Wisdom Wednesday: Thank goodness for...

It's that middle day of the week and here we go on a GeneaBlogger's blogging prompt called Wisdom Wednesdays. This week it's all about what I'm thankful for, even though it's not November, which, for those of you not in the USA, is when we celebrate my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving. I was talking to Mom the other day and we were marveling at how genealogy has changed as she entertained me with stories of how she did it when she started in the 1970s! How we laughed! I've seen her stacks of 3 by 5 cards, family group sheets, and the rest, all hand written, and they look strange to my eye used to a computer print out.

So here are all the things I'm thankful for most recently, in no particular order. And I have to say that right now I'm in my usual June slump and just would rather sit in a hammock, and let the laundry pile up and up. (But maybe with a laptop and a cool adult beverage.)

The Internet. I shudder to think how slow my progress both in learning about genealogy, meeting up with cousins and fellow researchers, as well as digging as deep as I can into those records, would be if there was no internet and web service! Ugh!

Google Satellite View. I sit here in sunny Southern California emailing Cousin Andrew who lives back east about our shared ancestors who were Welsh. And we're talking about the Barque Tiberius on which our Thomas ancestors sailed out of Newport Harbor, Wales, on 30 June, 1838, and that's 175 years ago this week!!
Wait, I thought to myself, where is Newport Harbor? And I'm especially curious because we don't know where these Thomas folks lived when they were recruited to be coal miners in the George's Creek mines in Western Maryland by the Consolidation Coal Company. Wow, I think, looking at the satellite view, we drove right by there on the M4 when we went to Wales that time in the 1980s! Love you, Google Satellite View!

Latest Guilty Pleasure: Shades of the Departed! A cuppa and a cookie and I sit down to thumb through Shades, the most fabulous on-line magazine this gal has ever seen!  Shades carries the imagination back into the past and over hills and valleys to towns and farm lands to meet ancestors we never knew or people of the past not even connected to us. I feel as though I'm sitting in a late 1800s train station and people arrive and sit and chat and reveal themselves to me, and I can gaze as long as I like without being rude. This is absolutely my new "guilty pleasure" and I use that term because I probably should be doing something else like laundry, but don't really care one fig.

Blog posts that come along at the right time. Here's an example. Research and connecting the dots on the ancestors is especially difficult for me in West Virginia and if you have the magic potion to help me find them, then please have mercy on a stumbling fool and let me know! I always feel like many of the dead-end brick wall situations on the tree lead over to West Virginia... or Ireland and Wales. I can understand the last two because it's a Pond hop. But WV, even though it's just "over the hill a bit" is all messed up! I just love The Legal Genealogist blog by Judy G. Russell. I've learned so much from her. Then she did a blog post about the forming of West Virginia and a light went off: it's not so much me as it is them! Whew. WV, you are difficult. (Go WVU Mountaineers!)

The Encouragers! I do like those in the land of genealogy who encourage and help. Look, we're all trying to learn. So here's to the encouragers, and most are, who daily take up blogging to share and maybe help others, as well as those many helpful and dear souls who come to the local groups to help and find help. Hugs to all!! What a nice community we are!

Thank goodness for so much stuff to be grateful about! (Am feeling so good I might even do some laundry, but later.)

 

Eckhart Cemetery, Eckhart, Allegany, Maryland.

 

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/06/wisdom-wednesday-thank-goodness-for.html

Treasure Chest Thursday: A Miner's Christmas

While back east visiting Mom I took some time to go visit Aunt Betty. Aunt Betty is really my Mom's cousin but somehow all who know her have come to call her Aunt Betty. I just love my time with her and we do go on about family and local history in Western Maryland around the little town of Frostburg.

This time I asked her when she thought Welsh stopped being spoken locally in the churches and at home. We have no real data but figure that most likely by 1900 no Welsh families in Western Maryland were speaking Welsh anymore. By then, in the coal mining families around Frostburg who came from Wales, everyone had learned English and was speaking it. Our guess is that the original immigrants from Wales didn't teach it to their kids, as immigrants often didn't in that time. It was all part of the assimilation process.

Aunt Betty chatted about how it was growing up in a coal mining community where just about everyone worked for the mines. Her best friend was from what we might now consider a "poor" family. The daughter, then maybe 9 years old as I remember Aunt Betty saying, had it as her summer chore to pick coal from the slag heaps (waste coal) and bring it back home for storage until it was used for the fires of winter. Aunt Betty went along and helped her friend just for fun.

While in Main Street Books, the Frostburg bookstore and one of my favorite haunts when visiting Mom, I noticed a book by James Rada, Saving Shallmar. Here's the Amazon write up, below.

In fall turned to winter in 1949, the residents of Shallmar, Maryland, were starving. The town's only business, the Wolf Den Coal Corp. had closed down, unemployment benefits had ended and few coal miners had cars to drive to other jobs. When children started fainting in school, Principal J. Paul Andrick realized the dire situation the town was in and set out to help. He worked to get the story of the town's troubles out and get help for the town's residents and succeeded beyond his wildest dreams just in time for Christmas.

As I read the book, based on fact and using real names, on the flight back to San Diego, I picked up a bunch of information about life in a typical coal town in Western Maryland. I found that picking coal for heat in the winter, as Aunt Betty had done with her friend, was entirely common. There are plenty of details of everyday life to keep the casual reader happily turning pages!

The thing that stayed with me and was found throughout the book is how the coal mining companies entrapped the miners and their families. Shallmar, an actual coal town in Garrett County, Maryland, was pretty much typical of what was going on elsewhere. The coal companies, or operators as they are sometimes called, would offer high paying jobs to lure the best miners with their families. Miners with families were hard-working and stable and wouldn't move when they were needed during boom years.

The coal company often provided small houses and a company store close by for convenient shopping. They paid miners in script that could only be used to pay rent or buy goods from the company store. It became a trap when the script was only good to buy high-priced items at the store or exchangeable at a great discount for real currency. Shallmar was too far away from any real town where a miner might shop without driving a car to it, and besides, very few of the miners here had cars.

Shallmar at the start was a bit different in that the homes were quite lovely by comparison to other such homes offered by coal companies. They were wood frame and two story by contrast to the typical and tiny stone one-story miner's homes in Eckhart Mines, Maryland, where I have other ancestors. Shallmar in the beginning was pretty and roses grew over a trellis at many doors, a real model community. The power plant for the mine also supplied free electricity for homes. Sure residents only had power during the day, but at least they had it.

But as the time passed, the mine got played out with the best and easiest coal taken. Then after WWII, the price of coal dropped so miners got laid off and those left were paid less. Some lucky few did move out of Shallmar and on to other opportunities. But about 600 individuals remained at Shallmar even after the mine closed and there was no more work to be had and unemployment benefits and union payments ran out. Without a car to take them elsewhere, they were pretty much stuck in Shallmar.

I've driven all over this territory in Western Maryland, and seen the old coal shacks still in use. It's sad and desolate. I'll confess to naively thinking, "Why don't they just move?" Reading about Shallmar I got an education in the social and economic dynamics of coal country poverty.

But wait! Don't pass up this book because you think you'll be too sad when reading it. Nope, there are good people around and they do make a difference, and it's worth reading about. And yes, it's a Christmas story! So if you have any coal miners on your tree and you want a book that gives a lot in the telling, get this one.


Eckhart Mines coal camp houses.
(Photos below courtesy of coalcampusa.com and Chris DellaMea. Thanks you Chris for the wonderful web site on coal mining communities, especially those in Western Maryland where my peeps worked.)



Shallmar coal miners houses.
(Also from the same source as above... thank you Chris!)

Two story version of the miner's houses.


Smaller one story version at Shallmar.


The URL for this post is:

DNA Monday: Are We Related?

Have been working through the results from the DNA test I took at 23andMe, and you can see previous posts by plugging "DNA" into the search box at the right there. I decided on 23andMe because of the low price as well as the medical results, which seemed interesting and useful. Have not been bored with the genealogy results either!

By the way, AncestryDNA just announced at RootsTech that they are lowering the price for an entry-level test to $99. It gets interesting-er and interesting-er all the time!

This past week have been busy contacting DNA matches for two groups: the closest match based purely on chromosomes, and matches sharing surname. First let me cover a few observations about this whole contacting matched people effort and then I'll take a moment to comment on the close match versus the surname match.

Contacting your matches is a fairly straight forward process in which the first contact is made through 23andMe messaging to allow a buffer, and that felt comfortable. If the person is interested they can reply to your overture. I picked about ten or so from both the DNA match as well as the surname match, for which I selected Williams. The results could have been predicted if I'd stopped to think it through. Of both groups the most likely to respond were the individuals who had supplied the most information to 23andMe, probably indicating their interest in using this testing for genealogical purposes rather than those people who came for the medical results and then were just vaguely curious about ancestor matches.

Only one person in either group had a tree online to look at and that was from the Williams surname group. Perhaps this number is low because I didn't contact enough people. Or perhaps this number is low because those who are more serious about testing for genealogy - and with larger and denser trees - have chosen one of the other services, and if I had to guess that's what I'd guess.

After picking through a couple of Williams responders, most of which didn't have a tree online for me to look at, it became apparent that it was going to be much more difficult than I ever could have imagined to find any matching folks or to be able to pinpoint just where and along which line the match was happening. Those without trees online were supplied a list of my direct line Williams ancestors to look at with accompanying dates and locations. A couple of those who responded said they thought the matching ancestor was probably too far back for us to identify and they could be right about that, or at least their trees and research didn't go back that far.

Maybe I selected the wrong surname to start with. Everyone with a Williams surname has ancestors who come from Wales... where else would they come from?! Perhaps I better go back to the list and find another surname. And, I need to find out how these surnames were generated. That's an important detail.

The group with close DNA matching chromosomes in general (not surname specific) were the most difficult to sort out and to know how to get going on. Which surnames do we have in common? Most people offered a half-dozen surnames, but I'm thinking that if we're 3rd to 5th cousins the pool of possible surnames is way larger than that. Do they have a tree online? Most don't. Where to begin the matching process? (When I did a surname report on Mom's Big Tree it was over 200 pages long!)

Generally, people were slow to respond. (Maybe they have a life: how boring for them.) But now at close to a week out about a third have replied and that's pretty good, I think. I still have five replies that I'm working on so who knows how this will turn out. I'll keep you posted.

I'll be looking for Randy Seaver's posts about his contacts over at Genea-Musings because I'm starting to feel that there is probably a "best practices" way to go about this contacting stuff and with Randy's wonderful engineer's orderly mind behind this problem is he's bound to come up with something. Me, I'm blindly stumbling and finding (or rather not finding) my way and not doing a very good job of it.

Plus, I think I'll hold off further exploration until this Saturday when the seminar by Ce Ce Moore on DNA research is happening, hosted by the Chula Vista Genealogical Society. I'm probably going about this the wrongest way possible!

Coal miners in Eckhart, Maryland with the old Eckhart homeplace in the upper right.

Photo courtesy of my Eckhart peeps over on the Descendants of George Adam Eckhart facebook page. (About 1910)

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/03/dna-monday-are-we-related.html

Surname Saturday: The Eckharts from Eckhart, Maryland

Off we go on another Surname Saturday, a dandy blogging prompt from GeneaBloggers! This week we're going back in time with the Eckhart family. They originally came from Baveria, Germany and landed in Pennsylvania for a short stop. Then they started buying and selling land, as they liked to do, because for the first couple of generations that we can track here in this country, it was all about the land. And most of this line of ours were born and died on the Eckhart property in Allegany County, Maryland which now occupies the town of Eckhart Mines. (But see, no one in the family ever calls it Eckhart Mines because we know that the mining company changed the name from Eckhart, founded by George Adam Eckhart in 1789.)

So here's the line up.

 

1. Diane Kelly Weintraub

2. Francis Patrick " Pat" Kelly 1916 - 2007
3. Virginia Williams, that's Mom, living and loving it!

4. John Lee "Lee" Kelly 1892 - 1969
5. Helen Gertrude Zeller Kelly 1894 - 1985

 

8. Francis Patrick Kelly 1854 - 1923
9. Christiana Eckhart 1861 - 1932

 

18. John Eckhart 1831 - 1917

19. Mary Myers Eckhart 1837 - 1909
John Eckhart was born 5 Nov 1831 in Eckhart, Allegany, Maryland and died 5 Mar 1917 in the same place. He married Mary Myers on 22 Apr 1859 in Allegany County, Maryland.
Mary Myers was born 20 Mar 1837 in Frederick County, Maryland and died 30 Oct 1909 in Eckhart, Allegany, Maryland.
They had the following children:
9. Christiana Eckhart 1861 - 1932
Maggie L. Eckhart 1864 - ????. She married William Rechter.
Rachael Eckhart 1865 - 1940, who married Thomas W. Gracie, and then at his passing in 1909 in a horrible mining accident, she married Robert Strathan.
John Thomas Eckhart 1867 -1917. He married Rachael Pengilly.
Mary Catherine Eckhart 1868 - ????.

 

36. Jacob Eckhart 1801 - 1835/6

37. Delilah Porter 1812 - 1881
This couple were both born and died in Eckhart, Allegany, Maryland. We find it no end of fascinating that Jacob and his father, John, died in close proximity time-wise to each other. Some ancestors have floated the theory that both might have been poisoned in order to sell the estate to the big coal companies.
They had the following children:
18. John Eckhart 1831 - 1917, who married first Mary Myers, and when she died, married Rebecca O'Brien.
Rachael Eckhart 1829 - 1895. She married Basil Anderson.

72. John Eckhart 1768 - 1835

73. Mary Ann ? Eckhart 1780 - 1850
John Eckhart inherited the bulk of his father's estate that wasn't reserved for his mother, aside from small items left to his siblings. It was just at the time that the National Road was being developed and he took advantage of its location through his property. He was appointed a road manager, for which he paid $300 a year. In return he was to maintain the road and earned the right to keep a roadhouse, which served those who stopped. In the US Census of 1820 he owned 8 slaves, as he did in the 1830 Census. He was very prosperous.
When John Eckhart died in 1835, his wife who inherited the bulk of his estate, attempted to free the slaves. Her sons took her to court and tried to have her declared a "lunatic" and seize the property, including the slaves. She relented and kept the slaves in bondage, but thwarted the sons by moving to Monongahila County, West Virginia. Her will stipulated that the slaves were to be given their freedom upon her death. Her son, Adam, took custody of seven of the eight slaves when his mother died in 1850. It is generally presumed that Maltilda, her favorite and personal woman servant, was already freed when Mary Ann died.
Shortly after John's death, Mary Ann was approached by Matthew St. Clair Clarke, acting as an agent for a large coal mining conglomerate. He offered and paid $20,000 for the bulk of the Eckhart land. Shortly thereafter, Mary Ann moved to West Virginia to live with her son Adam. She took her slaves with her.
The old Eckhart land, purchased for $20,000, held some of the best quality coal found anywhere at in the 19th Century. This is called The Big Vein and produced millions of tons of coal from the 1830s until after WWI.
It is generally thought that there is miscegenation in this line and that the former Eckhart slave, Maria Johnson, who married Samuel Denson on 7 Jan 1868, in Cumberland Maryland, is a descendant from this line. DNA testing, anyone? Please contact me at dianew858@hotmail.com.
John and Mary Ann's children are:
36. Jacob Eckhart 1801 - 1835/6
Mary Ann Eckhart 1806 - 1893. She married John Hansel and they moved away to Mallory Township, Clayton County, Illinois. Both are buried in the Hansel Cemetery there.
Adam Eckhart 1810 - 1891. He married Sarah Albright. They moved away to the Union District, Monongalia County, West Virginia.
John Eckhart 1824 - ????. He married Sarah Hayes.
David Eckhart 1824 - ????.

 

144. George Adam Eckhart (1729 - 1806)

145. Anna Marie Whittmyer Eckhart (1732 - 1812)
George Adam Eckhart, born in 1729 in Bavaria. He sailed aboard the ship Patience, and arrived in Philadelphia on 11 Aug 1750, from Rotterdam and last, Cowes, England. He married Maria Whittmyer on 15 Dec 1755, at Indanfield Lutheran, Franconia Twp., Philadelphia Co. (now Montgomery).
By about 1762 he purchased land in Frederick Co. Maryland, and now part of Carroll Co. Maryland. He sold the land in Frederick County after he and Jacob Loar had purchased military lots number 3644, 3645, 3646, and 3694, now in Allegany County and east of the town of Frostburg. It is generally thought that George Adam Eckhart went back to Germany and returned on the same ship as Jacob Loar, that being the ship Union, in 1774. By 1789 he was living in the area of Eckhart Mines, Allegany Co. MD where he died around 1806. The village of Eckhart was laid out in lots on 12 Jul 1789.
They had the following children:
George Adam Eckhart 1756 - 1822. He married Maria Margaretha Kreamer.
Maria Elizabeth Eckhart 1761 - 1856, She married John Tobias Stoyer.
72. John Eckhart 1768 - 1835
Sarah Eckhart 1769 - 1827. She married John Tobias who died. She then married Jacob Loar.
Katherine Eckhart 1773 - ????. She married Archibald White.
David Eckhart 1775 - ????. It's clear from the records that David had a mental impairment.

18. John Eckhart 1831 - 1917 and

19. Mary Myers Eckhart 1837 - 1909

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/02/surname-saturday-eckharts-from-eckhart.html



SNGF: About Those Houses

Randy Seaver at Genea-Musings blog throws out a challenge every Saturday for some Saturday Night Genealogy Fun, or SNGF. I try to do as many as I can but as a relative newbie don't make it as often as I would like. This weeks is right up my alley because it's about family homes. Here's what he said in his blog post:
1) Determine where your ancestral families were on 1 January 1913 - 100 years ago.
2) List them, their family members, their birth years, and their residence location (as close as possible). Do you have a photograph of their residence from about that time, and does the residence still exist?
3) Tell us all about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook Status or Google+ Stream post

I've decided to change up Randy's challenge a tad and talk about three houses that were occupied by ancestors in 1913 and list all the relatives who called each their home at some point in their lifetimes.  I chose these because they are houses that held each family through at least two and sometimes three generations and 1913 is a good confluence year for them. They are:
1) the Zeller and Kelly family residence at 89 West Main Street, Frostburg, Maryland
2) the Eckhart and Kelly family residence in Eckhart Mines, Maryland, and
3) the Williams family home in Ocean Mines, Maryland.
So here goes!

1) the Zeller and Kelly family residence at 89 West Main Street, Frostburg, Allegany County, Maryland
This house was built in the 1840s on the main thoroughfare of the town, also known as the Old Pike, The National Road, and the Cumberland Road. Built in the first couple of decades of the 1800s, the National Pike was the first road west paid for by the federal government.

This is a photo taken in the early 1900s in the general vicinity of the Zeller and Kelly house to document the National Road. The house would probably have been on the right.

We have the house history going back to its origins, but for this exercise, here are the ancestors and families who might have lived there in the decades before and after 1913. Here's the house as it was recently in October of 2012.

1. Helen Gertrude Zeller, my grandmother, born in this house 6 Aug 1894, and died there 13 Feb 1985. She left the house to my Dad, Francis Patrick Kelly. She married John Lee Kelly on 30 Sept 1913 in Frostburg, Maryland. She inherited the house from her father, Gustav Zeller. Grandma and Grandpop lived there with all six of their children:
Helen Lee Kelly Natoly 1914 - 1989
Francis Patrick Kelly, Dad, 1916 - 2007
Bernard Michael Kelly 1918 - 2007
John Delbert Kelly, living
Christiana Kelly Fraley 1923 - 1993
Louise Kelly Chaney 1924 - 2002
As you can see Grandma was living in the house in January of 1913 but not yet married to Grandpop. That would come later in the year in September, and the babies started arriving the next August right there in the house
2. Gustav Zeller, my great grandfather, born 3 Feb 1858 in Allegany County, Maryland was the first in the family to own the house. He died 3 Dec 1927. He married Moretta Workman born 3 Apr 1880 and died 24 Mar 1946. I don't know if they both died in the house but if I had to guess, I'd guess that they did. They lived in this house with all five children. The boys left after marriage but Grandma, the apple of GGF's eye never left the house.
Charles Sample Zeller 1880 - 1966
Adelbert (Bert) Zeller 1883 - ?
Gustav William Zeller 1884 - 1964. He owned a house across the street and down three houses.
Helen Gertrude Zeller, Grandma
Anna M. Zeller Mar 1882 - Sept 1882
There was always a full house at 89 West Main Street, and many ancestors lived there for a while after they were married or between houses. My family lived there one summer while the new-to-us house was getting ready. During the Great Depression a few traveling salesmen boarded there as well.


2) the Eckhart and Kelly family residence in Eckhart Mines, Allegany County, Maryland



This is the house where my Grandpop John Lee "Lee" Kelly 1892 - 1969 was born, and the photo was taken last year with one of the many remodels in progress. Uncle Delbert Kelly tells of walking from the house at 89 West Main Street, above, to this house maybe 2 miles east on the Old National Pike, as a young boy of six or so, to visit his grand mother, Christiana Eckhart Kelly 1861 - 1932, who scared the daylights out of him. After the long walk downhill he would enter by the front door to sit properly for a visit in the front parlor on the stiff leather chair! Afterward, Delbert and Grandpop took the trolley back up the hill to home.
Here are the ancestors who lived in this house:
1. Christiana Eckhart Kelly 1861 - 1932, most likely born in this house to her parents, John Eckhart 1831 - 1917 and Mary Myers Eckhart 1837 - 1909. She met and fell in love with my great grandfather Francis Patrick Kelly 1854 - 1932. Yes, you have not been fooled: Dad and his own grandfather were named the same! 
By 1913 they had a house full of kids:
Mary Kelly 1880 - 1949
Eugene Francis Kelly 1888 - 1986
Margaret Ann Kelly 1909 - ?
Edith Bridget Kelly 1891 - ?
John Lee Kelly, my Grandpop, 1892 - 1969
Dora Elizabeth 1894 - 1962
Francis Patrick Kelly Jr. 1897 - 1946 (yes, another Francis Patrick Kelly!)
Also living with the family at the time of the 1910 US Census was Christiana's father, John S. Eckhart 1831 -1917 who was the great grandson of the town founder, George Adam Eckhart 1729 - 1806. I can only imagine which other of my ancestors lived there and am willing to bet there were more than three.

3) the Williams family home in Ocean Mines, Allegany County, Maryland.

Ocean Mines, known locally as simply Ocean, sits in the George's Creek Valley. Ocean Mine Fields were one of the richest coal mine fields in Western Maryland. The little mountain town of Frostburg sits at the top of the George's Creek valley where the Ocean Mine Field runs and this house is perhaps three miles south of Frostburg.
My great grandfather Daniel Williams 1852 - 1920 and his wife Jane Price Williams 1862 - 1939 called this house their family home and would have been living there with most of their eight children in January of 1913. Daniel was born in Wales, was a miner or collier there, and worked in mining when he came to the rich coal fields of the George's Creek area. Most anxious to purchase his own home and settle down, as were the vast majority of miners there, it was not possible at the time to also purchase the mineral rights. So that's why the mining company ran a mine shaft right under the house! And the house eventually sank!
Here's the list of the kids living in the home in 1910:
James Henry Williams 1882 -1936
William Williams 1884 - 1964
Thomas Williams 1890 - 1951
Joseph Williams 1895 - 1948
Cambria Williams, my grandfather 1897 - 1960
Charles Williams, Aunt Betty's father, 1899 - 1979
Aunt Betty and her parents also lived in this house. She remember stories of hearing the miner's voiced under the house as they worked the min shafts! Spooky!

So those are my hand-picked and often loved homes of the ancestors. I do hope that you are not too bored by my rambling SNGF adventure!


The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/01/sngf-about-those-houses.html

Two Books, One Location

I have two new best friends: Samuel Doak Porter and H. Andrew Brown! Actually they are both deceased as are many of my new friends;) You know how it is... you "meet" ancestors or whatever online and the next thing you know you are dreaming about them, right Mom?

I ordered up two microfilms of books about ancestors through FamilySearch.com and the Family History Library. Had been trying to get a copy of each forever, trolling bookseller web sites, gazing longingly at WorldCat to see which libraries held them, and wondering how on earth I was going to travel to far-away locations. Then I noticed that one of the WorldCat listings was for the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. Hmmm... could I get them on microfilm?! YES!

So I ordered them up to be sent to the local Family History Center here in San Diego. And I've seen them. Not only that but I scanned the relevant bits and made copies for Mom! I'm thrilled!

The first is about my Eckhart ancestors, "George Adam Eckhart and Philip Hansel of Allegany County, Maryland," by H. Andrew Brown. It's mostly about the Hansel family because Andrew Brown descended from that line, but never mind. There's enough meat in it about the George Adam Eckhart side to interest me.

My big "take-away" moment from the Brown book is the mention of an article in the 22 OCT 1860 New York Evening Post about the Eckhart heirs being "cheated out of land". That goes along with family oral tradition and to my knowledge this is the only thing ever written about that whole affair. (Scroll down to read more about the Eckharts and their land.) Andy Brown was not able to see that article from himself, and he was a super researcher, you can tell by reading his work. Interestingly, Mom has correspondences with him in her file about the Eckharts when he was writing the book. Now I'm wondering, how can I get to see that article?

The second book on microfilm is "A genealogy of the Porter family of Maryland, West Virginia, Michigan," by Samuel Doak Porter. I've been after it for a long time and here's why. George Adam Eckhart's grandson Jacob Eckhart (1801 - 1836) was married to Delilah Porter (1812 - 1881). Mom and I have tried repeatedly to figure out who her father was. There are tons of Porters in the area and the generations use the same handful of given names over and over which drives us to distraction! You ever run into that? Yikes!

I've only had the most basic peek at the Porter book - which I scanned at the Center yesterday afternoon - but I can tell already that this is going to be a real challenge to sort out. The author pretty much starts the book by saying that it was frustrating for him as well as many others trying to trace this line when sorting out all the various Moses, Samuel, and Josiah men!! But Mom is a really good detective and there are a couple of telling moments in the lineage where Delilah and her presumed brother Josiah could fit in. This mystery will be an educated guess at best with no solid proof available, I'm sorry to say.

The interesting thing for me right off the bat is how these families, the Eckharts, the Porters, the Frosts, the Workmans, the Combs and all the rest living just a few short miles from each other, one hill away, married and re-married in to each other's families again and again. Geography determining biology once more. Seems like church was the Match.com of the day;)

The photo of the day from my archive:

The Eckhart land, in part, Eckhart Maryland.

The Eckhart Cemetery, Eckhart Maryland
Looking toward the Porter property on Rose Hill... sort of.

The Porter Cemetery, Rose Hill.

See the yellow? All Josiah Porters! Yikes!!
(From the Samuel Doak Porter book.)

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/05/two-book-one-location.html

Paranoid, Or Was Someone Really Stealing from Them?

Am working on the Eckhart bunch right now... the Eckharts, descendants of George Adam Eckhart of Eckhart and Eckhart Mines, Maryland. Down through the decades, they have been telling a tale of intrigues and rumors that "someone stole our land." (See posts below.) Here I am over 200 years later sitting at the computer trying to piece together what really might have happened back then. To be completely candid about this matter, have to say, I get two pictures: one of double dealing and one of paranoia. Here's what I'm finding so far.

George Adam Eckhart came to this country about 1750. He acquired through purchase and whatever, in total almost 650 acres of land. Some of this land was used for farming and his family and children settled on some other parcels. He died in 1806. His will left a third of the estate to his wife Anna Marie and two-thirds to his son John who was named executor of the estate.

I'm getting a feeling that John was quite the business man, and it was written that he "became quite wealthy". In 1830 he ran a roadhouse where one of the four stagecoach lines that serviced the National Road (that was built in 1812 or so) stopped. That was pretty big business then. He also owned 8 slaves.

Coal was found on the Eckhart property along about the same time as the National Road was built. Some sources report that John had already found coal on his land and was already offering it to local residents to heat and cook with. It's also written that he dug the first deep mine on his land about this time.

John married a woman named Mary Ann, whose surname is not yet known. John died in 1835. Ten days later, more or less, she sold the land to Matthew St Claire Clarke. (See post below, "Cousin Rich, The Sleuth".) Clarke was an agent for a mining company and had already had the land surveyed and the minerals assayed. He also wrote a report for the mining company.

Mary Ann accepted the tidy sum of $20,000 for the land. What is that in today's money, I thought? Go to: www.measuringworth.com 

Here's what it said when I plugged in $20,000 in 1835:

If you want to compare the value of a $20,000.00 Income or Wealth, in 1835 there are three choices. In 2011 the relative:
historic standard of living value of that income or wealth is $527,000.00
economic status value of that income or wealth is $10,900,000.00
economic power value of that income or wealth is $227,000,000.00

As for John's slave's value, it was listed in probate as $3600 in 1835. Back to the Measuring Worth Calculator again to find this, values of commodities, which sadly, slaves were at that time:

If you want to compare the value of a $3,600.00 Commodity in 1835 there are three choices. In 2011 the relative:
real price of that commodity is $94,800.00
labor value of that commodity is $810,000.00(using the unskilled wage) or $1,790,000.00(using production worker compensation)
income value of that commodity is $1,960,000.00


That's a fortune!!

After her husband's death, it's said that Mary Ann wanted to free her slaves, but the sons stepped in. In 1836, a year after Mary Ann came into a considerable fortune, her sons filed a Writ of Lunacy against Mary Ann. A trustee was appointed. She appealed from her home now in another state, West Virginia, living with her son Adam.

I'm wondering how long the negotiations with Clarke went on. Were they going on as John Eckhart lay dying? Or was he kept in the dark? There's no way of knowing.

Additionally, Mary Ann's oldest son, Jacob, died either within five days of his father or within the next year. Suspicious?
Was $20,000 a fair sum? Did Mary Ann know about the mineral wealth sitting right under her and her family? Did Mary Ann's sons have a legitimate concern for her mental health after the death of her husband (and one other son, close on) and the pressures Mr. Clarke possibly might have been making on her?

As the years passed, might not her sons and grandsons who stayed in Eckhart Mines not have felt some bitterness as they saw the Big Vein of coal on their ancestral land being mined by large coal conglomerates only interested in profits, leaving them in the coal dust? It would make me mad, I must say!

With this picture in mind it's easy to see how down through the years family oral tradition came to tell of land being "stolen" from us. The real-life Jenkins didn't come into the picture until the 1940s as far as I can tell, yet I heard my grandparents tell of "Jenkins" paying off the court clerk in Cumberland to get rid of the original Eckhart deed. Not likely.

Other branches of this family also tell stories, similar yet different, of wrong doing when it comes to clear title of the Eckhart land.

On a side note, the Jenkins firm did tear down the old home place and as I hear it, bull dozed most of the old family cemetery. That right there is enough to make a person super angry!

NOTE to Cousins: If I got any of this wrong, please tell me! It's complicated:)



The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/04/paranoid-or-was-someone-really-stealing.html

Whetstones vs. Eckharts

Having recently announced here that I was declaring a new project for myself, that is the pursuit of all information about Capt. Jacob Whetstone of the American Revolution, on my mother's side, the Eckhart bunch on my father's side jumps in demanding attention! (See posts below, if you want.)

I had a nice blue binder started for the Whetstone project and was up and running. Had a work plan and everything.

Then Cousin Cynthia sent Mom some posts from the facebook page of a group, Descendants of George Adam Eckhart of Eckhart MD ... and I was off task. Way off task! But it's been fun too. Met a lot of cousins and learned a ton of stuff.

Now I have yet another blue binder for the Eckhart thing - see, I can't even call it a project yet. Funny, that, because as a relative newbie my first big project was on my Dad's side, Nehemiah Newans who also served in the Revolutionary War as did Capt. Whetstone... and my Eckhart connection, one Mary Myers Eckhart, was great granddaughter of Nehemiah Newans. I've learned a lot about Newans and his great grandson, Thomas F. Myers, Mary Myers Eckhart's brother. It would be good to tie it all together and get a better picture of that side of the family.

So I'm off taking slave inventory to try and figure out where the Eckhart slaves went to after Mary Ann, wife of John Eckhart (son of George Adam Eckhart), died. John died in 1835 and his estate went to Mary Ann... but I haven't seen his will yet. Anyway, the land was sold almost immediately to the representative of a mining company, so we know where the land went and the story behind that. (See post below.) But what about the slaves? So how could I not follow that up?!!

I guess that no matter how well you plan your genealogy projects, there might be an opportunity you have to jump on:)

Picture of the day from my archive:

Mary Catharine Myers Eckhart

(1837 - 1909)

My Myers/Eckhart connection

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/04/whetstones-vs-eckharts.html

"Idiots" and Slaves

This will be a long-ish post as I want to copy and paste the post from Cousin Rich of the "Descendants of George Adam Eckhart, of Eckhart MD" group on facebook. He's done a marvelous job of keeping the information flowing!! Thanks, a thousand thanks, to Cousin Rich!!!

Here's what he posted about our shared ancestor, George Adam Eckhart's son, John Sr. and what happened to the slaves as can be seen from documents. Note that Mary Ann's son David had been listed as an "Idiot" on the 1850 census. Who knows what that really meant and how it would be described in today's terms. But she "sufficiently provided for him", the will states. I wonder in what way.

The 1830 Md. census showed that John Sr. owned 8 slaves, 4 males under 10 years old, 3 males 10 to 24 years & 1 female 10 to 24 years. He also employed 1 free colored female age 24 to 36 years old.
-------------------------------------------------------------
John Eckhart was an early slaveholder as evidenced by a transaction recorded in Allegany Co., MD on 23 Oct 1805 in which John J. Buch & Christian Deetz of Alahany Co., MD bound themselves for "the full sum of $240" for the negro girl Jill.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Slaves appraised in the 1835 estate inventory included:
Black man (Harry) $600.00 - sold to John Eckhart.
Black boy (Bile/Rile) $600.00 - sold to Hannah Eckhart.
Black boy (Levi) $400.00 - sold to Adam Echart.
Black boy (Mandy) $350.00 sold to John McGittigan.
Black boy (Tom) $400.00 - sold to David Eckhart.
Black boy (Dennis) $250.00 - sold to Mary Eckhart.
Black boy (William) $100.00 - sold to Mary Eckhart.
Black girl (Lyndy) - sold to Mary Eckhart.
Black girl (Milly) $450.00 - sold to John Hansel.
-------------------------------------------------------------
In August 1850, Mary Ann's slaves were appraised thus: Dennis (23 yrs), William (17 yrs) & Fielding (10 yrs) at $220 each. Lucinda was appraised at $200. All were handed over to son, Adam. Approximatley $350 was owed the estate by Evan Ellicott & Richard Grays for purchase of unnamed negroe children (Lavinia, Martha, & Matilda ?). The notes were judged worthless because Ellicott was insolvent and Grays was a blackman without property.
The notes were marked 'B' and returned to the court.

Mary Eckhart left bequest to them in her will dated July 3, 1843, which was probated July 1850 and read:

In the name of God amen, I Mary Ann Eckhart now of Monongalia County, Virginia being weak in body but sound of mind and memory, am calling to mind the uncertainty of life and the necessity of arranging my worldly affairs do make this my last will and testament, hereby revoking all other or former wills and Testaments.

First I hereby direct that my just debts shall first be paid, and after payment of the same and my funeral expenses I hereby devise and bequeath as follows vis:

Secondly - That after my decease I direct that my black woman Malinda shall be free and that all necessary papers showing her freedom be furnished to her.

Thirdly - That the children of said Malinda shall be free in manner following to Vz the boys at the age of thirty five and the girls at the age of twenty five Vs. Dennis of the age of 16 on the 5 of August 1843 - William 11 year old 4 February 1844 - Matilda 8 year old 16 of June, 1843 - Lininia 6 year old the 16 May 1843 - Fielding three years old the 22nd February 1843 and Martha one year old the 22 August in the year 1843.

The above named being the children of said Malinda and any further increase that said Malinda may have previous to my decease shall be freed in like manner at the ages of 25 and 35 years.

Fourthly - to my Sons Adam Eckert and John Eckert I hereby give and bequeath the before mentioned negroes and increase until they shall by this will become free, and all the rest of my Estate of all kinds whatsoever, believing that the said Adam & John Eckart have greater claims upon me than any of the rest of my children except my afflicted son David (1850 census listed David as an Idiot) who is sufficiently provided for - But I hereby direct that of my Estate, my son John shall have my household & kitchen furniture to himself.

Fifthly I hereby appoint Edgar C. Wilson Executor to this my last will and testament. In Testimony whereof I have hereto set my hand and seal this 3rd day of July in the year 1843.

Mary Ann Eckhart

See why I'm stumbling all over the place thanking Cousin Rich? Mom has this information in her file with a copy of Mary Ann's will. But Rich put it together in a time flow and that makes it easier to understand. I think it's easier to comprehend a lot of information this way.

And, it makes the information dynamic in a contemporary way. Cousins can comment and add to it on the group facebook page. It gets us thinking here and now about what happened long ago.

I'm wondering how my cousins feel about our ancestors owning slaves and if they ever had a troubled heart over it as I did when I found out.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/04/idiots-and-slaves.html

Murder? Theft? Bribery?

Yesterday I posted that it finally struck me like a bolt of lightning how facebook can be used for genealogy when I joined the group, "Descendants of George Adam Eckhart of Eckhart, MD". Rich, bless him, created the group March 22, just eight days ago and already the group has almost 20 cousins.

But the most extraordinary thing is that we're sharing family history. And photos too... you know me, I love the photos... but this story takes the cake!!!

There's always been an oral history story in my Eckhart line about how the Consolidation Coal Company, the Consol, "stole" the Eckhart land from the family. Their man, "Jenkins", supposedly went to the county court house and paid a clerk to make one (or more) of the parcel deeds "disappear". It's hard, I would imagine, to get evidence to substantiate that claim now. I think at one point Mom did try to go and look to no avail. So I doubted the story or at least just chalked it up to family legend and lore. But here's a twist!

Here's what Rich posted to the Eckhart facebook group and it's very interesting indeed! And sorry about the font size craziness... I just copied and pasted and it went berserk:)

I was just reading some of the "history" of the Eckharts on the Genealogy web site. Here is an excerpt: "The original Eckhart farm was 600+ acres extending into what is now Frostburg. The Eckhart mansion stood close to where the McDonald's and Food Lion are in Frostburg now. There is actually a saw mill there now.

Nearby there are some small cottages built on rock foundations; those were the slave quarters. Everything was left to John, & he became quite a wealthy man. Harry said Matthew St. Claire Clark bought the Eckhart land. John Edwin Eckhart said a man by the name of Jenkins ended up with Consolidation Coal Co., and they bought out the Eckhart Farm".

Interesting reading, but I think a few facts were left out.

From research that I did, the Eckhart farm was indeed sold to Matthew St. Claire Clark, in 1835. The land was purchased from Mary Eckhart. The excerpt does not include the fact that her "wealthy" husband and her oldest son, had both died within 5 days of the sale.

It seems Mr St. Claire Clark, who was the Washington D.C. based attorney for The Consolidated Coal Co. of New York, was also privy to the fact that the land contained the largest vein of coal ever found in Maryland. Mr St. Claire Clark had authorized the production and publication of a book which described in detail the minerals located within "our new land purchase in Eckhart, Maryland". The book was published shortly after the purchase of the land. So shortly after, that it seems Mr. St Claire Clark had to have his geologists working on the land before they even owned it.

Finding the mother lode of coal in 1835 was like finding the mother lode of gold in 1849. Who knows how many people lost their lives in the name of greed? I believe John and his son did.

 

 

Today's photo from my archive, the town of Eckhart Maryland taken about 1909:

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/03/murder-theft-bribery.html

New To Me Cousins!

Got an email the other day from Jo Ann who was  googling around and found my post about the Kelly Pump in Eckhart Maryland. I had been back to Western Maryland to see Mom this past spring and we took a drive to Eckhart to look for the site of the old Eckhart Mansion and the old Kelly homeplace. And there was the Kelly Pump too.

Guy getting water from the Kelly Pump.

Kelly Pump

Old Kelly Home Place down the hill and

across the road from the pump.

I posted to this blog about the trip (remembering to put tags on entries... see those things at the bottom, well they are searchable.) And Jo Ann emailed about her interest in the pump, its history, and possibly getting it a historical designation. The old pump has been on this stretch of road for a really long time since this was part of the Old Pike and the first National Road west. Yup, it's historic. Here's the Wikipedia entry for it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Road

So I emailed Jo Ann that I'm on board and willing to do whatever to move this nice project along. Then I realized that we might be related!

Emails back and forth and we find that she's the granddaughter of my grandad Kelly's sister's husband's brother. Hey, Jo Ann, did I get that right? Mom, is that right? Remember guys, I'm a newbie here and by definition prone to error! Using the Steve Morse Relationship calculator, Jo Ann is my second cousin and a blood relative. Here's a link to Steve Morse's calculator: http://stevemorse.org/relation/calculator.html

Then Jo Ann told me about grandad Kelly's sister's son's daughter who lives in Florida, Eileen! I just love finding new cousins!!

See, this is just one of the reason why it's nice to have a blog:)

FOUND: Second Cousin Debby!

A while back I posted about small genealogy groups and how they work to make connections between lost relatives. Here's a link to that post:
http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2011/09/thank-goodness-for-small-genealogy.html

Finally I just took a note card and used snail mail to see if I could make contact with the people mentioned in the Genealogical Society of Allegheny County's newsletter Old Pike Post. Well guess what? Received an email back! As best I can figure using the Steve Mores One Step web site's Relationship Calculator (and I need to say that figuring relationships is a mystery yet to be unraveled to this newbie so I'm happy to have Steve's widgit) Debby is my second cousin and a blood relative! WOW!

This is the very first time that I'm had the great pleasure of using genealogy work to find an actual living relative... most are of the other kind with a tombstone and all;) And this is very cool!!!

By the way, my Dad's Uncle Gene is Debby's Grandfather. Am hoping that we'll spend lots of time comparing charts and family stories.  Oooh, maybe she has pictures to share... my favorite thing!!!

Kelly's WHAT?

In the little town of Eckhart, Maryland sits a house on the side of one of the finger lanes off the main road. It's what I expect some would call an "old homeplace," a place where ancestors lived for a generation or two. The Kellys lived there: that would be my paternal great grand father, Francis Patrick Kelly (1854 - 1923) and my great grandmother, Christiana Eckhart Kelly (1861 - 1932). Here is a photo of that house taken last weekend, likely much changed from the original look. As you can see, the present residents are working on the house.

Back up the lane and across the street is a deep mountain spring called Kelly's Pump. When Mom and I drove up a guy was there filling his 5-gallon jugs with water right from the pump. Back in California you'd pay plenty for pure mountain spring water! Ha! And here there was spring water with my family name right on it -- for free! And if I had anything to say about it, which I sure as heck don't, good clean water would be free everywhere. Guess it runs in the family:)

Ya know, it's funny how you look at the same old place through different eyes when you're doing genealogy!

Kelly's Pump, still hard at work in Eckhart, Maryland!