And Another Update on the Research Into My Oswalt Ancestors ...

A few days ago, I promised that I would post another update on the progress I made on my Oswalt ancestors. Instead  of posting more information on Adam Oswalt (died 1837-1838), the father of Benjamin Oswalt (died 1861), I will write about the findings I made on a few of the grandchildren of Adam Oswalt (died 1837-1838) which includes my Civil War ancestor, Adam Oswalt.

As you may remember, I wrote a series of articles a few years ago that explored whether or not the Civil War veterans, Adam Oswalt, Benjamin Oswalt and William Oswalt, were brothers. At that time, I only had indirect evidence to conclude that the three men were brothers; however, I can now definitely state that they are brothers. How? Well, I ordered two additional Civil War Pension files earlier this year.

Previously, I had only ordered Adam and Benjamin Oswalt's Pension files, and those files did not indicate whether or not the two men had a connection. (I should quickly note that Benjamin's Pension file was actually a Widow's Pension as his widow filed for a pension file after his death.) So, when I decided to order additional Pension files this year, I chose to order William's Pension file (or Widow's Pension, to be more accurate) and the Widow's Pension file for one of Adam's Detwiler brother-in-laws. (I will discuss the Detwiler Pension file in a future post.)

From the testimony of William's widow, Eliza, I learned that William, Benjamin and Adam were indeed brothers as I suspected, and confirmed that the men had a sister named Margaret who lived in Michigan. Besides confirming relationships, the file also listed the names of William and Eliza's children and Eliza's children of a later marriage, gave the date and location of William and Eliza's marriage, and provided an explanation of why I could not find a record of that marriage. Apparently, William and Eliza's marriage was not recorded in the county. Although Michigan law required that marriage notices be placed in two newspapers in the county where the marriage occurred, I haven't yet found a notice. I will need to do a more in-depth search of the newspaper records of Saint Joseph County, Michigan.

So, as one can see from the above information, Civil War Pension files could contain a great amount of detail on the lives and families of Civil War Veterans. Unfortunately, the file does not answer all the questions I have about these Oswalts, especially when it comes to the maiden name of William, Benjamin and Adam's mother. In a future post, I will discuss my efforts so far to answer additional questions on my Oswalt ancestors. Enjoy!

A Surname Meme: Some of the Surnames I Am Researching

I just happened to notice that Jasia listed the surnames she was researching, and I thought it would be a great idea to do the same thing. Of course, I'm not going to post all of the surnames I'm researching because I want to protect my family members' privacy as well. Thus, I am only going to be posting surnames that are a few generations away from my living relatives. So, here are some of the surnames I'm researching:

• Oswalt: Saint Joseph County, Michigan and Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania
• Detwiler: Saint Joseph County, Michigan and Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania
• Householder: Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania (specifically interested in information on a Barbara whose father's name might be John.)
• Stout: Saint Joseph County, Michigan and Northampton County, Pennsylvania
• Havens: Saint Joseph County, Michigan and Monroe County, New York (tentative location)
• Kees: Cleveland, Ohio, Trippstadt, Germany and Gelnhausen, Germany
• Cotta: Trippstadt, Germany and Southwestern Germany (Stuttgart area, possibly?)

I thought I would just start with these surnames since I'm researching quite a few and since these surnames do not violate the privacy of any of my relatives. If you have a connection any of these surnames, please contact me at jess_history at yahoo dot com. Thanks!

Tombstone Tuesday

For this week's Tombstone Tuesday, I am reposting a photograph that I posted before. This photo happens to be the tombstone of my ancestor, Barbara (Householder) Detwiler, the first wife of Jacob Detwiler. She is buried in Riverside Cemetery, Three Rivers, Saint Joseph County, Michigan.

Politics and My Ancestors ...

For the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy, I am supposed to write about my ancestors and their connections with politics, either through beliefs, as politicians or as members of a political movement or party. I have written briefly before about a couple of my ancestors' political beliefs, but I still do not know very much about what they might have believed.

Last year, I wrote an article on my ancestor, Benjamin Oswalt and his son, John, and their political beliefs in relation to the 1856 Presidential election. In past elections, Benjamin and John had apparently voted for the Whig party, and it appears that as the Whig party collapsed, they switched their political alliance to the Know-Nothings and then to the Democratic Party. Obviously, I do not know how long they might have allied themselves with the Know-Nothings. From the newspaper article, it appears as though it was a temporary alliance in a previous election. Of course, that was what my ancestor in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. I have no idea, if his son, Adam (my ancestor), was a member of the Whig Party. In fact, I do not know anything about Adam's political beliefs. The closest I have come so far is finding out that he was part of the G.A.R. when he lived in Rockford, Illinois, as I wrote in a previous Carnival of Genealogy entry.

As for my Detwiler ancestors, I do not know as much about their political beliefs as I do for my Oswalt ancestors. The only possible political belief that I have been able to uncover is that John Detwiler (my ancestor's older brother) was a member and officeholder of Park Township Saint Joseph County, Michigan's Grange Party, and I found out about that membership through reading about it in L. H. Everts & co.,'s History of St. Joseph county, Michigan (published in 1877). (For some more information on the grange movement, the articles here and here are a start.) Again, this is for the son and brother of my ancestors. I have no idea what John's father, Jacob, believed, as of the writing of this article.

For my Stout ancestors, I also have the same problem. The closest information of a possible political belief comes from my ancestor's brother, Reuben Stout. According to his biography in the Chapman Brother's Portrait and Biographical Album of St. Joseph County, Michigan (printed in Chicago in 1889), Reuben was a member of the Democratic Party. As for his younger brother, who is my ancestor, I have no idea what his political leanings were. I wonder, though, if they shared same political philosophy.

As for my Householder ancestors, I just have a suggestion as to what it might be. I believe the father of Barbara Householder, Jacob Detwiler's first wife, was John Householder; however, my only evidence for that connection at the moment is the 1850 U.S Census of Walker Township, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania where John Householder is living with Jacob and Barbara Detwiler's family, and the biography of a nephew that lists her as one of John's three children. (The biography is of John F. Householder in J. M. Runk's Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of the Juniata Valley, comprising the Counties of Huntingdon, Mifflin, Juniata, and Perry Pennsylvania. The book was published in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania in 1897.) That biography states that her father was a Democrat, but my main problem, outside of an incorrect death year for him, is that I do not have any other primary source documents connecting Barbara to John Householder except for the 1850 census. (Of course, if anyone can help me strengthen this connection that would be greatly appreciated.)

As for my other ancestors in America, I do not know what their political beliefs were, especially when it comes to my German ancestors who came to the U. S. in the late-1800s and early 1900s. And then there is my possible ancestor, Christoph Friedrich Cotta who had a role in the French Revolution, in trying to spread it to the German states, but I am not going to say anything further about him as his beliefs would need a separate post to cover. As for my British ancestors, I have no idea what their political beliefs were or when they would have been able to vote (outside of the fact that women in Britain were given the right to vote in 1918). Until I am to do research into their political beliefs, I will not know. I hope, though, as I continue to do research on my family that I will be able to uncover more information about them, especially in relation to what their political beliefs were.

Tombstone Tuesday ...

Becky of Kinexxions started this blog post prompt a few weeks ago, and I've finally decided to participate in this event on Tuesday. Of course, I do not know if I will be posting a photograph of a tombstone every Tuesday, but I will do so whenever I get a chance.

So, the picture of the tombstone above is of Charles H. Detwiler and one of his wives. Charles Detwiler is the son of Jacob Detwiler by his second wife, Alwilda Arnold. As you may remember, I wrote about Jacob's second marriage in this post last year. Charles is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Three Rivers, Saint Joseph County, Michigan. (I don't have my notes in front of me, so I can't remember exactly where his grave is located.)

Update, 14 October 2008 at 6:40 P.M.: Becky informed me that Amy of Amy's Genealogy, etc. Blog was the one who started the Tuesday. I'm terribly sorry. That was my mistake. Also, I happened to notice that I did not have Amy's blog on my list, and I have now added her blog to the genealogy blog list as well.

Saint Joseph County, Michigan: My Thoughts and Reflections

As some of you already know, I had a least three branches of ancestral families live in Saint Joseph County. Although, I was probably supposed to write about a town or place, I've decided to write about this county because my ancestors lived in various places in this county and because I have actually visited this county. (Even if it has been a couple years since I visited.)


Saint Joseph County (not the same as the city) is located in the lower Southwestern area of Michigan, and is one of the counties on the border with Indiana. The county is surrounded by the Michigan counties of Branch, Cass, Kalamazoo, Calhoun, and Van Buren and the Indiana counties of Elkhart and LaGrange. The village of Centreville has the county court house, and civil records for the county are held there. The only cities in the county are Three Rivers and Sturgis. Although I haven't been to Sturgis, it appears to me that both cities are small cities. Three Rivers was small to me. (Well, at least for someone who spent most of her childhood in Metro-Detroit.) The next, largest, nearby city outside of Three Rivers would be Kalamazoo. To get to Three Rivers, a person living in Kalamazoo would only have to head south on 131. (Or for Grand Rapids for that matter.) If one is traveling from the Detroit area to Three Rivers, the trip will take at least three hours. (Yes, it is a long drive for those who live on the east side of Michigan. Trust me.)

During the time of my ancestors, the county consisted mostly of farms and farmland, and even today, the county is still very rural. Although I didn't travel to every place in the county, most of county outside of Three Rivers consisted of farmland and villages. Many of the roads in the county are two-lane highways. The road between Three Rivers and Centreville is one such road. (The two are only about 5 or 10 miles apart and the drive is only about ten-fifteen minutes from one to the other.)

From reading the above, it may seem as though I don't like area. Actually, that is the farthest from the truth. I like the area, and I think it is beautiful. (Yes, I am big fan of the countryside.) I would love to live in the area if I ever get a chance to do so.
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For sources and information:

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mistjose/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Joseph_County,_Michigan

One Michigan Family's Civil War Experience - Part Two

In my previous post, I began writing about my ancestors' Civil War experiences. My first post was extremely short as I did not have very much time to write the post, so I decided to break it down into multiple posts. But I digress ...

The Civil War Era ancestors that I am writing about are my ancestors who primarily lived in Saint Joseph County, Michigan (or at least southwest Michigan): the Detwiler and Oswalt families. As I mentioned before, the men in the Stout family did not serve, although the eventually husband of my Stout ancestor's sister-in-law did serve. (Of course, he did not marry the sister-in-law until a couple years after the war ended.) I don't know at the moment why the men did not serve, although that does not mean that they were unpatriotic. It is possible that Reuben Stout might have donated some money for the war effort. (I have to recheck the newspaper article as I accidentally cut off some information when I printed it from the microfilm.)

Either way, it was the men in the Oswalt and Detwiler families who primarily made up the Civil War veterans in my family. Of course, I should state that these men did not sign up all at the same time. Three of the men joined a Michigan infantry in 1862. The rest joined a Michigan regiment in February of 1865. The Michigan men that I hope to write about sometime in the future (and not in any particular order) are:

• Adam Oswalt
• Benjamin Oswalt
• William Oswalt
• John Detwiler
• Joseph Detwiler
• Alexander Detwiler
• George W. Detwiler
• Philip Lang(e)

I must state, though, that I still need to do research on most of these men, so I'll be posting on these men as I learn more information about them. Obviously, this will be an ongoing series of posts.

A Family Affair: One Michigan Family's Civil War Experience - Part One

One of the few family stories that were passed down was that one of my ancestors was a Civil War veteran. Within the first year or so of doing research, I was able to prove that this family tradition was true. In addition, I discovered that my ancestor's brother-in-laws, wife's uncle and possibly two Oswalt men (living in the same county) that might be his brothers. In short, my ancestor's involvement in the Civil War was just as much of a family affair as it was for almost every other family in the United States at the time of the Civil War. (I say almost because another one of my ancestor's family did not have anyone serve in the Civil War, although they may have contributed to the war effort in other ways. I am still doing research to determine what they may have done.)

One detail I am wondering, though, about my Civil War ancestor is what made him sign up for service when he did. My ancestor did not enlist in a volunteer Michigan infantry regiment until February of 1865. I'm not sure, but hopefully, I will be able to find an answer in future research. In later posts, I'll write more about my Civil War ancestor and other relatives' experiences during the Civil War.

I Am My Own - Well Not Quite ....

Earlier today, Randy Seaver posted about songs on genealogy, and one of the songs mentioned was "I am my own grandpa." Randy's post reminded me of an ancestor who participated in a situation similar to the situation described in the song and I decided to write about it.

My ancestor, Jacob Detwiler, was married twice. He first married my ancestor, Barbara Housholder/Householder on 8 December 1836 in Pennsylvania. They had at least six children who lived to adulthood. By the 1870 Census, Jacob and Barbara were living on their own, as their children had all been married by then. By October of 1871, Barbara had died. I was not able to determine when she died exactly from her grave marker, even though it appears as though there might once have been a date of death on the stone. The cemetery transcription for Riverside Cemetery suggests that she died on 25 April 1871, but since there isn't a death registration for her, I have to find some other record that would indicate when she died. I have not yet checked with the Sexton of the cemetery to see if there are any records on her burial. It may be possible that I'll find more information on her and what the cause of death was.

How do I know that Barbara was dead by October of 1871? Jacob remarried that month, to a much younger woman. On the 24th of October 1871, Jacob married Alwilda Arnold in South Bend, Indiana. Although I have not been able to find any church records that give birth dates for Jacob, Barbara or Alwilda, census records do indicate when they might have been born. Barbara was born either before or about 1810. Jacob was born about 1815, and Alwilda appears to have been born about 1850, give or take a couple of years. The most shocking instance for me about Jacob's second marriage is that Alwilda was almost the same age as Jacob's youngest daughter. In other words, Jacob was old enough to be Alwilda's father. The newspaper articles listed that both Jacob and Alwilda were residents of Three Rivers before they got married in South Bend.

I wonder, though, why they married in Indiana. I realize that the Saint Joseph River runs through Three Rivers and South Bend. It may be that Alwilda had family there, but one has to wonder how Jacob's grown children felt about his remarriage or how the community might have felt about the marriage. If Barbara did die in April of 1871, Jacob remarried within six months. To me, remarrying within six months of the death of a spouse seems too early. As far as I know, Jacob did not have any young children living in his household, and all of his children were grown by 1871. Is it possible that either Jacob's children or his neighbors were against him remarrying because his wife had been dead for only a short amount of time? Did Jacob and Alwilda get married in Indiana instead of Michigan as a result of possible disapproval? At the moment, I don't know what Jacob's faith was because he and Alwilda and several of his children were married by a Justice of Peace, so I don't know if there are any records that might indicate why he chose Indiana.

Jacob and Alwilda would have at least one son, Charles, who lived to adulthood, and they may have had another son who died at the age of one. There is a death record in the Saint Joseph County, Michigan County Clerk's office for a Casey E. Detwiler who was born in Indiana. The problem is that the mother is listed as Emma. It could be a mistake for Alwilda's name since the marriage record gave her first name as Elwilda. I have not found any other Jacob Detwiler's in the Southwestern Michigan and Northwestern Indiana area who would have been old enough to have been the child's father. It is always possible that this child is another couple's child. Whether or not Jacob and Alwilda had one or two children, the birth of Charles probably confused later descendants of his relationship to other Detwilers in the area. As I mentioned before, all of Jacob's older children were married and had children. Jacob was already a grandfather before Charles was born, and Charles' birth would automatically make him an uncle to the children of his older half-siblings. I can only wonder how confusing it might have been to be one of Jacob's grandchildren; several of Jacob's grandchildren would be older than their own uncle.

Jacob Detwiler died on 21 December 1879 in Saint Joseph County, Michigan. I have not yet found his probate file, but it is always possible that I missed it while looking for other probate files.
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Sources

(I don't have my sources with me, but I have tried to list as much of my sources as I can remember.)

• "Married." Huntingdon Gazette, December 28, 1836, page 3, http://www.accesspadigital.org/ajunc/ajunc.htm
• Household of Jacob Detwiler. 1850 U. S. Federal Census, Walker Township, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. (Note Detwiler for this family is spelled Ditwiler in this census.)
• Household of Jacob Detwiler. 1860 U. S. Federal Census, Lockport Township, Saint Joseph County, Michigan. (Detwiler is spelled Detweiler in this census.)
• Household of Jacob Detwiler. 1870 U. S. Federal Census, Lockport Township, Saint Joseph County, Michigan.
• Saint Joseph County Genealogical Society, "Riverside Cemetery," in Cemeteries of Saint Joseph County, vol. 4.
• Saint Joseph County, Indiana Marriages, Saint Joseph County Clerk, book 6, page 391. (Note: Detwiler is spelled Detwilder and Alwilda's name is given is Elwilda.
• Saint Joseph Valley Register and National Union, (no date or page number. These newspaper articles and the marriage record above were kindly looked up for me at the beginning of this year.)
• Household of Alwilda Detwiler. 1880 U. S. Federal Census, Lockport Township, Saint Joseph County, Michigan.
• "Death record of Casey E. Detwiler," Saint Joseph County, Michigan death records, book one, page 59.
• "Death record of Jacob Detweler," Saint Joseph County, Michigan death records, book one, page 122. (Note: Jacob's last name is spelled Detweler in this record.)

One of My Ancestor's Tombstone ...

I realize this is a random posting, but the past couple of days I've been thinking about posting one of my pictures I took of an ancestor's grave marker.

Copyright 2004. Picture of the grave of Barbara Detwiler at Riverside Cemetery in Three Rivers, Michigan taken by Jessica Oswalt.

This is the grave of my ancestor Barbara, the wife of Jacob Detwiler. As you can see, the stone is broken into two pieces. I am not sure if it was broken by accident or if it was a result of vandalism. You can't tell by just looking at this picture, but the part of the stone that is still part of the marker, an elegant inscription has eroded away to being unreadable. I did look at the grave closely and that is how I know about. I could not read it, but I wish I could have been able to, since there might have been important information on the marker. And that fungus did not make reading the stone any easier. Does anyone know if it is possible to determine what was inscribed on a tombstone?