Mappy Monday: Old Military Lots in Allegany County, Maryland

I like maps. They get me visually organized. Can't have enough of them, especially of the area where most of my American ancestors spent the bulk of their time, and that's Western Maryland, northern West Virginia where it kisses Allegany and Garrett Counties of Maryland, and that bit of south and western Pennsylvania that touches those same two counties. There aren't enough pins in my pin box to mark all of the locations were my ancestors dwelt there. And sometimes, if the conditions are right, I can look at a map and make a new observation, like the time I looked at the Military Lot Map and saw how close the Eckhart, Porter, and Workman families lots were! No wonder those branches intermarried like it was a contest!

One of my favorite memories of maps was an exercise using Google Earth. Don't you just love Google Earth? I was curious about where exactly George Adam Eckhart's (1729 - 1806) property was located. I knew they were lots numbered 3644, 3645, 3646, and 3694. Adam Eckhart most likely didn't serve in the Revolutionary War directly but he might have lent aide, as they say. Most authorities on this line believe that he purchased his land and when the Military Lots were surveyed by Francis Deakins in 1787, and the assignments made, the lots marked as belonging to Adam Eckhart were already owned by him.

The original Deakins map was lovely but it wasn't going to help me much because there were no landmarks that could identify where the lots were in today's terms. There is also a map drawn in 1796 of Military Lots, but that map has few contemporary landmarks, except the "Potowmack River", or Potomac.

Map of Military Lot tracts, 1796.

The most helpful map in my quest to find Adam Eckhart's property was the one just below. This wonderful effort combined the Deakins map with today's landmarks, as well as the names of the assignees of the lots. Suddenly the relationship of Eckhart property to Porter land was abundantly clear. All the Eckhart boy had to do to see the Porter girl was walk up over the hill!

 

 

This wonderful map, a portion shown above, was a joint project of the Evergreen Heritage Center and Frostburg State University has been a very special resource for me. As the map states:

This map represents the historic military lots on and surrounding the Evergreen

Heritage Center property surveyed by Francis Deakins in 1787. Various modern

landmarks have been mapped for reference use and were not present during the

original survey.

 

So now that I had a really good idea about exactly where the Eckhart lots were in relation to a road or two, off to Google Earth I went to see Eckhart, Maryland. The top image below, as best I can calculate, is just about where lot 3644 was. See the road there on the upper right of this first image? Across that road and just out of sight of this image is where the old Eckhart Mansion stood. The stable was across the road and perhaps its footprint or old stone foundation can be seen as a reverse "c" shape mid-left in the image.

 

The "mansion" was a residence and also an inn along the National Road. Adam's son, John, paid the government $300 per year for the right to run that establishment. As a road commissioner, he was responsible for upkeep on his assigned stretch of the Old Pike. It also gave him the right to make a deal with stage companies in order to use his place as their official stop. From what I understand, and there are plenty of experts on this subject who could do a better job of this, the location of this inn meant that John Eckhart's contract was with lesser stage lines who would use his place as a watering stop for livestock and meals for folks traveling. The bigger splashier full-service inns were in Frostburg just up the road a couple of miles and that's where the premiere stage lines stopped with passengers who enjoyed a fine meal and a room.

 

I met some Eckhart descendants on Facebook and they clued me in as to the details of the property and where the inn or old Eckhart mansion stood. I found out from a NatGeo program on national highways that inns on this stretch of the Old Pike road in Allegany County had the stable on the opposite side of the road, and downhill from where travelers ate and slept. Makes sense. The big find for me from these other Eckhart descendants is that there is still a grave marker on the old Eckhart family Cemetery! And here's a photo of it below.

 



The marker sits on that mound in that green oval shape you see mid, right.

And here it is: the grave marker for George Adam Eckhart put there by some of his descendants.

Mappy Monday is a blogging prompt from those wonderfully helpful folks at GeneaBloggers! Try them, you'll like 'em:)


The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/07/mappy-monday.html

Treasure Chest Thursday: "History of Cumberland, Md." by Lowdermilk

This week we'll look at a little old treasure from the chest, "History of Cumberland, Md," by William Harrison Lowdermilk, originally published in 1878. My copy is one of those put out by a publishing company and billed as ,"Affordable & High Quality Paperback Edition". I'm cool with that because I don't have to be too precious about handling. Think I paid about $10 for this reproduction about a year ago and you can still find it on Amazon. The collector's editions go for up to $300!

The reproduction paperback is perfect for my use. It's 580 pages of sheer local history from George Washington's Journals and Indian graves to local bits of interest in 1876, the last year Lowdermilk covered. The book ends with General Braddock's Orderly Book in which he recorded a lot of trivia about the colonial period in the territory that would eventually become Allegany County, Maryland.

As you can see from the photo below, I have snips of paper marking pages of interest. This was an inexpensive book and a perfect candidate to mark up, but alas, I can't bring myself to write in it!

One of the things that fascinates me is the names of places and how they have either changed or stayed the same. Old Town was Shawnee Old Town, while Wills Creek has been that name for as long as people have been recording it when the "white man" first set foot in the area.

I have been impressed with the great amount of time George Washington spent in the area, from his earliest years with Nemacolin who showed him the trail west, to the days of the revolution. Back and forth he came, first as a scout, then with General Braddock in the French and Indian War. Sometimes the descriptions tell me exactly where Washington strode and other times the manes have changed or the old chestnut tree grove has been long gone.

I must confess that most of the pages of Washington's Journal leave me requiring a nap. But then just as I start to doze off there's an exciting passage and I learn something of use. The best part of this early matter is the descriptions of the lush forests and abundant wildlife and fur animals. That, of course, has vanished, but it busies the mind to imaging how it all was in times past.

Eventually, careful reading reveals an ancestor or two. Because this fine old book has no index (drat) I examine every page for surnames I know. On page 264 I find my 5th great grandfather, George Adam Eckhart, known as Adam, listed amongst those individuals who settled on the land west of Cumberland before the Bounty Lands were awarded, as is Isaac Workman, also a 5th great grandfather and listed on the next page.

I read the pages carefully because if an ancestor is not there, I know that helpful background information will be there. On page 334 I find listed the names of those men responsible for the upkeep of the National Road west in 1834. From the names such as Josiah Porter (related), Meshack Frost (related), and Josiah Frost, I can roughly guess where each section of road lies from where their property was.

On page 350 I find that Peter Yeast is serving as County Commissioner in 1841 - 42 for Allegany County before it was divided yielding Garrett County to the west. Peter Yeast was the second husband of my 3rd great grandmother. Did not know he was such a respected man. This explains why his son-in-law, and my 2nd great grandfather, Joseph E. Whetstone, is mentioned on page 215 in another book about the area, "The Old Pike: A History of the National Road," by Thomas B. Searight, as running a tavern about that time when the 1850 census shows clearly that the tavern was then run by Peter Yeast. Looks like the SIL took over for Peter Yeast while he served his county as a commissioner. Details like this fill out the lives of the ancestors.

I love old books about local history for the background they give. I could read this stuff all day!

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/04/treasure-chest-thursday-history-of.html

Tombstone Tuesday: Christiana and Frank P. Kelly

Was looking through Mom's tombstone photo file and ran into these two that I hadn't noticed before. They belong to my great grand parents and Dad's father's parents: Christiana Kelly (1861 - 1932) and Frank P. Kelly (1854 - 1923). Frank's full name was Francis Patrick Kelly but everyone called him Frank. He is just one of seven or eight Francis Patrick Kellys, including my Dad who everyone called Pat, on Mom's Big Tree. This couple rests in St. Michael's Catholic Cemetery in Frostburg, Allegany County, Maryland and here's a link to this cemetery on FindAGrave.

His wife was Christiana Eckhart Kelly, but here on the tombstone, as you can see, her name was spelled with two "n"s. Additionally, we have records with the surnames spelled both as Kelly and Kelley. Sounds about right, doesn't it? Just enough to drive our search a tad crazy:)

This couple holds a bit of special interest for me because they were the first big inter-religious marriage in this line: a Catholic groom and a Lutheran bride. And they had to work at it to get the blessing of the bride's family. Their strategy, and one taken by many a couple, was to have kids so as to put the pressure on. Here's a link to a recent post about it, "Treasure Chest Thursday: Secrets", and you can find it here.

Christiana Eckhart Kelly came from an old family in the area of Western Maryland and Eckhart (or Eckhart Mines as it's now named) going back to the Revolutionary War. Her great great grandfather was George Adam Eckhart who purchased military lots and combined them with the lots of Jacob Loar to form the large parcel he owned. Eventually his son's wife sold the most valuable parcels to a mining company. This bituminous coal-rich land came to be known as The Big Vein and made the coal barrons rediculously wealthy. And that, my friends is a whole other story for another day!

Uncle Delbert still tells of being a boy and visiting his grandmother Christiana on Sundays, walking down the hills to the old Kelly house, across from Kelly's pump, and having to sit at attention on the big leather chair and mind his manners. One gets the impression that he was on very best behavior, and totally out of character for one of the Kelly boys.

Dad as a school boy,

Francis Patrick Kelly (1916 - 2007)

Frank and Christiana's family, about 1913.

Please click on the image to read names and dates.
And yes, there's another Frank Kelly Jr. in this picture.

John Lee Kelly (1892 - 1969), Dad's Dad, and his mother,
Christiana Eckhart Kelly (1861 - 1932)

Christiana Eckhart Kelly's parents:

John Eckhart (1831 - 1917) and
 Mary Catherine Myers Eckhart (1837 - 1909)

 

 

Tombstone Tuesday is a weekly blogging prompt from GeneaBloggers. You can find the whole week's list of prompts here. Thanks, GeneaBloggers for inspiring genea bloggers!!

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/01/tombstone-tuesday-christiana-and-frank.html

Tombstone Tuesday: George Adam Eckhart

My 5th great grandfather was George Adam Eckhart (1729 - 1806) and every once in a while I google to see if anyone out there has written more about him. He was a pioneer in Western Maryland and is sure to be mentioned in any history of the area. Here are two landmark works in which he gets some ink.
George Adam Eckhart and Philip Hansel of Allegany County, Maryland: Including their descendants of Fayette County, Pennsylvania, Monongalia County, West Virginia, northeast Iowa, by H. Andrew Brown, 1989, self-published. Here it is on WorldCat: http://www.worldcat.org/title/george-adam-eckhart-and-philip-hansel-of-allegany-county-maryland-including-their-descendants-of-fayette-county-pennsylvania-monongalia-county-west-virginia-northeast-iowa/oclc/025100299
Allegany County: A History, Stegmaier, Harry I.; Dean, David M.; Kershaw, Gordon E.; and, Wiseman, John B., McClain Printing Company, Parsons, WV, 1976:
http://www.worldcat.org/title/allegany-county-a-history/oclc/3003703
There's even a discussion group about him on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/207582986009821/

I googled yesterday and found that on Tuesday, 14 Sep 2004, Mom posted an inquiry about him and this line to a RootsWeb mail list for Allegany County, MD. Here's the text of her post and the original question from Carol.

Can anyone tell me where George Adam Eckhart (Abt. 1729 - July 04, 1806)
and Anna Maria (Wittmeyer) Eckhart (Abt. 1732 - August 02, 1812) are buried?
Thanks for any help.
Carol

Carol,
They were supposed to have been buried in the old Eckhart Cemetery that was on the property now owned by the Jenkins family but it was destroyed years ago. I tried to walk to it years ago but there was nothing there but overgrown stumps and trees.
Virginia
(That's Mom)

I have been curious as to the exact location of the old Eckhart Cemetery, so using Google Earth, I flew over the general vicinity of the property to see this, below.  Please note: the old Eckhart Cemetery under discussion here is a family cemetery, not the cemetery for Eckhart Mines, which you can locate on FindAGrave here: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=cr&CRid=1443456

 

 

The some of the discussion on the facebook page, Descendants of George Adam Eckhart, was about the location of the old cemetery: was it completely gone or were there any tombstones left? Then one of the cousins posted this photo, below, which he was kind enough to go walk the property to take.

 



 

He also related that in an effort to preserve this old family cemetery from development, some of the living descendants had come together to provide for this grave marker. As you see, it marks George Adams and his wife Anna Marie, although there are countless others of his family and his slaves buried in the area. You can identify the location of this marker in the Google Earth image as the mound surrounded by brighter green grass in the right, middle.

 

Curiously, this marker is also listed on FindAGrave as being in the Eckhart Mines Cemetery! Which it is not! I suspect that this is not the only error on FindAGrave;)

 

 

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2013/01/tombstone-tuesday-george-adam-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

The One Thing I Didn't Want to Know

OK, so I'm pretty new to this genealogy thing and really enjoying the ride. Just got back from a visit back east to see Mom. Spent a lot of time copying some of her massive files too. She's been at this for about 25 years or so. The depth of her work is amazing!

Soon after I got the genealogy bug I asked Mom if any of our ancestors ever owned slaves. The question was prompted by an episode of Who Do You Think You Are? She said no, that she thought not. All of our ancestors fought for the Union. They were from Pennsylvania, Western Maryland, and West Virginia, which as we know split off from Virginia to side with the Union. Case closed. Clean conscious. No worries there that some ancestor participated in that blight on our nation's history.

Sitting on the airplane going to see Mom I had occasion to read up on the Eckharts starting with my 4th GGF George Adam Eckhart (1729 - 1806) and his son, my 3rd GGF John Eckhart (1768 - 1835). Well I just about jumpped out of my seat when I read that John's widow, Mary Ann wanted to free her slaves. How can that be?!! Oh yes, it was all true, to my deep horror.

Stuff like this makes you think and examine our life and times in contrast to the life and times of those who lives in the 18th and 19th centuries. Now I'm in no way making any excuses here: slavery is wrong anytime and anyplace. How do you justify that? You can't.

I read on and found that slaves where the most prized of all "possessions" and the values placed on these African-Americans was between $400 and $600, which in about 1800 was a small fortune.

I'm still shocked and trying to figure out how to deal with it. Do I need to feel guilty?

Location of the Eckhart Mansion now long gone, in Eckhart, Maryland.