William Mickle REEDY 
(ID #I21308)
(male)- TITLES/'DIT' NAMES/OCCUPATIONS: Presbyterian Minister [7749]
- BIRTH: 06 JUL 1821, Pennsylvania
- DEATH: 27 JUL 1857, Marengo, McHenry Co., Illinois?
Mother: Margaret MICKLE (b. abt 1796, d. AUG 1861)
Family 1 : Mary Kerr RANKIN (b. 14 AUG 1824, d. 14 SEP 1902)
- +Oliver Kerr REEDY (b. 16 OCT 1851, d. 11 FEB 1945)
- +James Jackson Hamilton REEDY (b. 3 MAY 1853, d. 6 FEB 1941)
- +David M. REEDY (b. 01 JAN 1855, d. 18 FEB 1935)
- +Edward Hagar REEDY (b. 6 NOV 1856, d. 20 NOV 1931?)
- William Henry REEDY (b. 15 FEB 1848, d. 21 AUG 1917)
One entry in LDS files gives parents as Henry Reedy and Mary Mickle, and also gives Michel in place of Michael as the middle name. We have no idea where this information came from. Exactly where he died has not been established with certainty. His son Oliver Kerr Reedy gives Dixon, IL, while the descendants of James J. H. Reedy placed the death at Freeport, IL. A compiled genealogy, apparently informed by the Edward Hagar Reedy family (Alethea Mary Wallack McClain, The Way we were, 1977) gives William's birth date as 06 jul 1826 instead of 06 jul 1821, and makes him the son of Henry Cline Reedy and Margaret, with a sister Elizabeth Reedy born in 1819. Articles published Rockford, Illinois newspapers in 1927, on the occasion of his son Rev. James J. H. Reedy passing through the area, mention that the family lived at Marengo from about 1855 until his father's death in 1857, and that a house built by William M. Reedy was still standing there. For this reason, it seems most likely that he died in McHenry Co.
He has not yet been located in the 1850 census. His birthplace is from 1880 census listings for his children James, Oliver, and David. He is not in the 1850 census of Pike Township, Clearfield Co., PA, so he must have arrived either late in 1850 or early in 1851, just about the time the new minister Rev. James Jackson Hamilton arrived at the Curwensville Presbyterian Church. Rev. Hamilton was a celebrated preacher, and it is just possible that it was he who inspired William Reedy to become a minister. The Reedy family is not found in the 1850 census of Coal Township, Northumberland Co., PA, where Rev. Hamilton served prior to his position at Curwensville. The first wife of Rev. Hamilton was Sarah Coates, who died 20 jun 1852; she had a brother Judge John Coates who came to Illinois in the 1840's and lived in Freeport from about 1853 until his death in 1898 . Did the Coates family have something to do with the Reedy family settling in the Freeport area about 1857?
The information from the Edward Hagar Reedy family in the LDS International Genealogical Index indicates an intermediate stop in McHenry Co., IL in 1856. This information has not been confirmed. It is possible that Edward's brother David was also born in Illinois; the census records are contradictory. One sketch of James J. H. Reedy says the family came first to Freeport about 1854, then to Marengo, McHenry Co., IL early in 1855.
In spite of what his son James said about him, no evidence has been found that William was actually ordained.
The discovery that the Reedy family lived at Marengo, McHenry Co., Illinois from about 1855 until 1857 led to the discovery his brother Jacob Andrew Reedy, subject of a congressional inquiry into the "irregular practices of certain attorneys" in securing military pensions. Various depositions in this matter were reported at length in Executive Document No. 172 of the 48th Congress, First Session, House of Representatives, May 8, 1884. The section concerning the attorney Isaac S.Lee, representing Jacob A. Reedy (pension certificate no. 175281), begins on p. 758. Reedy, his attorney, and A. W. Blakesly, an notary public, recommended to be charged with forgery, conspiracy, and filing false testimony. Jacob Reedy lived in Quincy about 1880 when certain affidavits were made, but then moved to Chicago, where he still resided as of 1882. He had served in Company D, 64th Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, enlisting at Decatur, Illinois on 18 feb 1862. He reports that his father died about 28 or 29 years ago (the deposition is dated July, 1882, so the death would have been about 1854, thus about the same time William M. Reedy came to Illinois) in Huntington Co., Pennsylvania, "near what was then known as McCleary's Fort". His mother had died in August 1861 in Stark Co., Ohio, near Winchester. Before his enlistment, he was living at Marengo, Illinois, and had traveled to Decatur in hopes of finding one of his brothers-in-law, whom he was unable to locate, then he enlisted. He had been married about 1847 (35 years ago), but his first wife died in the spring of 1861. He has now married a second time, about 5 years ago. He had been in Marengo about 4 years, working as a butcher. After various adventures in the war, he returned to Decatur, then moved to Wilson Co., Kansas, and later to Topeka, back to Decatur, etc. His children and relatives lived in Plymouth, Indiana, and a son in Stark Co., Ohio. The depositions include one by Calvin Spencer, who had lived at Marengo since the fall of 1835. He remembered Jacob, and his brother: "I also remember his brother. The brother was a colporteur in the Presbyterian church; was a sickly kind of a man, who died about or before the time of the breaking out of the war; a short time before, perhaps, as I understand, of consumption." There is also a deposition from Jacob's sister Isabella M. Richmond of Marengo, age 53 (thus born about 1829), mentioning that her brother William had in fact died in Marengo. She had remained in Pennslvania and had moved to Decatur in 1870.
[7749] according to writeup on James J. H. Reedy
__
|
__|
| |
| |__
|
_Henry Edward REEDY _|
| (1792 - 1856) |
| | __
| | |
| |__|
| |
| |__
|
|
|--William Mickle REEDY
| (1821 - 1857)
| __
| |
| __|
| | |
| | |__
| |
|_Margaret MICKLE ____|
(1796 - 1861) |
| __
| |
|__|
|
|__