Wordless Wednesday - Four Years Ago This Week

Photo by Patrick L Jones - 1st day, Santa Monica, CA, Sept 2008

Franklin Township Map 1878

The following map section comes from the 1878 Illustrated Historical Atlas of Montgomery County, Indiana (available as a scanned copy on the Crawfordsville District Public Library's website, http://history.cdpl.lib.in.us/atlases/1878montco.pdf). This page shows a portion of Franklin Township, east of Crawfordsville on the county line with neighboring Boone County.

North half of Franklin Township, Montgomery County, Indiana

There are several names of interest on this page. James Vail's property appears on the east side of Hazel Creek in Section 12. A few plots to the north is the land of Mary A. Coltrain, widow of Linden Coltrain from yesterday's post her widow's pension. To the south, in Section 13 is the land of John Armstrong, my 4th-great-grandfather. There are quite a few Boohers and Hamptons in this corner of Franklin Township as well.

Guardian's Docket - James Vail
Another item in the Crawfordsville District Public Library digital archives shows James Vail as the guardian of Mary Coltrain's underaged children from 9 January 1867.

Source: CDPL Local History Database

Witnesses to a Widow's Pension

In early April, I wrote about my 3rd-great-grandmother Easter Vail Armstrong. Her parents, my 4th-great-grandparents, were James Vail and Selina Hampton. In the month of September and October, I am going to spend some time retracing and untangling the family of James and Selina, in the hopes of breaking through to identify James' parents and the part of Ohio that James came from. I have quite a bit on Selina's parents, and her connection to the Hampton and Booher families of Sullivan County, Tennessee.

James and Selina were married on 28 March 1839 in Montgomery County, Indiana. I lived in Montgomery County between 1992 and 1996 while attending Wabash College. I am going back to talk at the College in October, so I hope to also uncover more information about them during this short visit.

While looking on Fold3.com for Civil War records on the Vail family, I stumbled onto the widow's pension file for Mary Ann Darby Coltrain, widow of Linden P. Coltrain. James and Selina Vail were witnesses on her pension application. Linden and Mary's daughter, Rebecca Ann Coltrain, later married James and Selina's son Leander Vail on 9 April 1870, after Leander returned from service in the 68th and 44th Indiana Infantry during the last year of the Civil War.

The pension file notes that Linden served in the 72nd Indiana Infantry, and that he died of chronic diarrhea in the field hospital on 10 May 1863 at Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Seeing this makes me think that he must have contracted malaria or yellow fever, and died from a similar battlefield-contracted disease that lead to the death of my 4th-great-grandfather Robert Thomas Jones Sr during his return from the Mexican War.

There is a lot of information in this pension file. If you are descended from Linden P. Coltrain, you will want to see this file.

Motivation Monday - Under Construction

Before I dive into writing some of the stories in this month's writing reminders, I wanted to go back and do some general clean-up in my family tree. This was time well spent yesterday, as I caught errors and found some Civil War records on ancestors in the Vail line in Montgomery County, Indiana.

Source: NY Public Library Digital Gallery

The photo above shows the Statue of Liberty under construction in Paris in 1883. This is from the New York Public Library's fantastic Digital Gallery (image permanent link: http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/id?1161050). The Library provides free & open access to over 800,000 images. See http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/index.cfm. I had originally intended to use a more generic "Under Construction" stock photo sign, but through the wonders of the Internet I stumbled onto old photos like the one above.

Back to tree pruning and cleaning.

Writing Reminders for September

August was a big month, September promises more of the same. I have found the writing reminders to be helpful, so here's a few for this month.

Carry overs from August include:
- My wife's Halter ancestors arrive in New Orleans
- Van Meters arrive in New Amsterdam in 1662
- Revisiting the Tennessee 5th Infantry in the Mexican War

New stories:
- Port Lookout prison camp in September 1863
- More on the Lamon family in Harrison and Gibson Counties
- Follow up on Oyler & Hise/Haise research with the Dearborn County Historical Society
- Matthews family migration from Tennessee to Kentucky
- Vail family in Boone County, Indiana