Moses Austin Rogers
Photo courtesy of Jim Whelan
Source: Book of Biographies of the Seventeenth Congressional District, 1899

MOSES AUSTIN ROGERS, whose portrait the publishers present on the opposite page, is the oldest merchant in Sullivan County, Pa., having established himself in business in the town of Forksville in 1855, and it may be easily said that no other store in the county excels his. He is the senior member of the well known firm of M. A. Rogers & Son, which was formed in 1882, his son, William C., being junior member, and he is respected as one of the valued men of his community. He has been a life-long resident of Forksville. He was born March 22, 1833, and is a son of Moses and Jane (Sadler) Rogers, and grandson of Samuel Rogers.

The Rogers family is of English descent and our subject traces his ancestral history back to William Rogers, who was a grandson of John Rogers, the martyr, who was born in 1505. The next in line of descent was Joseph, born in 1732; then Samuel, born in Standah, England, May 1, 1760; the next was Samuel Rogers, Jr., the grandfather of our subject, who was born December 6, 1762, at Bramley, three miles west of Leeds in Yorkshire, England. He learned the trade of a weaver in his early days and followed it in his native country until the summer of 1801, when he and his family joined his oldest son, Samuel, who had come to America in 1800, and had located in the city of Philadelphia, Pa. He rented a small farm near that city, but, wishing to make a larger settlement for his family, he went north and at the forks of Loyalsock Creek, in Sullivan County, Pa., he purchased of Dr. Joseph Priestley, a tract of land consisting of 124 acres, the price per acre being but $2.50. He then returned to his family, sending his son, Jonathan, to his new home to erect a log cabin and prepare for their coming; there he cleared a part of his land and in addition to farming and working at his trade manufactured neatsfoot oil. His estate is now in the possession of his grandson, John W. Rogers. Samuel was married June 1, 1782, to Ann Gaunt, who was born in 1762, and they reared the following children: Samuel, born December 6, 1782, died February 14, 1857; Joseph, born August 1, 1784, died April 3, 1847; Jonathan, born October 7, 1785, died August 20, 1830; John, born February n, 1787, died March 1, 1858; William, born March 17, 1788, died November 19. 1872; Hannah, born February 13, 1790, died October 13, 1848; Richard, born July 15/1791, died November 15, 1875; David, born January 9, 1793, died February 10, 1840; Abram, born February 28, 1794, died March 6, 1794; Elizabeth, born April 9, 1795, died on the day of her birth; Martha, born May 8, 1796, died February 1, 1798; Benjamin, born September 28, 1797, died May 7, 1851; Reuben, born December 8, 1798, died July 24, 1850; Jacob, born January 31, 1800, died in June, 1801; George, born December 9, 1802, died October 24, 1804; Isaac, born July 26, 1804, died February 15, 1856; Moses, our subject's father; and Martha, born May 1808, died February 18, 1879. Our subject's grandfather died January 29, 1828, and his grandmother died in 1823.

Here are some quite old pictures of Moses and Jane (Sadler) Rogers, taken before 1879, courtesy of the Sullivan County Historical Society:

Moses Rogers


Jane (Sadler) Rogers

Moses Rogers was born on his father's homestead April 14, 1806, and worked with his father during his youth, assisting him in farming and the lumber business. He also worked in the woolen factory which was erected in 1803 by his brothers, Jonathan and Samuel. It was the first factory of its kind in that section of the state. They bought their wool in Philadelphia, hauled it over the mountains by teams, and manufactured it into cloth, which was then taken back to Philadelphia where it was made into clothing for the soldiers of the War of 1812. In 1817 the factory was destroyed by a flood and was never rebuilt. Moses later took possession of the homestead upon which he built a fine house and outbuildings and increased the acreage of the farm to 400 acres. He died February 18, 1879. His wife was Jane Sadler, a daughter of Joseph Sadler, and she was born August 20, 1810, and died February 6, 1892. The following children resulted from this union: Zilphia, born August 2, 1829; Samuel S., born September 22, 1831; Moses A., our subject; Isaac, born August 19, 1834; William, born October 8, 1836, was killed at the battle of Spottsylvania, May 12, 1864; Mary Jane, born February 8, 1838; and John W., born January 2, 1845. In politics Mr. Rogers was a Republican.

Moses Austin Rogers attended the common schools and then started in business as a clerk in the store of Alonzo Potter, who owned the first store in Forksville, and later was with W. J. Eldred, remaining with him for four years. In June, 1855, he erected a building and buying a complete line of general merchandise began business for himself; in 1874 he built on a new front to the store and to-day has one of the most complete general stores in Sullivan County; his store occupies two floors, both being stocked with all the articles which tend to make his stock of goods complete. He gives his customers the closest attention and by honesty and courtesy to his patrons has built up a very large trade. In 1882 he took his son William C. into the business, and the firm has since been known as M. A. Rogers & Son. In 1866 our subject erected a handsome home in the town; he also owns considerable other property in the township. Mr. Rogers is one of the most enterprising and progressive business men in the town of Forksville, always interested in any movement which tends to advance and build up his adopted town.

Mr. Rogers was wedded to Abigail Potter, a daughter of George W. Potter, a retired machinist of Towanda, and this union resulted in the following offspring: William C.; Charles S.; Josephine married R. W. Stephens, by whom she has two children, Leon-and Carlton; George Arthur; and Mary Eva, deceased.

William C. Rogers was born December 4, 1859, and was educated in the high school at Vineland, N, J., and at the Poughkeepsie Business College, graduating from the latter institution in 1882; upon returning home he entered the store of his father as a partner. He married Mary E. Wright, a daughter of John Wright, and to them one child has been born, Guy W., born March 31, 1884. He is a member of Evergreen Lodge, No. 163, F. & A. M.; No. 161, R. A. M., of Towanda; and No. 16, K. T., of Towanda. He served in the State Legislature in 1887-88 and has also served in the town council. He is vice-president and a director of the National Bank of Dushore.

Charles S. Rogers is a dentist of Towanda and married Mary Marsden, by whom he had three children: Stanley, Marsden, and Helen. George Arthur Rogers was born March 28, 1873, and is a graduate of the School of Electricity of Washington, D. C. In 1897 he bought out B. W. Fawcett of Forksville and now conducts a jewelry store. He is a member of Lodge No. 522, I. O. O. F., and is also past grand of the same. On January 17, 1899, he was united in marriage with Mazie Shafer, a daughter of Jesse Shafer of Forksville.

Our subject is a strong Republican in politics, as are all his sons, and served as postmaster thirty-one years; he has also been .school director and overseer of the poor. He was treasurer of the Home Insurance Company, but resigned in 1897, having held that office for eighteen years. In 1876 he was elected associate judge of Sullivan County and held the office for a period of five years. His associate on the bench was F. B. Pomeroy of Dushore, now deceased. In 1884 he was alternate delegate to the national convention in Chicago which nominated James G. Elaine. Religiously he is a member of the Methodist Church and has served as trustee, steward and superintendent of the Sunday School. Socially he is a member of I. O. O. F.

As we mentioned above, Richard Watson Wright married Ellen Elizabeth Pardoe on December 24, 1871 at Elkland, Sullivan County, PA. The original marriage license was rediscovered in Leesburg, Florida in 2007 by Cyndi DeMeulenaere. Cyndi informed us of her find through a cousin of hers, Marilyn Zelner Carter, who coincidentally is a self-proclaimed "ancestor addict". Incredibly, the license includes attached pictures of the bride and groom, as well as the minister who married them, written as "W. Peper, M.G." Presumalby, this means Reverend W. Peper, Minister of God. We have reproduced the original picture at this link. However, after examination and conservation by Bob Sweeney, the original was donated to the Sullivan County Historical Society and Museum in Laporte, PA, where it can be seen on request.

Here is the link to Wright and Pardoe Original Marriage License. The picture was taken by Cyndi DeMeulenaere before she mailed the original to Bob Sweeney. Here also are comments about this artifact, its discovery and relationship to local history, as recaptured in the observations of the discoverers, as well as Larry Pardoe, our consulting historian of the Pardoe family:

Cynthia DeMeulenaere to Larry Pardoe on February 24, 2007:

Finally, we located the obituary of Richard "Watson" Wright, which we reproduce here:

The next scrapbook entry presents obituaries for two sons of Moses Austin Rogers, Dr. Charles S. Rogers and G. A. Rogers. There is also an obituary for Mary (Marsden) Rogers, the wife of Charles S. Rogers. These men would have been nephews of Sadler Rogers, a brother of Moses. None of these entries are dated, although we know from the text of these articles that Mary died in 1917 at age 51. Her husband, a prominent dentist, then moved west the following year. Her obituary identifes two surviving sons and one daughter. The articles are accessible at Children of M. A. Rogers. The Towanda Daily Review appears to be the source for the obituaries of Charles S. Rogers and his wife, while The Sullivan Review seems to be the source for that of G. A. Rogers.

We now arrive at a group of pages that are "biographical" through obituaries and testimonials of several relatives of the Rogers, as well as other prominent personalities in nineteenth century Sullivan County history. The first page tells us about the death in Boston, MA of Margaret Burrows Rogers, formerly of Muncy, PA in Lycoming County along the southern border of Sullivan County. She was the widow of Judson K. Rogers. No date or newspaper source is identified, although it appears to have been a paper local to the Muncy area. What can we say about this entry in the scrapbook?

Carol Brotzman uncovered the facts in this case and also led us to an entirely unexpected and novel Rogers family connection. It turns out that Judson Rogers was the son of Richard Gaunt and Mary (Bly) Rogers. Richard (October 16, 1822-January 23- 1874) was born in Muncy Creek, in what is now Sullvan County, and in turn was the son of Samuel Rogers and Mary Ackroyd. This Samuel Rogers was a brother of Moses Rogers, Sadler's father, and a son of the founder. Judson was born in 1844 in Briar Creek, Columbia County, PA, just to the south of Sullivan County. He married Margaret Burrows ("Borrows"), daughter of John Borrows who, in the 1850 Federal census, is living with his wife Phebe in Muncy, Lycoming County, PA, and is 31 years of age. By the 1860 census, the mother has died and Margaret is 15 years of age. The 1880 Federal census has Margaret married to Judson by now and the family is living in White Pigeon, St. Joseph County, Michigan. It was not uncommon for Sullivan County families to go west to find their fortunes. Judson, a "dealer in paints", must have moved the family there for the opportunity. They had four children--Richard G. Jerry B., Maud and Hattie L., and a live-in-servant with her infant daughter. The oldest child is 14, indicating a marriage date of perhaps 1875 or thereabouts. The youngest child is three years old. The family returned to Muncy, according to the obituary shown here, before Judson died, and both he and Margaret are buried in the Muncy Cemetery. All of these children except one of the daughters survived their mother, and a younger son, Milton, not shown in 1880, was also listed in the obituary. The obituary indicates a large circle of relatives and friends in the local area before Margaret went to live with a daughter and her family in Boston. We can be sure that Eliza Green Rogers was part of that circle. We can estimate the date of the obituary to about 1918, if the birth date of 1844 and listed age at death of 73 are accepted for Margaret.

The next page contains the obituaries or death notices for Albert C. Little, Rachael D. (Snell) Little, Harriett McBride and John T. Molyneux. They can be examined at Little et al Obituaries. Of course, we have seen many of these names before in the scrapbook, reflecting the family bonds and residential links among these surnames. The obituary for Albert Little says he was born in Sullivan County, April 10, 1836, son of William and Rebecca Little, and by inference from the text that he died on February 24, 1913 in Picture Rocks, Lycoming County, PA. The newspaper of record is the Williamsport Gazette and Bulletin. He appears to have been quite a developer and was active in the founding and growth of Eagles Mere, Hughesvelle [Lycoming County], and Picture Rocks. He was a descendant of one of the great Sullivan County families, which you can read about at The Little Heritage: An American Odyssey.

We already know from earlier in the scrapbook that the Little and Rogers families had several connections. There appears to be yet another one through Rachael Snell, born December 11, 1825 and died April 26, 1909, which must be close to the unreported date of this testimonial published most likely in The Sullivan Review. She was the widow of Ezra Little, whom she married in 1868. Here is his obituary:

This same scan also shows a death notice for Harriett McBride of Hillsgrove, Sullivan County, with the date unreported, but likely published in The Sullivan Review. The Hillsgrove Cemetery indicates that she lived from 1830 to 1918. There are many Rogers and Sadler burials at this location as well. but the connection with Harriett is actually through the Green family!!--that is, the family of Aunt Eliza (Green) Rogers herself. Larry Pardoe tells us what the relationships are, and Carol Brotzman gives us their lineage history:

Harriet Green, was born October 26, 1831 in Pennsylvania and died in 1918. She married James H. McBride (probably before 1855 as that is the date of their first born, and possibly before 1850, since he was living with Harriett's parents in Plunkett Creek at that time). He was born about 1829-1830 in Northumberland County, PA, son of Samuel McBride and Mary Brobst "Brobst" is an old German surname with connections to the German-American families in Sullivan County. You can learn more about this family at The Brobst/Probst Family History and Genealogy and The Ancestors of Ralston Hunsinger.

Harriet Green's parents were Richard Green (born in 1782 in New Jersey and died February 16, 1872 in Hillsgove, PA) and Mary Plotts (born December 26, 1792 in New Jersey, and died September 10, 1880 in Hillsgrove). Harriett's parents had married about 1791 in New Jersey. Richard and Mary (Plotts) Green had at least 12 children. Larry believes that Harriet was actually an "AUNT" to Aunt Eliza. He has not yet confirmed the identity of Eliza's parents. He suggests that one of Harriet's brothers - probably "Isaac", who was born in 1818 and died in 1847, might be Eliza Green's father, but that is just a "hunch" for now. He only knows that Eliza's mother was born in England. Census records will show that Eliza was raised in 1850 and 1860 with her grandparents, and in 1870 was living with Samuel "Sadler" Rogers. At that time, she is shown as Elizabeth Green, age 25. Sadler's first wife, Sarah B. (Plotts) Rogers, had died in February 12, 1869 and Larry suspects that Eliza Green, granddaughter of a "Plotts" [i.e., Mary Plotts, wife of Richard Green], was there to help with the children and housing chores. Sadler and Eliza were married later that year on September 20, 1870 in Forksville, PA. So, whatever the actual details, Harriet was a blood reltive of Eliza, likely an aunt and sister of Eliza's so-far unidentified father. It is also known that Sarah B. Plotts, who preceded Eliza as the wife of Sadler Rogers, was a niece to Margaret Plotts, wife of Benjhamin Huckell whom we met above. To be explicit, Sarah's father George Plotts was a brother of Margaret Plotts. Of course, George and Margaret Plotts had another sister, Mary Plotts, who married Richard Green, the grandfather of Eliza Catherine Green, our own "Aunt Eliza"! Can you begin to see the range of complexity in the relationships here?

In 1900, Harriett was living with her son-in-law Augustus A. Ludy and his wife [her daughter] Annetta A. (McBride) Ludy in Hillsgrove, per the Federal census. Annetta ("Nettia" in the 1880 census) was born on May 30, 1858 in Hillsgrove. In 1880, they had a daughter and were also sharing their household with Jonathan Snell, two of his children, and Elmira Brown, listed as a servant. As was apparent from the McBride-Green connection above and will become even clearer in the discussion of the relationships with the Speaker and Yaw families below, the Snells were also a related family [see below]. In any case, here is the obituary for Augustus, who died in 1944.

Remember that we have already met three Snell sisters and now we encounter their nephew in the Ludy household! Jonathan R. Snell, born December 7, 1843, in Hillsgrove, and died December 16, 1926, was a son of John Colflesh* Snell (1812-1883) and Catherine Taylor (1826-1889), daughter of Robert Taylor, Sr. and Elizabeth Mayhew. This John was one of the thirteen known children of John Snell and Rachel Colflesh. You can learn more about his wife's Taylor family at Faces and Families of Old Sullivan County, Group Six. In any case, Jonathan R. Snell married Sarah Jane Rogers, born 1844 in PA and died 1929. Jonathan and Sarah were divorced before 1880. She was a daughter of Wesley Rogers and Effie Corson. So far, we have have been unsuccesful at connecting this Rogers family to the Sullivan County Rogers family, but a relationship of some kind is likely. Wesley's father was James Rogers, born in 1786 in England.
* Editor's Note: There are various spellings--Colflesh, Calflesh, Colflesh, Kholfleish.

Incidentally, Harriet McBride was related by marriage to another prominent family in the Hillsgrove area--the Speakers! Her husband James was the oldest brother of Ida McBride, who was the wife of John Lyman Speaker. He in turn was the son of Judge John A. Speaker and Sarah Speaker, whose obituary is presented on the next page below!!. Judge Speaker was truly a foudning influence, just like Moses and Sadler Rogers, in the development of Sullivan County. In 1881, a terrible tragedy struck the younger Speaker family as detailed at Sudden Death in 1881.

On this page, we also have an obituary for John T. Molyneaux, who died in Allentown, PA, as reported in an undated issue of The Sullivan Review. He was married to Nettie Heess. The marriage notice for this couple reported her name as "Nellie", not Nettie.

Note the variant in the spelling of the Molyneux/Molyneaux name. The Millview Cemetery shows a birth date of November 14, 1879 and a death date of May 15, 1929 for John. Given that the Review was usually published every Thursday, we can speculate that the date of this obituary is May 23, 1929. He had three surviving sisters, one of whom, Mrs. S. B. Kilmer [nee Mary Molyneux] (1868-1960) is buried with her husband (1860-1942) at the same cemetery. Incidentally, there is also a "Nellie M. Molyneux" (1885-1954) buried in the same cemetery. Perhaps, if "Nellie" is the correct name, this is John's wife.

The Heess family is also an old and well-known one in Sullivan County *.

* Editor's Note: The Heees surname is spelled "Hess" or "Heess" somewhat at random, it appears. In the most current Baumunk-Heess Family Tree, the former variation is used, so that is what we will use when referring to that branch of the family. We are grateful to Wendy Giuliano of Rochester, NY for this family source document, donated in April 2013.

Here also is Larry Pardoe's response to Bob Sweeney's observation that he had obtained a Heess family history (see below):

* Editor's Note: The Knights of the Maccabees was a fraternal order founded in Canada in 1878 to provide social and charitable work. It had close to 300, 000 members at the end of the 19th century. The Maccabbes still exist, although much smaller in scale, in the 21st century. Dushore hosted a local chapter or "tent". We know they met at Garey's Hall in Dushore in the 1890s. Also, they apparently had an annual charity ball, as indicated by the note on the postcard shown below. This card, dated 1906, mentions that the annual ball was to be held on February 16, 1906, but the writer was too ill to attend. The photo in the card, by the way, shows the Dushore Public School.

Dushore Public School Postcard
Featuring Handwritten Reference to the Maccabees Ball
Photo contributed by Scott Tilden
Original published by C. M. Williams
Auctioned on eBay in February 2011

We return now in the next scan to the Huckell family with whom the Rogers family was related by blood, as previously mentioned, through Jonathan Rogers. At Huckells, Speaker and Yaws, you will find a testimonial about Daniel T. Huckell and an obituary for Mrs. Sarah A. (Ball) Speaker**, and death notices for S. D. Yaw and his wife, Mary Yaw. All of these articles appear to have been clipped from The Sullivan Review.
** Editor;s Note: As we will discuss further below, the obituary incorrectly identifies her maiden name as "Huckle", but we now believe it was Ball.

Daniel T. Huckell was second cousin of Emaline (Huckell) Lewis and Harriett (Huckell) Wiseman, whom we met earlier in the scrapbook. Daniel was the son of John Huckell born about 1787 in England and Eleanor R. Little, born September 2, 1799, in New Jersey, and died July 15, 1877. They were married September 17, 1829 in Shrewsbury Twp., then Lycoming County; now Sullivan County, PA. This marriage was reported in the October 9 issue of The Lycoming Gazette for the same year, where she is referred to as "Ellen" Little. She was the daughter of Daniel Little and granddaughter of Theophilus Little, the famous Revolutionary War figure from New Jersey and the original Little settler in this area as well. John Huckell was the son of Thomas Huckell, born in England, who died in 1799, and Sarah Ann Lambert, born also in England. Larry Pardoe believes they had eight children. Thomas Huckell is buried at Fairmount Cemetery. The last will and testament of his wife, Sarah (Lambert) Huckell can be examined at The Sarah Huckell Will.

Just for the record, one of the eight Huckell children was William Huckell, born about 1793 in England. He married Sarah Eldred on Sunday, October 22, 1826, according to the November 1 issue of The Lycoming Gazette for the same year, at Eldredsville in Sullivan County. She was the daughter of Edward Jarvis Eldred who created the famous Eldred Dockett of marriages between 1809 and 1835. Another child of Thomas Huckell, Harriet Huckell, married William Bown. They had at least seven children. One was Sarah Harriet Bown who married Richard Pardoe (brother of Larry Pardoe's great-great grandfather John Pardoe. After she died, Richard married Mary Little, daugher of Nathan Allen Little and Isabel Holmes. This marriage, of course, linked the Pardoes to the Little family also related [see above] to the Huckells. Another daughter William and Harriett (Huckell) Bown was Mary Ann Bown; she married Thomas King, son of John and Esther King, yet another major Sullivan County founding family The Kings are tied by marriage to Converse, Rogers, Glidewell and other surnames. We could keep this story of famnly connections going indefinitely.

Snippets of history from a variety of sources tell us that Thomas Huckell was one of three brothers to come early to the banks of the Loyalsock in what is now Sullivan County. For example, the obituary for Benjamin Huckell, his grandson and the husband of Margaret Plotts, whom we have already met, reads as follows:

The daughter named "Sadie" in the scanned testimonial to Daniel T. Huckell was Sarah A. Huckell, born in November 1877, and later to marry Martin Corson on June 25, 1913.

We know from the Fairmount Cemetery in Forksville, where Daniel is buried, that he was born in 1833 and died in 1896, on November 7, as the obituary tells us. The date of the testimonial therfore has to be approximately November 12, 1896. His actual obituary is posted below. This cemetery is populated with dozens of Rogers, McCarty and other related families. The 1880 Federal census for Forskville shows Daniel Huckell, age 47, living with his wife Catherine, age 42, their daughter A. Sarah, age 2, a stepson named John Fleming, age 17, and a servant named Mary Young, age 44. Catherine, daughter of John Hinkle Osler and Jane Myers, was born born in August 1837 and died in 1915 and is also buried at Fairmount Cemetery. We know from Historic Hodge-Podge that John Fleming was the son of Catherine (Osler) Fleming by her previous marriage to Daniel Fleming. You can read more about the Huckell family and Daniel Huckell specifically at the same site.

Here is the actual obituary for Daniel T. Huckell

On August 12 and September 4, 2001, respectively, Susan Fitzpatrick posted the following messages on the Sullivan County Genealogical Web Page Message Board, in request and response to the posting of Daniel's obituary there:

Here is the obituary for Zilpha Ann (Rogers) Fleming:

Note that one daughter was married to W. F. Randall (1867-1913), whose obituary is reproduced below, courtesy of Carol Brotzman. He was a prominent physician in the Forksville community. Yet another daughter, not mentioned here perhaps because she was not living in the area, was Melvia Fleming, who married Barton Molyneux, son of George and Permilla (Travis) Molyneux. You can learn more about this marriage and lineage at The Molyneux, Fleming and Whelan Lineage.

Understandably, Aunt Eliza clipped the preceding article and several other articles about this tragedy and its subject, Dr. William F. Randall, for her scrapbook. You can view them at:

Life of Dr. Randall, which includes a biography published in The Sullivan Review shortly after his death, possibly on July 24, 1913, and a death notice for July 18, 1913, from The Daily News of Towanda, PA
Original Report of Death, First Page; this and the next two clipped pages were published in The Sullivan Review, apparently on July 24, 1913; these pages encompass the same obituary printed above and you will note that the date of death in the right hand column of the original article is off by a year:
Original Report of Death, Second Page
Original Report of Death, Third Page

You can also see a picture of an old barn located on Dr. Randall's property on Headley Avenue in Dushore. The structure, still standing in 2007, was where he stabled his horses behind his residence. The picture, reprinted in the March 15, 2007 issue of the Sullivan Review, is visible at:
The Randall Barn.

Ironically, Dr. Randall very nearly lost his life in 1912 in a fire caused by the ignition of gasoline while he was trying to gas up his car at Coles' Hardward Store in Dushore. The accident occurred on Saturday, May 18, 1912, and Dr. Randall ended up in the Robert Packer Hospital as a result of the burns he received trying to extinguish the blaze. You can read several newspaper reports, provided by Carol Brotzman, from local publications on this event at:

Dr. Randall's Narrow Escape (1)
Dr. Randall's Narrow Escape (2)

Dr. William F. Randall, along with his parents, and several siblings, are all buried at Fairmount Cemetery in Forksville, PA. You can examine a brief genealogical overview, created by Larry Pardoe, at Descendants of William Floyd Randall, MD.

Let's return now to the remaining items on the Huckells, Speaker and Yaws page. These are the obituary for Mrs. Speaker, wife of the judge, and the Yaw death notices. We know from what we saw above that Sarah Speaker was the mother-in-law of a McBride. She is identified as Sarah Ann "Huckle" in the obituary. A "Ball" family genealogy,however, argues that Sarah Ann Ball was married to John Andrew Speaker. Hillsgrove Cemetery shows: Speaker, Sarah A., b. November 29, 1812, d. October 7, 1901. So, we can date this obituary to roughly October 10, 1901. Let's see how Larry Pardoe addresses this complicated question of the correct ancestry of Mrs. Speaker. His process of investigation is a model of genelaogical research:

And what about the Yaw family? Where do they come in? Well, incredibly, it turns out they are related by marriage to the Green family! Samuel D. Yaw, whose death notice we find on this page, was married to Mary (Green) Yaw, also with a death notice here. Samuel Yaw's brother, Loren Yaw, was married to Beulah Ann Green. Yaw brothers married Green sisters and both sisters were children of Richard Green and Mary Plotts, Eliza's grandparents!!! Is it not amazing? Beulah Ann Green was Loren Yaw's first wife. They had three children that Larry Pardoe is aware of: Richard Yaw, Lemon Carpenter Yaw, and Buanna Yaw. Lemon married Ellen Rosalia Mullan/Mullen. In all probability, Beulah must have died between 1853 and 1857 as Loren Yaw married a second time on July 12, 1857 at Hillsgrove to Sarah J. Woodley (reported in The Sullivan Democrat, July 24, 1857). This latter couple had five children that Larry is aware of.

Let's go back one more time before we look at more scans and try to summarize the Green family connections here. Our most informed source of information on the Greens is Larry Pardoe, so this is his tentative outline. Richard Green and Mary (Plotts) Green had twelve children. From what Larry has put together from others and from a posting at Ancestry.com message boards by Cynthia Howerter, there are slight variations of opinion. Here is what he shows for their children:

* Editor's Note: Here is an Obituary and a biographical sketch of Wheeler Green:

The next page in the scrapbook, Potter and Ives, is largely devoted to D.L. Potter, who died in Tallapoosa, Georgia, a mining and lumber town in Haralson County, Georgia. The pieces include an obituary and a resolution of recognition on his death from the local Tallapoosa Masonic Lodge, both apparently published in the local Tallapoosa paper. Potter is buried at Hollywood Cemetery in Tallapoosa. The page also includes an undated death notice for Samuel T. Ives of Muncy, PA.

D. L. Potter was born in Potterville, Bradford County, PA on October 22, 1823, according to the obituary, and died in Tallapoosa on December 2, 1908 per the information in the obituary. His first marriage partner is not identified in this story, but produced three children: a daughter who died at age two, and two children, George and Mary Potter, who grew to adulthood and were alive at the time of the death of D. L. This wife died and, n 1865, as told in the story, our protagonist married Elizabeth Wilkinson at Forksville, in Sullivan County, PA. She was the daughter of Theodore and Martha Wilkinson, and was born in Sullivan County, PA in 1846. The Potters then moved on to New Jersey and Virginia before coming to Tallapoosa in 1904. The obituary tells us that D. L. Potter was descended from the Vermont Potters who settled in the Bradford and Sullivan County area. You can learn more about this heritage at George Whitefiled Potter and the New England Migration.

With the assistance of Carol Brotzman, we can actually expand on and correct some of this information about D. L. Potter, and suggest why he ended up in Eliza's scrapbook. The 1880 Federal census for Hammonton, Atlantic County, New Jersey shows him with his wife Elizabeth, his daughter Mary Jane from the first marriage, and two young children, Harry and Arthur Potter, from the second marriage. The obituary appears to have transposed the birth date for David Potter to "1823", when it should have been "1832" or perhaps "1833". We know that is true from the 1860 Federal census for Forksville, which shows him as 27 years old [and livng two houses away from Sadler Rogers by the way!!]. Also, the ages of his children and information about when he first married are inconsistent with a birth date of 1823. Information collected by Ernest Hatton, our family authority on the Potters of northern Pennsylvania, helps us identify David Potters' first wife. She was Emeline Malthace Frost, born about 1837 in Orwell, Bradford County, PA, and apparently dying about 1862 from the information in the obituary. She was the daugther of John Frost and Jane Wilsey. They married in January 1855 and soon had two children, George born in 1856 and Mary J. born in 1858. The family was living in Forksville in 1860 per the Federal census there. His occupation was a boot and shoemaker.

Aside from the fact that they lived practically next door to the Rogers family in Forksville, it also turns out that in the 1870 census in New Jersey, the Potters are living next door to Ezra Rogers. Born in March 1846 in PA, Ezra was one of five childre of Reuben and Mary (Molyneux) Rogers [daughter of John Molyneux and Martha Sadler]. Ezra was also the grandson of John and Sarah (Lambert) Rogers, a brother of Sadler's father, Moses Rogers. This family history means that Ezra was Sadler's first cousin, once removed. So, the connection appears to be one of close proximity in where the families lived. Perhaps the Potters helped Ezra get started in New Jersey, but that is merely speculation.

Turning to the other entry on this page, what can we say about Samuel T. Ives? In this case, Larry Pardoe comes to our rescue. Per Larry:

The next entry in the scrapbook is mostly about the Kerrick Family of Asylum, PA, but also has an undated reference to the death of Royce R. Henning of Dushore in New York City, and a death notice for Mrs. Hannah Collins in Canton, PA. Royce was the son of Harry R. (1877-1943) and Jennie (Rogers) (1872-1929) Henning. For many years, Harry was the Sperintendent of Sullivan County Schools. You can see a list of the Henning family interments at the Vaughn Cemetery in Mehoopany, Wyoming County, PA.

Frederick D. Kerrick, whose obituary is in the left column, married Charlotte Wenck on November 5, 1874, per the article. She was from Campbellville in Sullivan County, and preceded her husband in death in 1932. This obituary also dates the obituary of his son, Gratton L. Kerrick, which is on the right side of this page, to February 7, 1932. These articles appear to be clipped from the Towanda, PA Daily Review, except for the Collins notice, which appears to be from The Sullivan Review.

According to Larry Pardoe:

What about Hannah Collins, mother of William H. Collins, per her death notice on this page? Larry Pardoe has the answer. "Hannah" is Hannah (Blaker) Collins who married William's father, Alonzo Collins (1841-1923). She was born in Eldredsville, Sullivan County in 1842 and died in April, 1926. This information, extracted from Phil Herman's Collins family genealogy by Larry, dates the death notice on this page to 1926. The information indicates that she was buried in Forksville. She is actually buried at Fairmount Cemetery there. You may recall that William married Sarah J. Rogers, daughter of Sadler Rogers and his first wife, Sarah Plotts. That is, she was Eliza's stepdaughter.

Based on research by Carol Brotzman, we know that the Blaker family had an old colonial traditon in Bucks County, PA, to the south of Sullivan County. The emigrant patriarch, Johannes Bleikers, and his wife Rebecca were born, raised and married (1680) in the North Rhine-Westphalia area of what is now Germany. Their family and several others were converted to being Quakers by William Penn, and twelve families jointly emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1683 on the Concord. These families founded Germantown, PA, which today is a suburb of Philadelphia. Their son, Peter Blaker [anglicized version of the name], was born enroute. Here is the descent tree with dates as we have them from the LDS records accessed by Carol:

The next entry in the scrapbook could be labeled Sad Associations. It is devoted to excerpts from unknown sources on a variety of topics, plus two small snippets apparently clipped from The Sullivan Review The lead article on the left tells an anecdote about an encounter between a heroic Irish lass and a bull, Below that is a homily to courtesy, followed by a brief anecdote about a Detroit farmer and his wife getting their picture taken. Finally comes a story about an early means of getting around Sullivan County using an ox as a pathfinder, clipped from an undated issue of the local paper. The right hand column is headed by a fairy-tale like poem, which by topic suggests to us that Eliza was thinking of her lost children. Below that is a November 1874 article from the local paper about the new Methodist church in Forksville. This article appeared around the time that Eliza's losses began, so perhaps that is why she clipped it as well, given that the funerals likely took place at this church. Another homily ends the page.

We next come to a page addressed to Gertude Adelia Wardell Booth and her daughter, Lottie Washington Booth. originally residents of Brooklyn, NY. Lottie was apparently a prominent local attorney. This Booth and Wardell page originally posed quandaries for your editor as to why the material is included in the scrapbook. However, the Scaife information reported below makes the relationship clearer. We can find plenty of census information on Gertrude Ardella (Wardell) Booth, wife of Edward H. Booth *.
* Editor's Note: Per Peter Morris in October 2011:

The next page is an obituary for A. A. Harvey of Henrico, Virginia. We guess that he probably had some connection to Joseph and Mollie (Rogers) Wheat. Possibly Wheat might have worked for or with Harvey in the mercantile business. That is just a speculation for now.

Then comes a page with death notices and funeral cards for Mrs. M. C. (Jewett) Mercur, W. E. Randall and Samuel B. Kilmer. This Funereal Medley includes a poem by William Cullen Bryant, a famous nineteenth century American poet, on the bottom of the left column, and another poem by Robert Freeman, which appears to be inscribed on part of a funeral card, at the bottom right of the page.

We learn from Carol Brotzman that Mrs. Mercur, it turns out, was the second wife of Mahlon Carke Mercur, a prominent businessman in the Towanda, PA area. He was born February 6, 1816 near Towanda. He was the son of Henry Mercur and Mary Watts. M. C. Mercur actually suggested the name of "Laporte" for the county seat of Sullivan county to Secku Meylert who named the town when the county was formed in 1847. Mahlon's first wife, of whom we know very little, was Helen Marr Kingsbury; the second wife, whose obituary is reported here, was Anna "Annie" Hubbard Jewett, She was born in May 1832 in Massachusetts, per the 1900 Federal census for Elkland Township in Sullivan County, PA. That census says they had been married for 48 years, thereby indicating a marriage date of 1852, although the obituary reports a marriage date of February 22, 1853. Close enough, we suppose! She was the daughter of the Reverend Samuel Jewett and grew up in Athens, PA, so presumably the Jewett family relocated there from New England at a fairly early date. She died on October 10. 1901, which approximately dates the obituary here to October 13, 1901. The Mercurs had at least six children, including Helen, whose marriage was reported as follows:

According to Larry Pardoe, W. E. Randall was Washington "Wash" E. Randall, born November 9, 1877 and died February 21, 1943. He is buried in the Fairmount Cemetery at Forksville. He was the son of Wallace J. Randall (1833-1881) and Sarah Ann (Green) Randall (1843-1932). Wallace was a doctor, as were both his sons, Wash Randall and William F. Randall, who died tragically saving another man's life [see above]. Wallace, like his son William F. Randall, died in his late forties in 1881, leaving his wife Sarah to raise a family of six small children. His son William's wife was Della J. Fleming, daughter of John Fleming and Zilpha Ann Rogers, whom we met above. This obituary therefore ties in relationships with not only the Green family, but also the Rogers family. Washington Randall is buried at Fairmount Cemetery in Forksville with at least a sozen other members of the Randall family.

The final character on this page is Samuel B. Kilmer. He is briefly sketched in the Streby History of Forks:

Next come several pages that are grouped together in the scrapbook, although there may be no particular reason why they are together:

The rationale for the first page seems clear cut. In the top right hand column appears an obituary for Charles D. Gansel, who died as a young man little more than a month after Aunt Eliza lost her first child. Young Gansel apparently became a religious zealot in the last few years of his life. Larry Pardoe has Charles D. Gansel in his family tree. His sister, Clara J. Gansel, was married to Walter T. Pardoe, Larry's first cousin, three times removed. He and Clara moved to Iowa to farm. Walter was killed by a haystacker on July 18, 1886. Clara and children returned to Pennsylvania after his death, to Williamsport, Lycoming County, PA, Larry believes. The real connection here is undoubtedly the deaths in the Rogers and Gansel families at about the same time.

This page also contains a poem written by someone posing as "Sappho", the Classical Greek poetess; a homily on "Humility"; a set of "one-liners" with a humorous or social agenda at the bottom left; and a poem about the month of May [incuding little children singing] at the bottom right.

The two pages on school reports appear to be actual pages from the 1873 Report, in which the scrapbook entries are mounted, that deal with the schools for Sullivan and Bradford Counties, respectively. In that regard, they are straightforward historical records of school and teacher statistics for those areas at that time. Note that the average school year in Sullivan county was only four or five months.

The "Six Pence" page gives a homlily-like explanation for the lyrics of the old ditty "Sing a Song of Six Pence". The rationale given here would have appealed to a righteous woman such as Aunt Eliza. However, this interpretation differs from the original meaning of the song, which goes back to a coded message used by Blackbeard the Pirate to recruit pirates for his illegal endeavors. You can read more about how Mother Goose rhymes and other old songs often were originally intended for adults, not children, at Sing a Song of Six Pence!

The next page in this group reads like a brief travel endorsement for World's End, the locally well-known swimming hole and picnic area just outside Forksville. As Carol Brotzman tells us, the park was called "Whirls End" at one time, but the official name was changed to "Worlds End State Park" in 1943. The 780-acre park was acquired from the Randall Family and the Central Pennsylvania Lumber Company in the early 1930s. Most of the present park facilities were constructed by Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) crews from 1934 to 1941. Worlds End State Park is in a narrow S-shaped valley of the Loyalsock Creek just south of Forksville, Sullivan County. The first road through the valley was high on the steep slope of the mountain and the precipitous journey made early travelers think they were surely at the "end of the world." From the driving directions at the end of this scrapbook entry, we conclude that the article probably appeared in a local newspaper in Sayre, PA or Binghamton, NY.

Finally, we come to the last page in this group, which contains a retirement notice in the Richmond, VA newspaper for William F. Cody (1846-1917), known to history as "Buffalo Bill". We do not know the year in which this announcemnet was published, but we can guess it was about 1908. Bill had planned to get out of the business but discovered that his debts would not let him do so. Instead, his show was combined with Pawnee Bill's and Cody continued to participate until virtually the time of his death in early 1917. You can read more here about the History of Buffalo Bill. This page in the scrapbook also contains a mysterious allegory about a singing mouse, and another commentary on wayward country boys versus city boys. We also find a story about a black man trying to get into an upscale church, with a moral embedded in the dialogue; a short commentary on forgetfulness that suggests (incorrectly, modern scientists would tell us) that we forget things because the brain is only large enough to hold so much information; and a reponse to a correspondent called "Curious, Richmond" about how to cure gourds. This may be the scrapbook page with the most widely assorted collection of entries in the entire volume.

The next page focuses on a preposterous Cure for Hydrophobia based on application of the elacampane herb. The inventor is described as an elusive German named Jacob Emery from the Philadelphia area. The story is reported in the Pittsburgh newspaper of the time, probably the late nineteenth century. Actually, until the year 2005, this disease, more commonly known as rabies, has been 100% fatal to any human being in whom the disease actually takes hold. The famous 19th century French scientist Louis Pasteur first came up with a means of inoculating victims before the disease is incubated in the body. However, it was only in June 2005 that Rodney E. Willoughby, MD at the Childrens Hospital of Wisconsin published the successful results of his late 2004 treatment of a rabies victim. This treatment involved several powerful drugs administered while the victim was deliberately put into a coma. Elacampane is actually a well known old Amish herbal remedy for skin blemishesand respirtory distress, but hardly a cure for rabies. You can read more about a host of other Forgotten Medical Remedies, including a section at the end about the traditional use of madstone to treat this dreaded disease.

The reader may find it educational and entertaining to also look through the List of Old Mediocal Terms page on this site, where colloquial names for diseases that were printed on old death certificates or obituaries, and their modern counterparts, can be found.

This same page in the scrapbook also includes two poems, one about a tired mother who loses her son and the other a humorous rhyme about how a wife will never be viewed as being as good a cook as her husband's mother! We guess Aunt Eliza needed the humor of one poem to offset the misery of the other.

Now we come to a set of pages that contain several death notices for local individuals, as well as a long newspaper report on the funeral of former President Andrew Johnson, part of a rambling discussion of local area personalities and various odds and ends. These pages are located at:

On the first of these pages, we find the death notices for Charles Harris Kearney, Emma Rachel Edgar, A. W. Speary and Willie Grant Speary. We do not know at this point of any direct family connection with these unfortunates. Clearly, the newspaper of record here is The Sullivan Review, probably for a Thursday in late September, 1875. We can be certain of the year because the two Speary family members are buried at Cherry Grove Cemetery in Nordmont, where the dates of their deaths are recorded. Incidentally, "A.W." is recorded at the cemetery as "Austin V. Speary", and Larry Pardoe gives us birth and death dates for him of August 16, 1846 through September 7, 1875. According to Ruth Speary, the death notice on this web page is for Austin Wilbur Speary, so "A.W." is the correct entry. Austin never married and never had any children. He was the son of Christopher Speary, a brother to Samuel Speary mentioned in the scrapbook, half brother to Asa Speary, also mentioned, and also a son of Miles Speary, once more also mentioned here. Miles was married twice, first to Sophia Earl and then to Hannah Bennett. Over time, there were several marriages between assorted Green and Speary families. However, says Ruth, the various Green families were not related to each other.

Ruth also notes that Miles Speary (the original Sullivan County settler) had an aunt named Eunice Sperry who married Gideon Rogers. Whether that Rogers is any direct relation to the Rogers family from which Sadler sprang, we just don't know for now. Eunice was the daughter of Charles and Martha (Miles) Sperry, and they were consequently the grandparents of "our" Miles Speary.

Also, according to Ruth, "Rachel" is a common name in the Speary family as it was Christopher Speary's wife's name. Additionally, the Speary family was married into the Edgar family noted here. Miles Speary's wife and the wife of Thomas Edgar were sisters. The oldest sister in the family, Thomas' wife died in 1816. Also, the name "Eliza" pops up all over the place in the Speary line and is used by women who had no reason to be nicknamed or called Eliza, such as women with the given name Susan or Sarah. It appears to have been a common thing for the Spearys of this generation to use their middle names in every day life. For example, Watson Speary's given name was Charles Watson. Austin Wilbur went by Will, Zachariah Taylor went by Taylor, Sarah Eliza went by Susan (which was her grandmother's sister's name), John Wesley became Wesley. All of these people were siblings. Their mother (Rachel) was Dutch by birth. The old Germans had the custom of having a "Christian Name" (their given name on religious records) and a "Call Name" (which was usually the middle name and the name used in daily life that they were "called " by). Perhaps the Dutch did as well, but at least this Speary family did.

Larry Pardoe believes that the clue to the connection between the Sperry/Speary family and Eliza Green Rogers lies in Ruth Speary's The Speary Family of Sullivan County, PA. Under Sarah Eliza Speary (daughter of Christopher B. Speary), this site shows that she married Henry Irvin Green, born June 1848. Although Larry only traced him through the 1870 census, his wife's name was Sarah E. This Henry Irvin Green was the son of Alfred C. Green and Phoebe C. (Rogers) Green. Alfred's parents were Richard Green and Mary (Plotts) Green. Phoebe's parents were Benjamin Rogers and Gitty Ann (Boone) Rogers. So Henry's marriage to Sarah Eliza Speary might be the answer to a family connection. Henry would have been a first cousin of Aunt "Eliza" Catherine (Rogers). Interesting that there is a double connection here through Henry's mother Phoebe C. (Rogers) Green, is it not? Larry has not been able to connect the John Henry Green that married Lucy Ann Speary to the Richard Green family yet.

There are no Kearney burials at Cherry Grove, which is not surprising, since we know this Kearney family relocated to Colorado at some time after this loss. The father, Gideon E. Kearney, is shown as working in a restauruant in Leadville, a Colorado mining town, in 1885, and as a farmer in Denver in 1890. By 1910, he was living with his wife Maggie in Jefferson County, CO. The 1910 Federal census says they had seven children, six of whom were still alive and one of whom, Parker Kearney, was born in Colorado. Gideon, born about 1846, and Maggie, born about 1847, both were themselves born in England.

In contrast, there are several Edgar burials at Cherry Grove, but none by this name. SHe was the daughter of James and Elizabeth Edgar, and granddaughter of Andrew and Dinah (Glidewell) Edgar. Andrew and Dinah are buried with the "Glidewells" at Old Sonestown Cemetery, and James is buried at Cherry Grove. However, neither Emma Rachel Edgar, this child, nor her mother are shown at any of these cemeteries. They could be in any of these places and just not have stones or have been overlooked by the transcriber, or they may be somewhere else.

There are many references on this site to the Speary family, which has been widespread in the southern part of the County from the mid-1800s onward. The Speary child in this death notice, "Willie" Grant Speary, was the son of John and Sarah Matilda "Tillie" (Gansel) Speary. Tillie was the daughter of Joseph Gansel and his second wife, Mary Anman. You can learn more about the Gansel heritage at Descendants of Obed Gansel.

John Speary was in turn the son of Samuel and Mary (Pennington) Speary. Samuel Speary was the son of Miles and Sophia (Earl) Speary. As Carol Brotzman points out. Samuel Speary was a half brother of Asa Speary, who was the son of Miles Speary and Hannah Bennett, Miles' second wife. Miles Speary had seventeen children in all. To continue on with our story, we believe that the main significance of the presence of these death notices in the scrapbook is their proximitiy to the deaths of Aunt Eliza's own first child in late 1874, and the lengthy testimonial to the loss of the three-year old Willie who was known personally, it appears, to the news reporter. This page also contains a poem about a jilted suitor ["The Chestnut Tree"], and then the first part of the funeral report on the burial of former President Andrew Johnson (1808-1875) at Greenville, TN on August 3, 1875. He served from 1865 to 1869 as the successor to Abraham Lincoln and survived impeachment by one vote in the US Congress.

The next page continues at length the Johnson funeral report, which is accompanied by a seemingly out-of-context story from the English Pall Mall Gazette. This report is about legislation intended to protect teenage girls of school age from truancy actions if they were simultaneously married! Perhaps Eliza's protectiveness about children extended to topics far and wide.

The last three of these grouped pages are largely devoted to a rambling discussion of the virtues of Forksville and its local personalities. We early get into a history of church construction and architecture, with special recognition to the Reverend Paul Smith as the regional "church builder", the one in Forksville being his third. In this context, we are introduced to the fine creations * of Sadler Rogers and his brother Wesley Rogers. We then are taken to meet Jacob Snyder and his wife, apparently hotelkeepers and caterers, Judge Randall, Attorneys Rush Thomson and R. D. Lancaster, ex-sheriff Wright, John Corcoran, Moses A. Rogers, Daniel Huckell, Dr. Randall, Hoagland "the tinner", Uncle Josie Warren and wife [retired farmers, we are told], Edward Studevant the carriage-maker, Frost the bootmaker, and Joseph Whitely. Of course, we have met many of these personalities before as either friends or relatives of the Rogers family. We can assume that all were common acquaintances to Sadler and Eliza (Green) Rogers, thereby accounting for the inclusion of these pages in the scrapbook.
*Editor's Note: Among other talents, Sadler Rogers was a master house builder. You can see photos of his final house construction, by clicking on this link for the Sugar Ridge House.

The first of these three pages also contains in the left column part of an article, author unknown, on the home remedies best suited for taking care of sick children--lard and molasses, scalded milk, flannel clothing and so forth. There will be more of this kind of material further along in the scrapbook and we can be confident that the topic is represented here due to Aunt Eliza's understandable concern for children at risk of poor health.

We can add some additional information here about the Forksville personalities in these pages, some of whom we have encountered before. For example, Jacob Snyder (1834-1924) had the unusual distinction of being married to two different women with the same name--Sarah Huckell!! His first wife was Sarah A. Huckell (1820-1861), the daughter of William Huckell; they married on January 1, 1857. After she died, he married a second Sarah Huckell, daughter of John Huckell, who preceded him in death by about a year. The two Sarahs were actually first cousins. On another example, Rush Jackson Thomson, a prominent local attorney and the uncle of Fred Rogers, is profiled in Ingham's 1899 History of Sullivan County as follows:

Going on with these personalities, we know from Carol Brotzman that Joseph Whitely (1809-1886) and his wife Mary (1809-1888) had a daughter named Mary who married Edmund W. Snell. "Snell"--is not that a name we have run into before in the scrapbook. Well, of course, we have. He was in fact a nephew of Elizabeth Snell and her siblings. Their brother, Charles Snell (1817-1887), was yet another sibling in the children of John Snell and Rachel Calflesh. Charles married Margaret A. Molyneux (1817-1884) in 1839. Edmund W. Snell, son of Charles and Margaret, was one of four Snell brothers to join the Union Army in the Civil War, along with their father Charles. After the war, Edmund settled near Elk Creek on a farm and married Melvia Norton (1844-1888), daughter of Charles Norton. She died, however, on Independence Day, 1888. About five years later, on February 4, 1893, Edmund married a second time to Mary Whitely (1852-1914) of Forksville. Her father had come with his family from England in 1841 and eventually settled in Elkland Township, Sullivan County in 1846. He later retired to Forksville where he actually built the house his daughter and her husband, the Snells, lived. You can find Joseph and Mary Whitely, Edmund and Mary (Whitely) Snell, Melvina (Norton) Snell and Margaret (Molyneux) Snell all buried at Bethel Cemetery in Elkland. We are grateful to Carol Brotzman for this Whitely and Snell family information. You can see once again how all these families are entertwined and therefore relevant to Aunt Eliza's circle of relationships.

The last of these pages also includes an anonymous testimonial to the quality of the goods at Wells & Ackley's general store in Dushore. Then comes, at the top of the right column, a repeat of the Kearney child's death notice followed by a wrenching poem called "The Empty Cradle". Finally comes another poem from The Saturday Evening Post by F. C. Stewart, whose message is that it can't "be the month of May" all year round, but you can count on eternal May in Paradise. This seems like a morale-boosting entry for herself by Aunt Eliza in pages filled with stories about deaths of all ages and significances.

The scrapbook entry can be seen at Picket's Watch et al. The page contains two homily poems--one to the idea that "silence is golden" and one to how a maiden is led astray by a "kiss" and slick words from a pseudo-suitor. It also has yet another encomium to Andrew Johnson and a long poem by Nehemiah Robinson of Laporte, PA called the "The Picket's Last Watch". Dated in 1874, the poem is a reminder of how close in time and spirit the Civil War still was to Pennsylvanians at this point. All these clippings appear to have been published in The Sullivan Review.

We next turn to a hodgepodge page at Daniel O'Connell et al. The items clipped into this page include:

So, the page has a medley of themes about death, children and courage. It does not surprise us that Aunt Eliza kept items from these categories of stories, given her own losses and the courage it must have required of her to go forward. While Eliza seems to have clipped these stories from a variety of sources, some identified and some not, three appear to have come from The Sullivan Review at the same time, just from their location on the same clipping. These three include the story about Julius Baer.

The next page at John Morgan's Eulogy seems to be a throwback to the period during which Eliza lost her children. It includes a eulogy in the form of a poem about John W. Morgan, who died at 18 in Williamsport on January 2, 1875. The right hand column then contains three homilies--one about not being too critical of those who err, one which moralizes about wasting "time" and is addressed to the "young" people of Williamsport, and one about the downside of telling lies. All three suggest that these are defects one may come to regret as our allotted time on earth runs down. At the bottom left appear two parenthetical inserts, one about General Sherman dismissing his critics as "flies", and a statement of the government debt, no year given. This is William Tecumseh Sherman (1820-1891) of Civil War fame, we imagine. Some entries on this page are clearly identified as coming from the Williamsport, PA Sun and Democrat; the others are either unidentified or appear to be reprints [e.g., the extract from The Brooklyn Argus].

We can't be sure if the Morgan family referenced on this page is just a random example picked from the newspaper by Eliza as a reminder of her own grief, or if perhaps there was some kind of personal relationship. For example, John Morgan may have been the son of Daniel Morgan and Esther (Borman) Morgan. They had ten children between 1849 and 1872. John's approximate birth date of about 1857 would fit in this time frame. Carol Brotzman found the death notice for this possible relative, Daniel Morgan:

However, barring the discovery of a personal link, Larry Pardoe believes it more likely that this John Morgan is the same one as is found in the Williamsport, PA Federal census for 1860 and again in 1870:

Another page with similar themes is the Coles Cemetery et al page, which contains several religiously oriented poems and a belated testimonial to an as yet unidentifed younstger buried at Cole's Cemetery. This cemetery, just south of Towanda, PA in Bradford County, contains burials from way back until modern times. The poem, allegedly penned by a "twelve-year-old girl", talks about a hunting group of young men or boys, one of whose companions had died. We are not told how or who he is, although we might surmise that he was the author's brother or cousin or perhaps a favored uncle. All we know is that three years have passed, that he used to hunt and roam in the woods with the "Northrup" boys, and that he is now buried at Cole's. If we look at the Cole's Cemetery listing, there are many Northrups buried there. No doubt one of the other parties buried at Cole's is the protagonist of our poem, but for now we just don't know.

This same page contains a religious poem about Christ by Margaret E. (Munson) Sangster, the nineteenth century poetess and editor. Margaret came from a religious family and often took upon herself the responsibility of being a role model for young women and girls. She was also the editor of Harper's Bazaar before it closed down in 1899. The poem shown here was published in The Congregationalist, which was published in Boston from 1871 to 1901. This paper reflected the views of Congregationalist churches and issues they championed. In general, "congregationalists" favor independence for local congregations, while "presbyterians" favor governance by elders, and "episcopalians" accept leadership by a hierarchy of bishops, and so forth. The second relgious poem, "Mother at the Gate", is attributed to Mrs. G. M. Smiley. This surname is not that common, but can be found in Sullivan and Bradford Counties; we are not sure at this time if she was a local source or this poem is a reprint from elsewhere. Finally, there is a humorous poem about the jealousy of children toward a new baby in the family.

What do we conclude from this page's assembled entries? We already know that Aunt Eliza was an eclectic reader from many sources, local and further afield. We know that she understandably was preoccupied with children, and particularly with their untimely deaths. We also know that she was devout, had a sense of humor and kept up with her neighbors, family and relatives. In a small way, in a remote area, she was "a woman of letters" and a perceptive social historian. With each page we review, our gratitude for her curiosity and record-keeping can only grow.

The next two pages address once again a particular case of young death and a general dialogue about why it occurs. Perhaps from this continual focus we can appreciate more than a century later how frequent and omnipresent death, and particularly young death, was for our ancestors. In the world of the twenty-first century, we have learned to think of death as an aberration to be concealed from every day life, and to imagine young death as an exceptional event given our modern medical and technical abilities. Such was not the case in the 1870s and 1880s, or even thirty years later than that. Bob Sweeney's father, Robert Gerard Sweeney, told of how two of his older brothers in a family of twelve live births died in childhood or infancy, one from pneumonia and one from eating "bad pickles", between 1905 and 1915. In these two pages from the scrapbook, we learn of the death of Llewellyn Vough at age 17 and read comments on "Why Children Die". The Vough story appears to have been printed in The Sullivan Review, while the sources for the other clippings are for the most part not given.

You can learn more about the history of the Vough family at Lyle Rockwell's The Descendants of John Vough and Hannah Winder. This site also contains a family record for the births of the children of John W. and Eliza (Vough) Grange. Eliza Vough was a daughter of John and Hannah (Winder) Vough. She and John Grange, whom she married in 1851, were the grandparents of the famous athlete, Harold "Red" Grange.

Llewellyn J. Vough was, according to the story preserved here, killed in a playground accident. He is actually buried at Warburton Hill Cemetery. Born December 8, 1858, he died on February 11, 1876. Larry Pardoe reports that his records spell the name as "Llewellen", but the story here and the tombstone inscription spell is as we have the name here. The tombstone also bears an inscription that reads in part: "...and hope lie buried here..". He was the son of Abram and Ann (Molyneux) Vough [obituary shown below], both also buried at this location. Ann was the daughter of Edward and Rebecca (Bird) Molyneux, and granddaughter of William and Margaret (Atherton) Molyneux, the original settlers in this area. We see how the local families connect once again. The comments note that the parents had recently lost another beloved child. This can only have been their daughter Lottie Rosalie Vough, who died at age 19 on November 5, 1874 and is also buried at Warburton Hill. If you look at her tomstone, the "4" has eroded so it looks like a "1" in the inscribed date. However, from Larry Pardoe, we know that she was born on April 28, 1855. Her tomb bears this comment: "Oh bear me away on your snowy wings to my immortal home." Truly, this family suffered immense personal loss. We can see why Aunt Eliza would deeply empathize.

Here is the obituary for Ann (Molyneux) Vough, who died in 1916:

The first of these two scrapbook pages also contains a poem entitled "A Lesson" about appreciating the value of one's own life, author unidentified, and the first part of an article on "Why Little Children Die"? The article continues on the second page. The topic is the opinon of a Dr. Carstens of Detroit that infant mortality can be attributed to the poor care given by mothers. Carol Brotzman reports that Dr. John Carstens was a well-known mid-century physician concerned with epidemics of diseases such as tuberculosis that arise in conditions of poor public health. The commentator takes some exception to these remarks. Below the continuation is a partial article with the views of "Dr. Woodruff", apparently Francis Woodruff, a Michigan homeopathic physician, with respect to dealing with diseases that can be overcome if treated properly [e.g., diphtheria in his view]. You can read about the History of Homeopathy in the United States. In fact, Bob Sweeney has in his possession the late 19th century homeopathic medical dictionary that was actually owned and used by his grandmother, Agnes Elizabeth (Kelly) Sweeney, who lived in the Forks area at the same time as Aunt Eliza. In addition, the right hand column of this scrapbook page has a seemingly out-of-context article from the Ohio Farmer on how to wash pots! This publication was a mid-to late 19th century weekly issued by the Lawrence Publishing Company of Cleveland, Ohio. Of course, we know well why Eliza would be caught up with arguments about the causes of infant and adolescent mortality. We can only imagine that the story on pot washing drew her attention because it deals with mothers teaching their daughters proper kitchen skills.

Here is another example of how Aunt Eliza's interest ranged from the local to the universal. The next page has as the central element a testimonial poem about the death of John Francis Sayman, son of Benjamin Sayman II (1830-1914)and his first wife, Sarah (Hartzig) Sayman (1836-1878). It is probalby clipped from The Sullivan Review on or about September 10, 1881. You can learn more about this family at the History of the Benjamin Sayman Family on Faces and Families of Old Sullivan County, Group Four. After his first wife died, Benjamin then married Elizabeth Sarah Shaffer (1859-1929). We are not told the cause of death for the young man, but once more a fairly early death would, we can be confident, have secured Eliza's attention. The rest of the page is filled with an amazing assortment of clippings from a selection of lesser and better known writers and sources. Here is what we are given:

The next scrapbook entry at Davadge-Woodley presents two apparently unrelated topics: a report, likely clipped from the local Hughesville Mail, which began publishing in 1883, on the marriage of William Davadge of Jamison City, Columbia County, PA and Emma Woodley of Hughesville, Lycoming County, PA, and a reproduction of the well known, at the time, poem by Franics Miles Finch called "The Blue and the Gray". There are also a few one-line jokes involving double entendres or word play at the bottom left of the page.

The wedding list shows several people related by marriage to the Rogers family, for example, the Parkers and the Corsons, whom we have met before in the scrapbook. We also can recall that the Woodleys were related to the Green family through marriage to the Yaws. The exact relationships here are brought out by Larry Pardoe and Carol Brotzman, and by reference to biographical sketeches in the 1892 History of Lycoming County edited by John F. Meginness. As for the date, we only have June 13 as the date of the wedding for now, no year given, and the locale as Hughesville. We might guess from the age of the bride, as shown below, that the wedding took place between 1885 and 1890.

The Hughesville Federal census for 1880 shows Emma Woodley's family of origin:

Name Relation Marital Status Gender Race Age Birthplace Occupation Father's Birthplace Mother's Birthplace
George WOODLY Self M Male W 42 PA R R Engineer PA PA
Rosa B. WOODLY Wife M Female W 36 PA Keeping House PA PA
Sarah A. WOODLY Dau S Female W 17 PA At Home PA PA
Emma C. WOODLY Dau S Female W 15 PA At Home PA PA
Frank E. WOODLY Son S Male W 5 PA PA PA

Emma was the daughter of George Woodley and Rosa Belle Bryan. The Meginness History tells us more about the Bryan lineage. We have bold-faced the personalities of direct interest to us here:

Larry mentioned that the younger George Woodley was not in the older George Woodley's direct family, but that got Carol Brotzman thinking about the larger issue of the Woodley lineage. Here is what she discovered. The younger George was in fact the son of Andrew (aka "Abram") Kinney and Catherine (Sherman) Woodley. What can we say about this couple? Let's start with Catherine, nee Sherman. She was the daughter of Henry Sherman and his second wife, Elizabeth Thrasher. That's right. The Woodleys were related by marriage to two old and prominent local German-American families. You can learn more about the Shermans at The Sherman Family. The original Sherman settler in the Sullivan County area was the son of a Revolutionary war officer, both named Jacob Sherman. Henry Sherman (1801-1878) was one of the younger Jacob's seven children. Henry first married Catherine Hunsinger (1802-1834) and then, after she died, possibly in conjunction with childbirth, he married Elizabeth "Betsy" Thrasher (1818-1901). So, the Shermans were intermarried with two of the oldest and most ubiquitous local families, the Thrashers and Hunsingers who, as you can find from many sources on this site, were also intermarried at many levels with each other.

Andrew/Abram Kinney Woodley (c. 1833-1910) was in turn the son of Abraham and Anna (Farley) Woodley, who had seven children altogether. We'll leave the Farley family for another day, but, with this information from Carol, we can connect this Woodley branch back into the 1700s. Abraham Woodley (c. 1798-August 20, 1837) was one of at least nine children of Mathias Woodley (c. 1755-July 16, 1825). Mathias died in Muncy, PA, not far from Hughesville where his son Andrew died in 1837. But the truly amazing link is with Abraham's brother, John V. Woodley (02/27/1799-01/02/1860), born in Lycoming County, PA and eventually dying in Garden Bluff, Columbia County, Wisconsin. He married Mary A. Rogers (11/27/1828-02/23/1872) of Lancaster, PA, who eventually died in the same Wisconsin community as her husband. The Rogers name is not just a coincidence here. Mary was the daughter of Samuel Rogers, Jr of Leeds, Yorkshire, England and Mary (Akroyd) Rogers. Her father Samuel was in turn the son of Samuel Rogers, Sr, son of Joseph and Elizabeth (Holmes) Rogers. and Ann Gaunt, daughter of Thomas Gaunt. So, since Samuel, Sr. was the brother of Moses Rogers and an uncle of Sadler Rogers, Eliza's husband, Mary Rogers was first cousin once removed of Sadler and therefore pretty close kin to Eliza by marriage! In short, the Woodleys and Rogers had a deep connection far earlier than Emma's marriage in Hughesville.

Let's go back once more to the older George Woodley and Sarah J. (Woodley) Yaw. We will repeat ourselves a bit for the sake of clarity. Sarah J. Woodley was a daughter of Abraham and Anna (Farley) Woodley. She was therefore a sibling of Andrew/Abram Kinney Woodley and an aunt to the younger George Woodley, son of Andrew/Abram and Catherine (Sherman) Woodley. But it turns out that the older George Woodley, Emma's father, was also a sibling of Sarah and Andrew/Abram Kinney Woodley. So, the older George was a true uncle to the younger George! The Woodley family also ends up being related by marriage to the Streby and Kisner families, two other old German-American families in the area. In fact, Emma's first cousin Mary J. Woodley married George Streby, the author of The Streby History of local Sullivan County communities found on this web site. You can learn more about this lineage at Descendants of Abraham Woodley.

Finally, what about the poem in the right hand column of this page? Its sad theme is the lost youth from both sides in the Civil War. The author was a prominent lawyer who helped establish Cornell University and only wrote poetry as a side interest. The poetry of Francis Miles Finch (1827-1907) was published after his death, so we can date this entry in the scrapbook to after 1907. We have seen other allusions to the Civil War in the scrapbook, so it is safe to say that the recency of the terrible conflict and its heavy toll of youthful dead were both significant to Aunt Eliza.

Here is another page at Shewmake et al, with an odd mixture of content. The central piece is a poem inveighing against the "Reds" by Oscar Lane Shewmake, a prominent Virgina jurist. The poem is dated April 17, 1920, at the peak of the Federal government's nervous campaign against real and imagined internal enemies. Recall that this was less than three years after the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. 1920 was also the year before the nationally covered trial of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti for murder, in which they were accused of being "Red" anarchists. The early 1920s was a period of intense concern about immigrants, foreigners and people with poor language skills, a recurring if ironic theme in American history, since all of us, except for the Native Americans, have ancestral immigrants that would have fit these stereotypes at one time or another. This page also contains a poem entitled "Don't Let Mother Do It", exhorting daughters not to wear their mothers out. The other short poem, entitled "When", written by Emma C. Dowd for The Congregationalist, longs for a world where "Is life worth living?" will not be asked because the things that make us unhappy will all have been set right. Over the course of at least thirty years, Emma wrote books and articles with an optimistic theme about life. In the period from 1912 through 1917, she also wrote a series of "Polly" books about the adventures of a girl named Polly in a variety of adventures, for example, Polly of the Hospital Staff and Polly and the Princess.

The next page is mostly devoted to a satirical story about a local hunt by the citizenry of Forksville for an otherwise unidentified bandit called "the notorious McNamara". The expedition turns out to be the victim of a practical jokester. The date is not given, but the clipping is originally from The Bradford Argus, published in Towanda, Bradford County, PA, although likely reprinted and clipped from elsewhere. There is also a short poem, from The Chicago Tribune, entitled "The Canary", about a bride, a baby, and death. That is a famliar mix in the scrapbook by now.

Let's turn now to a letter sent by Frank Warren, originally from Sullivan County, to the Editor of what appears to be The Sullivan Review. It is entitled "Oregon" and is dated May 30, 1876. The mailing address is listed as Bunavesti, Polk County, Oregon. Here is the web site for the History of Polk County, Oregon, and another for the Genealogical History of Polk County. The author had been in Oregon for about six months and his letter describes the agricultural life and economy of this northwest Oregon area. "Bunavesti" was actualy Buena Vista, a hamlet about 7 miles south of Independence, OR and today located west of Interstate 5. We are not sure why Frank Warren went to Oregon, but we do know that Independence was incorporated about this time and that railroad expansion was an ongoing development activity. This area had been ceded by the Grande Ronde Indian nation in 1855 to the United States, and both settlement and development followed on the heels of this pacification.

This "Frank" Warren is almost certainly Francis J. Warren (1833-1899), husband of Selinda/Syllinda "Rose" Betts (1834-1921), who appear in the 1860 Federal census for Eldredsville, Forks Township, Sullivan County, PA. You can learn more about this couple and their family at The Warren Photo History. In 1860, they are living right next door to Frank's parents, Joseph and Eliza Ann (Bryan) Warren, whose household also included at that time their daughter Mary Jane Warren (1844-1910). Mary Jane subsequently married Electus Frost (1841-1914), son of John and Jane (Wilsie) Frost, in 1864 and the couple relocated to Idaho. You may recall the name "Frost" from an earlier entry on this page, where Emeline Forst (sister of Electus) married David Potter and that couple moved away as well! Frank's older sister, Hannah Belle Warren, had already married Hiram Campbell in 1856, the same year that Frank and Syllinda married, and moved to a separate home. Note: Hannah's husband Hiram was killed in an accident in 1862; she then married Orlando Heverly, son of John and Almira (Kellogg) Heverly, and the couple moved to Nebraska*. The Warrens and the folks they married apparently were a migratory family.
*Editor's Note: This was the second occasion in local history where a "Hannah Warren" married a Heverly. The first Hannah Warren, daughter of John and Mary (Ward) Warren, is narrated in The History of Overton. Chrstian Heverly (1800-1860), one of the early residents of the county, married this "Hannah Warren" in 1819, but she died two years later [Larry Pardoe has her as living from 1803-1824], and Christian then remarried to Martha Kilmer. The second incident is the one reported here between Hannah Warren, Frank's sister, and Orlando Heverly. Both Hannahs and both Heverly's are, of course, blood relationships, respectively. The two Hannah Warrens were probably in the relationship of great-aunt and great-niece. In the case of the Heverly relationship, Orlando was a nephew of Christian Heverly.

While we are looking at these relationships, let's take a look at the 1870 Federal census for Millview in Forks Township. Larry Pardoe makes some interesting points about this document. First, Francis J. ("Frank") Warren is actually the assissant marshall entrusted with preparing the census report for this area for the 1870 census. "F. Luke", listed above the Warrens, is actually Frederick William Lucke, a farmer born in Germany. He was married to Lucy Jane Warren, daughter of John Warren and Elizabeth Glidewell. Lucy was therefore a first cousin to Francis Warren; the 1880 Federal census shows Frederick and Lucy in Lake View Township, Cook Co., IL. Their daughter Alice Lucke was a direct ancestor of Don Andrew who contributed Letters to Isaac Rogers from Soldiers in the Civil War to our web page. This "Isaac Rogers" (1836-1914) was a son of Moses Rogers and brother of Sadler Rogers. You can read more about him and the valorous Civil War service of the Lucke brothers at the link just given. Also, a biographical paragraph on Isaac Rogers is provided in "Soldiers" section of the Streby History of Forks/Forksville. This source also has material on the Nye family; the first wife of Isaac Rogers was Amy Nye.

Furthermore, on the same 1870 Federal census for Millview page with the Warrens is Daniel "Squire" Huckell, married the following year to Catherine M. (Osler) Fleming, widow of Daniel Fleming who died in the Civil War. Catherine was the daughter of John Hinkle Osler and Jane Myers. We have met all of these personalities already in the scrapbook; is it not amazing how intertwined these families were?

Incidentally, Herman and George Lucke, listed on this census page under D. Huckell, appear to be sons of Henry H. Lucke, brother of Frederick William Lucke. And, of course, we find the Warrens: Francis, Sylinda, Ellis, Ransom and Mary.

We don't actually know what became of the Warrens after they went to Oregon. There is a very peculiar entry in the 1880 Federal census for Whitman County, Washington, which is about 300 miles east of the area of Oregon where "Frank" wrote from. Tis Washington entry shows "James" and "Amanda" Warren with three children named Ellis, Ransom and Mary. As it turns out, these are the middle names of Frank and Syllinda, but why would they use those names? And the birth places of origin for all of the family are other states than Pennsylvania. Bob Sweeney's guess is that these are the same Warrens, but they were trying to avoid being easy to find. Perhaps they had to leave Oregon in a hurry, maybe due to an unpayable debt or something of that kind. We just do not know. We do have Syllinda in the 1900 Federal census for White Pine, Latah County, Idaho, living with her son Ransom, and his children Frank and Maud Warren. We know that Ransom F. Warren was married to Mildred Gibson, so perhaps she had died, since she is not listed with the family at this time. Living next door to them is Syllinda's son Ellis with his wife, Annie.

Francis J. Warren died March 2, 1899 and is buried in the Moscow Cemetery, Moscow, Idaho. Here is his grave marker which appears on the Gano Family Home Page:

Francis J. Warren
August 13, 1833-March 2, 1899
Grave Marker
Moscow Cemetery
Moscow, Idaho
Source: Jay Gano and the Gano Family Home Page

This same page of the scrapbook contains a short unattributed poem entitled "In the Nest", which encourages mothers to cherish their children while they are still "in the nest" because they will grow up and leave soon enough.

Let's turn now to a Memorial Page that contains a memorial poem for Mrs. Thomas Deegan and also one for A. B. Allen, son of Mr. and Mrs. Burton Allen of Laddsburg. These poems were apparently originally published in The Sullivan Review, although no dates are given. There are also six other poems of varying themes clipped from other sources.

The Ingham History of Sullivan County tells the story of the Deegan family, and we learn there that our fist candidate Thomas A. Deegan was one of three sons of Jeremiah Darby (1783-1851) Deegan and Alicia T. (1799-1886) (Birmingham) Deegan to join the Union army in the Civl War. There may have been as many as four other children in this family. Any way, Thomas enlised as a captain on January 25, 1862 in Company C of the 107th PA Infantry. He was promoted on November 5 of that year. He died in 1863 after losing his leg at the Battle of Fredericksburg, Virginia, on December 13, 1862 and is buried at St. Basil's Cemetery in Dushore in the old section of that cemetery. His stone was placed by his mother, who survived until April 14, 1886. Could this be the husband of the "Mrs. Deegan" mentioned in the scrapbook?

However, there is a problem with this woman being the widow of our first Thomas Deegan, which brings us to our second Thomas Deegan. Look at this entry uncovered by Carol Brotzman:

It turns out that this Thomas Deegan is one of at least three children of Peter and Rosey Deegan. Thomas was born in New Jersey, but the other two children were born in New York state. One brother, Peter Deegan (1844-1886), married Bridget Burns lived in Sullivan County. His tragic story can be found in the genealogy of this Deegan/Burns family on Faces and Families of Old Sullivan County, Group One. Just scroll down to the relevant section. A second brother, named Jeremiah, was born in 1845, but we know nothing else about him for now. Nor do we know how this Deegan family relates to the other Deegan family of the "first" Thomas Deegan, although we suspect there may be one.

Meanwhile, the reasons we are leaning toward this second Thomas Deegan as the one whose widow is meorialized in the scrapbook poem are:

(1) the poem indicates children are still alive; as best we know, only the second Thomas had living children after the Civil War
(2) if the first Thomas had a wife, then SHE would have claimed his pension, but there is no claim by a widow of this veteran nor did a surviving wife place his stone at St. Basil's.

We will continue to research this matter, but the evidence is pretty strong that the second Thomas Deegan, who survived after the war, is our quarry. However, if his wife was really named "Elizabeth", then the "Margaret Deegan" who died in 1919 is probably not his widow.

We are told in the second memorial poem on this page that A. B. Allen of Otterdale, VA died on Tuesday, April 21, but not given a year. From the context, where he is referred to as "another valiant soldier gone..../Neath sunny Southern skies, Where in youthful days he fought", we can conclude he served in the Civil War. Many members of this Allen family are buried in Laddsburg Cemetery, although not Burton and Ruth, the parents, themselves. Nor is A. R. buried there. Perhaps he is buried in the Otterville area which lies between Roanoke and Lynchburg in the southern part of the state.

Carol Brotzman suggests he may be the John A. B. Allen, Jr. who enlisted in Company F, Seventeenth PA Infantry Regiment on April 25, 1861, and was musterd out later that year. She also found A. B. Allen in the 1880 Federal census for Burlington, Bradford County, PA, as a bark peeler (age 34) with a wife, Emily (age 37) and two children, BURTON C. (age 6) and Elsworth M.(age 1). Recall that Burton is the first name of the father of the Allen who is memorialized in the scrapbook. Perhaps he was mustered out in the same year he enlisted because it was discovered tht he was 15 years old in 1861! If this is the same A. B. Allen, why did he end up in southern Virginia? Carol offers this suggestion:

The other poems on this page are as follows:

Next, we come to a page of Selected Poetry, clipped from sundry sources. We begin with a patriotic poem by Isaac Eaton, entitled "Memorial-day, 189_". We are therefore confident that the date of publication is before 1900. The source given is Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly, which was a serial publication issued between 1876 and 1904. Underneath that entry appears "The Song of Work" by John Parnell, published in the New York News. The right hand column leads off with "A Thanksgiving Prayer" by Mary Riley Smith, taken from The Congregationalist, a source we have encountered before in this scrapbook. The final entry is "Cradle Song", author unidentified, from the Philadelphia Ledger. Philadelphia newspapers apparently had a habit of appending poetry to obituaries, and this poem appears to be an example, although we do not know the name or date of the deceased. What we do know is that patriotism, the work ethic, religious piety, and a devotion to children--the themes of this page and many other items in the scrapbook--were all dear to Aunt Eliza's heart.

The following page gives us a "Prize Poem" by E. H. Morton, an otherwise unidentified poet. The source is also not given, but the topic was the commonly known patent medicine, Dana's Sarsaparilla. It was manufactured in Belfast, Maine, beginning in 1888 and was thought to have produced many wonderful cures. You can read more about this and other patent medicinal products of Maine at To Market--To Market. Here is a picture of the bottle the stuff came in:

Dana's Sarsaparilla
Antique Bottle
Patent Medicine Produced in Maine
Source: Pynchon House Glass Antiques

Also on this page appears an unattributed religious poem, "The Master's Touch"; "Spring Song", comparing youth's opportunities to Spring and authored by Graham R. Tomson (1863-1911), the pseudonym of Rosamund Marriott Watson, an London poetess; and "Brave Love", a love poem about a man who played the violin and his lover who had a singing voice. While this last clipping says the author was anonymous, it is now known that the author was Mary Kyle Dallas (1830-1897), a Philadelphia born novelist and poetess. This particular poem, whose actual real title was "Hed Nothing But His Violin", was apparently eventually set to music. The final entry on this page is asserted to be the final, pious poem by the journalist Hamilton Jay. It turns out that Hamilton Jay was the son of another journalist, Charles Jay, who was a significant player in the 19th century History of Trenton, NJ. The younger Jay went to Florida after the Civil War and became a newspaperman in the Jacksonville area. Here is what the Old Mill Historical Society actually had to say about Jay in the 1917 Stories of Old Mill Hill:

We are slowly but surely getting to the end of the scrapbook, but there are still a few stories to tell and entries to examine. Here is one with a poem by Robinson Barnes, celebrating his 83rd birthday. The date must be about 1891, given that we know his age at death [see below], and appears to have been printed in The Sullivan Review. Basically, he attributes the sober and upright life, despite a bump in the road now and then, as the formula for longevity. It would not have dawned on Barnes that comments about being "jewed" would be viewed as culturally or ethnicaly insensitive. But then he lived before the century that was filled with such enormous racial and ethnic hatred as the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, Rwanda, Bosnia and the Gulag Archipelago! Carol Brotzman unearthed some family history on Barnes. He was born December 04, 1808 in Blansford, Massachusetts, and died June 11, 1902. He first married Orrill Smith West on November 30, 1834. She died in 1847. He then married Amanda Dikeman (1822-1877) on July 05, 1849. She died March 17, 1877. Here is an obituary for our octagenarian:

Incidentally, one of his sons, Frank R. Barnes (1850-1939), married Mary E. Pardoe (1849-1929), an ancestral relation of Larry Pardoe, on October 15, 1874 in Campbellville, PA, Reverend Richard Bedford officiating. See Richard Bedford's Diary of Marriages. Mary was the youngest of seven children of William and Jane (McCarty) Pardoe. William was the brother of Larry Pardoe's great-great-grandfather John Pardoe. Frank R. Barnes and Mary E. Pardoe had three children; Jane Amanda Barnes, Martha L. Barnes and William Barnes. Martha L. Barnes married Henry Ward Warren, son of William B. Warren and Jerusha (Hunsinger) Warren. H. Ward Warren and Martha had two children; Eleanor Catherine Warren - who passed away in August 2005 - and Ruth May Warren - who we can thank for the Rogers photos that her daughter-in-law Norma Rogers presents at at The Rogers and Warren Family Photo Connection. Ruth married Laurence Rogers, the grandson of Sadler and "Aunt Eliza" (Green) Rogers, in 1932. You can see why the Barnes family made it to the scrapbook!

Robinson Barnes is buried at the Bethel Cemetery near Elkland, PA, along with his second wife Amanda. All three of his sons--Miles, Frank and Jay Barnes--and Frank's wife Mary (Pardoe) are also buried there. In addition, Betsy Barnes (1777-1874), the widow of Jeremiah Barnes and mother of Robinson, is also buried there.

This page also contains several assorted homilies, poems and anecdotes from a variety of contemporary and earlier sources. These include:

(1) "A Boy's Belief", a tongue-in-cheek poem disputing the thought that being young is so much fun; the author, Eva Best, is otherwise unidentified;
(2) "Pegging Away", from the Lutheran Observer, about the virtues of sticking-to-it; this publication was first published in Baltimore in 1831;
(3) "Love and Gold" by Alexander Pope (1688-1744), the famous English poet;
(4) "Beauty", a brief poem attributed only to "Daniel"--perhaps the Old Testament book by that name written about 164 B. C.;
(4) a testament to Bucklen's Arnica Salve, a widely distributed skin nostrum manufactured by the H. E. Bucklen Company of Chicago;
(5) "Magic", a poem apparently about longing for spring when fall comes, perhaps as an analogy for old age and youth; the author is G. K. Turner and the source is The Springfield Republican, a newspaper founded in 1824 in Springfield, Massachusetts by Samuel Bowles and first issued as The Union-News, and still in business in 2005;
(6) a comical poem entitled "He Knew Her", published in the New York Truth, about linguistic usages in Boston;
(7) finally, "Contentment", a poem about marital contentment by Charles Kingsley, whom we have met before in the scrapbook.

A final page that includes a somewhat bewildering assortment of poems and homilies, all undated, is the Dyer et al page. The contents are:

(1) "Good Cheer", a poem about being upbeat, by Luella Clarke, in Western; the publication's title is so general that we cannot accurately guess as to what exactly it was or when published;
(2) "The End", a poem about the unpredictability of life, by Winthrop Church; we could not find a reference for this source either;
(3) "Two", a poem about the different ways that men and women love, by Rose Terry Cooke (1827-1892); best known as a short story writer, she published as late as 1891 in such venues as Graham's and Atlantic magazines;
(4) "At Last", a humorous unattributed poem about courting, published in the New York Press, a source we have encountered before in the scrapbook;
(5) "Life's Story", a poem about the stages of life, by Augusta Moore; if she is the same person, this author appears to have written "Turn About, Fair Play", published on April 13, 1865 in The Youth's Companion, about the alleged hypocrisy of slaveowners; published between 1827 and 1929, The Youth's Companion was a popular magazine for children:
(6) "Second Thoughts", poem on a self-evident topic, by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892), the great English poet;
(7) "Man", a poem about the evil of slavery, by Florence Earle Coates (1850-1927), an American poetess, born in Philadelphia and educated in New England and France;
(8) "Each Man Makes His Own Stature", a poem with a self-explnanatory topic, by the English poet Edward Young (1683-1765);
(9) "Between the Cradle and the Grave", a poem about the brevity of life, by John Dyer (1699-1757); Dyer was a Welsh lawyer by training who took up painting and then poetry; his biography appeared in Samuel Johnson's Lives of the English Poets.

A few more things stand out in this last selection of clippings for Aunt Eliza's scrapbook. For one, her previously expressed patriotism for the Union cause in the Civil War was also enthused by a moral distaste for slavery. And, her tastes ranged beyond the selection of local and contemporary American sources of the nineteenth century to include classic poets from the less known to the eminent, such as Tennyson. Clearly, even if self-educated, Eliza Green Rogers was a prodigiously well informed, intelligent and insatiably curious individual. We are grateful for that curiosity and for her zeal to collect and preserve the snapshot of life in late nineteenth America that her creation of the scrapbook made possible.

Editor's Appendix: The Pardoe Traditon in Sullivan County

As presented by Lorin F. "Larry" Pardoe
January 30, 2007