. It was one of the safer mines and the "black car" visited there much less often than it did to the mine in Lonaconing where it went just about every day to remove a body to the undertaker.

Aunt Betty and her parents, Charles and Bronwyn, lived with her grandparents, Daniel and Jane, in their home in Ocean, which is about a 10 - 15 minute drive from Frostburg. After Daniel died in 1920 and Jane followed him in 1939, Aunt Betty and her parents continued to reside in the home.

From Aunt Betty's photo collection.

So Aunt Betty and I are sitting in her cozy living room chatting about Daniel and his life and times and she wonders out loud where he got all the money to purchase the land and coal mine in Mount Savage (which is near Frostburg) and the property in West Virginia that contained the tin or silver mine. Indeed, where did he get that money?

Let's start with the Mount Savage property because I just realized something about it. Aunt  Betty is a good researcher and an excellent organizer. Below, is the text of her transcription of the ownership of the Mt. Savage lots which she took from the deeds, and I'll point out two things after.

WILLIAMS  FARM, MT SAVAGE, MARYLAND

DEED: December 11, 1854

By and between FRANCE HENRY KRIEGBAUM , Executor of FRANCIS DEAN to MARTIN CLARK.

DEED: June 8, 1869

By and between MARTIN CLARK and TIM CLARK

DEED: December 9, 1893

By and between WILLIAM J. CRUMP and GEORGE CRUMP of Allegany County, Maryland for the sum of Fifteen Hundred dollars ($1,500.00) land known as the CRUMP FARM containing 75 acres.

DEED: March 20, 1912
By and between GEORGE CRUMP and ANNIE MARGARET CRUMP his wife to HENRY WESLOW and JULIA WESLOW, his wife by deed in the land records of Allegany County, Maryland.

DEED: October 12, 1914

By and between JULIA WESLOW of Allegany County, Maryland and DANIEL WILLIAMS AND JANE WILLIAMS, his wife for the sum of Two Thousand Dollars ($2,000.00) the land known as the “CRUMP FARM” composed of lots No. 3369 and No. 3370 containing 75 acres more or less.

DANIEL WILLIAMS predeceased his wife leaving the title to the above described property to JANE WILLIAMS, his wife and JANE WILLIAMS having died in February of 1939 and devised the aforesaid property unto CHARLES WILLIAMS, WILLIAM D. WILLIAMS, THOMAS WILLIAMS, CAMBRIA WILLIAMS and JOSEPH WILLIAMS by will probated February 21, 1939, and recorded in the Orphans Court for Allegany County, Maryland.

To have and to hold the above described property unto the said WILLIAM D. WILLIAMS and LILLIAN WILLIAMS, his wife, as tenants of the entireties, their heirs and assigns, in fee simple forever.

DEED: November 13, 1941

By and between JOSEPH WILLIAMS and HELEN G. WILLIAMS, his wife to WILLIAM  D. WILLIAMS and LILLIAN WILLIAMS, his wife for the sum of Ten Dollars ($10.00) the land known as the “CRUMP FARM” composed of lots No. 3369 and No. 3370.

DEED: November 13, 1941

By and between CHARLES WILLIAMS and BRONWYN WILLIAMS, his wife, THOMAS D. WILLIAMS and ISABELLA R. WILLIAMS, his wife, CAMBRIA WILLIAMS and EMMA WILLIAMS, his wife for the sum of Ten Dollars ($10.00) the land known as the “CRUMP FARM”
composed of lots No. 3369 and No. 3370.

 

Well, look at that will ya?! My own grandfather, Cambria Williams (1897-1960) was mentioned twice in these transactions, first as part of the estate of Jane, his mother, in which the property was transferred to all the boys, and then in 1941 when his share in the title was sold for $10. But that's not the eye-popper.

When Aunt Betty and I were chatting about this, we were wondering exactly where the property was. She had a pretty good idea about it's general location but the area had become overgrown and now it was practically impossible to determine any boundaries, at least by us. Then I noticed that the property was continually referred to as the Crump Farm and Lots No. 3369 and 3370. I got super excited. Off to check the Military Lots map put out by the Evergreen Heritage Center and Frostburg State University!

You can see below a section of that map and now it's pretty easy to find the location of lots 3369 and 3370. This land was awarded to Andrew Bruce for service in the Revolutionary War. We know where this is and it's right down the hill from Mom's house! I just love this map because it thoughtfully includes present day landmarks and roads. Mom lives on Route 36.

The land in West Virginia was not as exciting to me as this property. Oh, sure, it held promise of tin and silver but after Daniel's death, the family lost it to back taxes during the Great Depression. I don't find any evidence that Daniel and the boys actually worked the West Virginia property.

The Mt. Savage property was another story. Daniel and the boys possibly had hopes of a big pay day as they watched coal prices rise to new heights due to the demand for coal during WWI. Notice that Daniel purchased the property in October of 1914 and the war began in July. They felt that there was coal on that land, no doubt, and did something there, but exactly what we don't know. It's said in the family that he wanted to mine with his sons, all accomplished coal miners (except my Grandfather Camey) and most likely thought of this as his legacy to them. Theoretically, if the mine hit a big vein the boys would all be rich beyond measure. Today some of that same property is still owned by a descendant of Daniel Williams.

When I think of the great narrative saga of Daniel William's life, from the coal mines of Wales and unfortunate times to taking a chance on a better future, then to a Western Maryland home and land ownership, I can't help but be impressed. Daniel's vision for mineral wealth seems unbound, even though it was unfulfilled, but is admirable to me. Everyone needs a big dream. It is, after all, the American way.

And where did he get the money to buy all that land? He earned it.

Now I can't help but wonder if this photo was taken on his own land and was to document the start of a mining adventure. It was taken in 1915, the year after he purchased the land in Mt. Savage.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/12/stories-from-mom-and-aunt-betty-part-4.html

 

Stories by Mom: Part 1, Those were the days, my friend, we thought they'd never end.

Those were the days my friend, I thought they’d never end!

By Virginia Williams Kelly

I love to walk. I have walked all my life. I used to walk three miles every morning, seven days a week not for my health but simply because I loved to do it and I got such a ‘high’ from just strolling along that I wanted  to walk and walk. But everything comes to an end eventually. 

My journey into my childhood started when I was about six years old and this story is part of it.

I was born on 29 July, 1918 into what Tom Brokaw called the Greatest Generation and if you were that lucky then you have seen almost all life has to offer, both good and bad.

My earliest memory was at age two. It was of my grandfather Williams (Daniel Williams, 1852 – 1920) who ask me to pass him his spittoon since he was chewing tobacco. I did not know of course that he was dying of kidney failure. He died on 19 April, 1920.  I can picture very vividly the room he was in, the couch in the corner and the wall telephone by the window next to the couch. That old telephone always fascinated me.

Daniel Williams (1852 – 1920), about 1919

My memories at about age three were the worst of my life and I think it set a pattern for the way I viewed many other things. We were living with my maternal grandparents (Joseph H. Whetstone and Catherine Elizabeth House Whetstone) and I had two uncles only seven and 13 years older than myself. They were always playing tricks on me. They loved to sit my little backside on the scrub brush, bristles up so that I could not get down and to leave me crying for my mother. They loved to torment me in every way their devious little minds could think of.

Me with a hair bow and the three “evil” uncles: Left to right: George, Leslie Lawrence, and Joseph Edward.

I also had a big old rooster attack me and since his feathers flew everywhere I was afraid of feathers. The uncles would put feathers all around the porch so I couldn't even play on the porch which was the only place I was allowed to play.

I also disliked open umbrellas for some reason and they always had an open umbrella on the porch. I think I had developed many phobias by the time I was three because of these incidents and many more. I did get back at them later when they hid their candy bars under the dining room table and I was small enough to reach them and eat them, and they were delicious too.

 

The Whetstones with some of their grandchildren:

Joseph Hampton Whetstone (1858 – 1939), Catherine Elizabeth House Whetstone (1865 – 1947). That’s me in the big hair bow, third child from the left.

The children are, left to right: Gene Knowles, my sister Dot, me, Chuck Knowles and Sandy Whetstone.

 

Times and daily life were very different then. Two things happened at that time that left scars. The most horrendous one was to see my Dad shoot his hunting dog. No one ever explained to me that the dog had distemper and had to be put down because there were no treatments or cures for it. So this led to my championing of all animals especially dogs.

 

The other horrible event was to watch my grandfather kill chickens twice, once with a hatchet and once by wringing its neck. I know now that these things were common but that didn't help a three year old to understand them.

My younger sister, Evelyn, died at age three and I can still recall how pretty she was, always smiling but she got diphtheria and never got over it. I can still see her in Grandmother's cabinet pulling out the towels so she could lie down on the shelves.

I remember my Aunt Edna dying of tuberculosis, although I didn't know that it was happening, when I used to sit on her bed while she told me little stories. She died on 11 May, 1922. She gave me a paper doll which I still have.

Yes indeed, times and daily life were very different then.

 

Me with one of the many dogs in my life.

My sisters and I: left to right, Dorothy “Dot” (Williams) Conrad (1920 – 2007), Evelyn Marie (1921 – 1924), and me.

Tune in tomorrow for the next installment!

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/11/stories-by-mom-part-1-those-were-days.html

 



Thoughtful Tuesday: Young and Old Grandfather Williams

I love the Geneablogger's wonderful Daily Blogging Prompts because they lend structure to my blog posts and keep me moving through the week. Quite a while back and inspired by them I thought of a new one, called Thoughtful Tuesday. The objective was to contrast the young and the old version of an ancestor and illustrate that with photos. Of course for my many less wealthy ancestors who could not afford the delights of the photographer's parlor, there is no photo record from those years of the last half of the 1800s. This young and old contrasting just doesn't have enough range, so I decided to do it for grandparents only.

I've done three of my grandparents and the only one left is my Grandfather Williams, Cambria Williams (1897 - 1960) named after the Cambria mountains of Wales but always called "Camey". He was a handsome young man and throughout his life had a big luxurious head of hair.

But I'm getting ahead of myself! First let me give you the links to the three other grandparents so you can see how this has been shaping up. And I'm posting the less-elegant form of the full link because some might have trouble with the usual "click here", or so I'm told.

Grandmother Williams
http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/05/thoughtful-tuesday-grandmother-williams.html

Grandpop Kelly:
http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/04/thoughtful-tuesday-young-and-old_30.html

GrandMa Kelly:
http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/04/thoughtful-tuesday-young-and-old.html

All right, we're all caught up. The Williams family, headed by Daniel Williams (1852 - 1920) who was born in Wales, and his wife Jane Price Williams (1862 - 1939) was a large house full of kids and, at times, grand kids. It stood in Ocean, Maryland a small place no where near the actual ocean but in the mountains of Western Maryland and at the heart of the coal mining fields. Daniel was a coal miner and a foreman, so he was a good earner, as they say. With eight boys and one daughter, there were plenty of mouths to feed. But young strong boys could work in the coal mines if they had an "in", and Daniel's boy sure did! Here's what Aunt Betty wrote to me a while back about Daniel:

Daniel worked for the Consolidation Coal Company as a foreman  at mine #16 at Ocean, MD which is about a mile from where he lived. He was chosen to take a large lump of coal from Ocean Mines to the Chicago World's Fair in 1893.

 

When it came time for Camey, the second youngest boy, to take his place in the mines, his father tried him out and then fired him saying that he wasn't cut out for it and was "lazy". Mom remembers clearly her father telling about this and saying he was so claustrophobic down in the mines that he was happy to be fired.

Here are two pictures I'm thrilled to have from Aunt Betty. By the way, Aunt Betty is Camey's younger brother Charles' daughter. The notations on the photos are hers. What a good idea!

 

See in this photo just above, Charlie, Aunt Betty's dad, is the youngest in front on the left, and Camey the next youngest on the right.

Mom has a photo of her father Camey as a handsome young man, but it was in an old dilapidated domed glass frame. When we took it all apart to see what could be done we noticed that the image was also domed but in very poor condition. I took a couple of photographs of it to see if a repaired version could be made and here's what happened, below. That old photo was doomed for destruction but with a little PhotoShop magic at least now future descendants can still enjoy the image.

 

 

Then Camey met and wed Emma Susan Whetstone (1897 - 1956) and they married 2 Sept 1916. Here they are below with their first baby, my Mom, Virginia Mae, born two years after they walked down the aisle.

 



 



But this exercise is all about contrasting the young ancestor with the old. I can see the ravages of time in my father's parents, plain in photographic form, but Mom's parents seem much the same even though they obviously did age. Look at that photo above. She's serious but gentle and he's smiling and having a good time. That's pretty much how I remember them too, even in old age.

 

This photo above is one of my favorites of Grandfather Williams. He was a very active guy and loved nothing better than being out in the woods hunting or fishing. There he is with a dandy rainbow trout, and a really large one.

Bottom line and my thoughts on Grandfather Williams is that he was his own person. He didn't remain working in a job he didn't like even though it was easy to come by and insured an good income. He took the road less traveled and became a tobacco route salesman with a vehicle to get him down back roads up in the mountains so he could fish or hunt. He did what he loved and it showed in every fiber of his being. May we all be so lucky.

Camey and Emma enjoying the great outdoors in Western Maryland!

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/07/thoughtful-tuesday-young-and-old.html

 

Treasure Chest Thursday: Our Brick Walls, A Coal Miner's Prayer

You know how it is: when something comes up on your radar as a pleasant surprise and a little while later a similar thing pops up again? Well it was like that for me recently when someone who is helpful and a genea-pal to all posted "The Coal Miner's Prayer" to the Allegany County, Maryland RootsWeb mailing list. Then in a couple of days Genie Regan who is "editor by default" of the wonderful web site of all things Allegany County, Our Brick Walls, posted another Coal Miner's Prayer!

I can't decide which I like most, and why should I, because each has its charms. If you have coal mining ancestors, especially those who were coal miners over The Pond and came here seeking a better life for their families only to find hard work and difficulties here, then your heart will melt just a bit (or maybe a lot) reading the following.


From Our Brick Walls:

Allegany County ~ 1845
A COAL MINER'S PRAYER

Take a look at these hands, Lord.
They’re worn and rough.
My face scarred with coal marks. My language is tough.
But you know in the heart lies the soul of a man.
Who toils at a living that few men can stand.
There’s sulphur and coal-dust and sweat on my brow.
To live like a rich man — I’d never learn how.

But if you’ve got a corner when my work is through,
I’d be mighty proud to live neighbors with you.
Each dawn as I rise, Lord, I know all too well
I face only one thing — a pit filled with Hell.

To scratch out a living the best that I can.
But deep in this heart lies the soul of a man.
With black-covered faces and hard calloused hands,
We ride the dark tunnels, our work to begin.
To labor and toil as we harvest the coal.
We silently pray, "Lord, please harvest our souls!"

Just a corner in Heaven when I’ve grown too old.
And my back it won’t bend, Lord to shovel the coal.
Lift me out of the pit where the sun never shines,
‘Cause it gets mighty weary down here in the mine.

But I’d rather be me, Lord, Tho’no riches I show,
Though tired and wary, I’m just glad to know
When the Great Seal is broken the pages will tell
That I’ve already spent my time in Hell.
 ~Author Unknown
(Courtesy of Marion Chappel)

From Shawn McGreevy posted to the MDALLEGA RootsWeb email list.

The Coal Miner's Prayer

Each dawn as we rise, Lord we all know too well,
We face only one thing - a pit filled with hell.
To scratch out a living the best we can,
But deep in the heart, lies the soul of a man.
With black covered faces, and hard calloused hands,
We work the dark tunnels, unable to stand
To labor and toil as we harvest the coals,
We silently pray "Lord please harvest our souls".

The Coal Miner's Prayer, By: W. Calvert

 

 

Some of the coal miners on our tree, and some other photos:



 

My great grandfather Daniel Williams (1852 - 1920), second from left and a mine supervisor.

Standing, my Grandpop Kelly, a coal miner who contracted black lung disease.

John Lee Kelly (1892 - 1969)

 

Above, the interior of a typical coal mine interior in the George's Creek mine fields,

at the Frostburg Museum, Frostburg Maryland.

Treasure Chest Thursday is a blogging prompt from GeneaBloggers.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/07/treasure-chest-thursday-our-brick-walls.html