1894 Death of Jane (Mozingo) Rice

Posted on May 4, 2014 by Dawn Bingaman

In anticipation of my upcoming research trip to Virginia, I offer these transcriptions of the death notice and the newspaper obituary of Jane E. (Mozingo) Rice, born in Westmoreland Co., Virginia in 1826. I obtained copies of the newspaper items when I first visited Kansas in 1992, and the graves of Cornelius Rice, his wife, Jane, and several other relatives on a glorious fall day. The Baldwin Ledger is, alas, not one of the digitized newspapers online on the Chronicling America website.

“The citizens of Baldwin and vicinity are very sorry to learn of the demise of Mrs. C. B. Rice. The funeral services took place yesterday from the M. E. Church in Baldwni. [sic] Rev. J. M. Sulliven officiating. The I.O.O.F. of Baldwin and many friends attended the funeral. The sorrowing friends have have [sic] the deepest sympathy of this entire community. A full obituary will be given next week.”¹

Obituary.

Jane Elizabeth Rice was born in West Moreland county, Va., June 6, 1826, and died Oct. 8, 1894. She was raised a Baptist but at the age of 16 joined the Methodist church, and continued a worthy member until her death. She was married to C. B. Rice in Georgetown, D. C., on the 3rd of Feb., 1846. She was the mother of eleven children, nine of whom, with her husband, survive her. With her husband she moved to Kansas in 1857 and settled in Palmyra township, where she lived until her death. She became a Rebecca in Mechanics Lodge, No. 18, of Georgetown, D. C. in 1853. The funeral services took place Aug. 11, at 10 a.m., from the Methodist church in Baldwin. The sermon was preached by J. M. Sullivan. The remains were laid to rest in Ashland cemetery. A good mother, a kind neighbor and friend, one who has lived through the early history of Kansas, has gone beyond. Shd [sic] lived her life well and has gone to her reward.

RESOLUTIONS.

WHEREAS, Almighty God has deemed best to call home the loving wife of our beloved brother, C. B. Rice; therefore, be it

Resolved, That we, the members of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, tender our heartfelt sympathy to our bereaved brother and family; and,

Resolved That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the Baldwin LEDGER for publication and also be spread on the minutes of the lodge.

F. MESSINGER,
F. JOHNSON,
J, M. STARR,
Committee.²

Notes and comments:
If Jane died 08 Oct 1894, she could not have been buried 11 Aug 1894 as stated. That should probably read “services took place Oct. 11….”

The cemetery where her remains lie is now known as Oakwood Cemetery, marked with a red star on the map.

Sources and credits:

Image credit: Baldwin City, Douglas Co. [Kansas, atlas map], (Philadelphia: L. H. Evert, 1887) p. 24; digital image, David Rumsey Historical Map Collection (http://www.davidrumsey.com : accessed 04 May 2014). Used via a Creative Commons license.

¹ “Here and There.”, Baldwin Ledger (Baldwin, Kansas), 12 Oct 1894, p. 5, death notice for Jane (Mozingo) Rice.

² “Obituary.”, Baldwin Ledger (Baldwin, Kansas), 19 Oct 1894, p. 3, Jane (Mozingo) Rice obituary.

“Happiest when surrounded by little children”

Posted on March 16, 2014 by Dawn Bingaman

1944 newspaper obituary clipping for Anna Mary (Hopkins) Carson of New Jersey and Kansas

[Transcription follows]

[M]ORRIS COUNTY, KANSAS, THURSD[AY]

OBITUARY–CARSON
_____

Mrs. Andrew Carson, (Anna Mary Hopkins) was born December 25, 1857 in Trenton, N.J., and died at the home of her daughter, Mrs R. Knott in Abilene, Kansas, on Saturday, September 16, 1944, at the age of 86 years, 8 months and 19 days.

On June 9, 1875 she was united in marriage to Andrew Carson of Trenton, N. J., in 1882 Mr. and Mrs. Carson moved to Skiddy, Kansas, later they moved to a farm near White City, where they lived until 1919 when they moved into town.

She joined the Methodist church in White City on December 2nd, 1894, during the pastorate of Rev. J. S. Ford. She was a very faithful and active member until her health failed her. By such women of love and integrity are our churches and communities maintained. She was a good neighbor and loved by all who knew her. She was happiest when surrounded by little children.

Mrs. Carson greatly loved her home and family, always kind and thoughtful as a wife and mother, she lived in her own gentle way.

Her passing is a great loss, not only to her family but to all who knew her. A devout christian has gone to her God.

Mr. Carson preceded her in death on April 18, 1937.

She is survived by the following children: Mrs. Ralph Knott of Abilene, Mrs. George Tyson of Council Grove, Roy of White City, Elmer of Herington, Mrs. Amanda Carroll of Pittsburg, Frank and Raymond Carson and Mrs. Lillian Bailey of Wichita; thirty two grandchildren, eleven great grandchildren and one great, great, grandchild.

Mrs. Carson had been an invalid for nearly three years, spending most of her time with her daughter Mrs. Knott, who employed Mrs. Cordelia Williams to care for her. About two years ago she fell and broke her hip, and spent some time in the hospital. When it had almost healed several months ago, she had another fall and the hip was rebroken.

Funeral services were held at the Methodist church Wednesday at 2:30 with interment in White City cemetery. Frey funeral home had charge of arrangements; Rev. O. J. McCulloh preached the sermon.

The pall bearers were: R. R. Adam, W. H. Ashe, Howard Shepherd, C. C. Miller, George Hauserman and F. F. Girtch.

Music was furnished by Mrs. J. F. Bacon at the piano and C. C. Miller, Howard Shepherd, Mrs. E. G. Larson, and Mrs J E Bowert, who sang “The Old Rugged Cross,” “Sometime We’ll Understand,” and “Beautiful Isle of Somewhere.”

Supper was served by the Eastern Star at the Full Plate Cafe to relatives from a distance attending the funeral.

[End of transcription.]

I am a descendant of one of the eleven great-grandchildren mentioned in the above obituary. My grandmother would have been one of the unnamed 32 grandchildren, and would probably have attended the funeral of her grandmother, although I do not have any recollection of her telling me that. Our branch of the family has no photographs, letters or ephemera from the New Jersey Hopkins side of the family, and I am still working to prove her ancestry.

The clipping transcribed above is, just that, a clipping, so full publication data for a proper citation is lacking. Two facts suggest publication information: 1) the newspaper was published on a Thursday following the death and funeral of Anna Mary (Hopkins) Carson and, 2) the newspaper was published in Morris County, Kansas.

Consulting a perpetual calendar for 1944, I was able to determine that the likeliest publication date would have been Thursday, 21 Sep 1944, the first Thursday following her death on Saturday, 16 Sep 1944.

I was then able to narrow down the newspaper to one of two possibilities using the U.S. Newspaper Directory, 1690-Present online as part of the Chronicling America project of the Library of Congress, which I have blogged about previously.

Search of the U.S. Newspaper Directory using state of Kansas, and county of Morris, plus decade from 1940-1950, as shown in yellow, above.

Only the Council Grove Republican and White City Register (indicated in red, above) are likely candidates for this newspaper clipping based on the publication information. My belief is this obituary appeared in the 21 Sep 1944 edition of the White City Register, page unknown. Determining whether this is, in fact, true has been added to my “to do” list.

Notes: The formatting shown in this post is not true to the original; it was a very long, narrow column in the original newspaper, which I have chosen not to replicate. In the original, each new section is indented, and there is no spacing between the paragraphs. I was unable to get it properly formatted in this blog post but felt that sharing the information was more important than formatting of same.

1. The children of Anna Mary (Hopkins) Carson all lived in towns and cities in Kansas, although that may not be clear to those unfamiliar with the area.

2. “Mrs. Lillian Bailey of Wichita” was actually Mrs. Lillian Barley, wife of Christian Arthur Barley. They lived in at 850 Faulkner in Wichita in 1943, per Polk’s Wichita City Directory (Kansas City, Missouri: R. L. Polk & Co., 1943), p. 57, entry for Christian A. and Lillian Barley; digital image, “U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989”, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 16 Mar 2014). The 1944 Wichita directory, if one exists, is not available on Ancestry currently.

Carson Family Group Sheet: Early Research

Posted on December 28, 2013 by Dawn Bingaman

Part 2: Research on the Carson family of New Jersey and Kansas in the early days before Internet-based genealogy records became commonplace

We left off last time having learned the names of four Carson siblings from New Jersey: my 2^nd great-grandfather Andrew F. Carson and his brothers: Charley, Furman, and Wes. From informal oral interviews with my grandmother mostly in the 1980s and a cemetery trip to her hometown, I learned that three of the brothers had migrated from New Jersey to Kansas at some point in their lives, lived in the vicinity of White City, Morris Co., Kansas, and were buried in White City Cemetery.

Location of White City within Morris County, and of Morris County within the state of Kansas¹

The information presented below is from my compilied family group sheet and 1992 cemetery field notes.

Typically when doing genealogical research you start with the known, and then move backwards in time, searching for clues that link people and generations. One of the building blocks of an American family tree is the United States Federal census, taken decennially (i.e. every 10 years) beginning in 1790. To access the census microfilm, I made a trek to the local branch of the National Archives in Seattle, where I searched for each of the Carson males in the 1920, 1910, and 1900 census enumerations for Morris County, Kansas. Because of a 72-year black out period before the census is released to the public at large, later federal census listings were not available when this research was first conducted in the 1990s. Here I have extracted the information from the census listings into a table in my word processing software for comparison purposes.

1900-1920 U.S. census entries for brothers Charles, Andrew and Furman Carson. Wes Carson was not indexed or otherwise located in Morris Co., Kansas.

Doing the census research provided important background information. Not only did it establish the presence of the three Carson brothers over three decades in a small community, it also consistently placed their origins, and that of their parents, in New Jersey. However, since none of these census households included a father or mother, it did not help me answer my research question which was “Who were the parents of Andrew, Charley and Furman Carson of White City, Kansas, and of Wes, location unknown?”

Because I wanted to learn who the parents of the brothers were, I needed to choose a census where they were all likely to appear together in the parental household. Looking for four people together rather than just one individual increases the likelihood that, when found, you have identified the correct family group.

In this case, the census closest to their birth dates was the 1860 census. If I was doing this research today, the 1860 census would be the first census to search. However, if you were doing research fifteen years ago, you may recall that the 1860 census index was available in book form, and only the heads of household were typically indexed – not children. Since I did not know the name of the parents of the Carson brothers, that census wasn’t my first option. Instead, I chose to search for the brothers in the 1870 census using a published Heritage Quest index that included children.

In 1870, Charles would have been about 18, Andrew would have been about 16, and Furman would have been about 14. Therefore, I needed to look for young males of these names and ages in the census index for New Jersey. If all were indexed, all entries should lead us to the same household assuming that the brothers had not yet left home. Finding Wes in the household would have been a bonus, since no information regarding his life had been uncovered up to that time.

The net result of this exercise was that the only entry in the census index that matched up was that of “Firman” Carson.² True to form, Wes was not found at all, and the entries for males named Andrew or Charles Carson were all older than our subjects.

This index entry led me to the correct roll of microfilm and page number, which yielded this result:

1870 U.S. census entries for Carson family members showing known siblings Furman, Charles and Andrew in the household, highlighted in yellow.³

Although not stated, we can surmise that Caroline Carson may have been the mother of all the Carson children in the household, including Charles, Andrew, Furman, Eley, Amanda, and Jane Carson; the ages fit into a logical birth sequence, and all bore the same surname. Oddly enough, the census index got two data points wrong: the spelling of Firman – clearly “Forman” in the census entry, and his age, which shows as 13 (not 14). Still, it led me to the correct family. Using the printed index was easier than cranking through a whole county’s worth of entries on the film.

Now that I potentially had the name of one parent and the Hamilton Township location in Mercer County, New Jersey, I continued my research – operating under the assumption that Caroline was the children’s mother. Where was the Carson father, and who was Lewis Rainear?

***
Sources:
¹ Image: “Morris County Kansas Incorporated and Unincorporated areas White City Highlighted” courtesy Wikimedia user Arkyan under the GNU Free Documentation License (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Morris_County_Kansas_Incorporated_and_Unincorporated_areas_White_City_Highlighted.svg : accessed 21 Dec 2013).

² Raeone Christiansen Steuart. New Jersey 1870 Census Index (Bountiful, Utah: Heritage Quest, 1998), p. 246.

³ 1870 U.S. census, Mercer County, New Jersey, population schedule, Hamilton Township, p. 82 [stamped], dwelling 270, family 268, Caroline Carson family in Lewis Rainear household, National Archives microfilm publication M593, roll 871. The original of the edited image shown here downloaded from Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 21 Dec 2013) rather than scanning a poor copy printed from microfilm at the time.

Headstone Record for Civil War Soldier David Bingaman

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Dawn Bingaman

NARA Record Group 92: Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General

David M. Bingaman (1842-1896), served in the Civil War in Companies C, D, and E of the 20^th Indiana Infantry. Family lore has it that he was wounded in action at the Battles of Malvern Hill (1 Jul 1862) and Gettysburg (2 Jul 1863). He survived these wounds, but older brother, John M. Bingaman, whom David followed into the Army, perished in combat at Malvern Hill, Virginia. David went on to marry Amanda A. McKibben in 1871. They lived in Illinois, the Oklahoma Territory and Kansas. The couple had no children.

As a deceased Union Civil War veteran, his grave in Pomona, Kansas was marked with a headstone supplied at government expense in 1902, under legislation passed in 1879 (20 Stat. 281). Besides the allowance for grave markers for Union veterans in private, village and city cemeteries, the law stipulated

The Secretary of War shall cause to be preserved in the records of his Department the names and places of burial of all soldiers for whom such headstones shall have been erected by authority of this or any former acts.¹

Today, headstone records for interments in private cemeteries for the period between 1879 and roughly 1903 are part of Record Group (RG) 92 Office of the Quartermaster General. Per the catalog entry there are 166,000 cards that have been microfilmed on 22 rolls. The microfilm may be accessed at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. or at regional branches of the National Archives. Nine 3” x 4” inch cards were microfilmed per frame. This microfilm collection has also been digitized, and is available at Ancestry.com as Headstones Provided for Deceased Union Civil War Veterans, 1879-1903.

Headstone card for 2 Lt. David M. Bingaman of the 20th Indiana

Information from the card is as follows:

Name: Bingaman, David M.
Rank: 2^nd Lt.
Service: Co. D, 20^th Regt., Ind[iana] Inf[antry]
Cemetery: Pomona
Cemetery Location: Pomona, Franklin Co., Kans.
Grave: [blank]
Date of Death: Nov 30 – 1896
Headstone Supplied by: Lee Marble Works
Contract Date: March 29, 1902²

I have not yet been able to ascertain whether applications for headstones made between 1879-1903 might exist, although I have seen earlier examples online at NARA, and catalog entries for the period following. This will be added to my to-do list when I attend the National Institute on Genealogical Research (NIGR) in Washington, DC in July 2013.

Ancestor Roundup

Reining in my American Ancestors

Tag Archives: Kansas