A 1914 newspaper account of the life of 84-year-old Mrs. Caroline Carson, a  resident of Chambersburg, New Jersey for fifty years

As genealogists, we search tirelessly for records for our ancestors that we then piece together in an attempt to create a narrative about their lives.

No matter how deftly woven, we know their stories are more than just a composite of various facts culled from easily obtainable records: birth, marriage, census, death and burial records. Lacking oral interviews, diaries or letters written in their own hand, how are we to truly get to know the individual as a person, when they lived and died long before we walked on this earth? Since time travel isn’t really a thing yet, I would argue that one way to pick up traces of our ancestor’s lives is to immerse ourselves in their world by reading the newspaper from their hometown. Beginning in the mid-1800s, often even small towns had at least one newspaper that reported on hyperlocal news items. Even seemingly mundane events or activities may have been reported, such as who was visiting whom, who was conducting business in the county seat, who was ailing or admitted to the hospital, who bought or sold real estate, who got an increase in their pension and such. The smallest bit of information can be the one clue that breaks open your research. All of these news items can either be plotted as data points in your genealogy software of choice or on a timeline. The information from these news items can also be used as pointers for research in other record groups.

Sometimes diligent newspaper research will be rewarded with something more than a snippet; you may get lucky and find a longer piece published about an ancestor. I was delighted to have found this 1914 article in an online historical newspaper archive about my 3rd great-grandmother, Mrs. Caroline Carson, of Chambersburg, New Jersey, in south Trenton. Certainly, she was interviewed by the reporter, so this is a first-hand account of her life in her own words, with additional observations made by someone who was in direct contact with her. It was fortuitous that she was interviewed and her story published when it was, as she died the following year.

I shared this news item years ago with several close cousins who are also direct descendants of Mrs. Caroline Carson. Today, I share it with you here as well.

[transcription begins]

MRS. CARSON, AT 84, IS UP DAILY AT 5

  “One of the most contented old women in Trenton today is Mrs. Caroline Carson, a widow, who is in her eighty-fifth year and who resides with her daughter, Mrs. Amanda Hart, at 100 William Street, in the Eleventh Ward.

  Mrs. Carson is a helpless invalid and has been such for the past five years. Her husband, Charles Carson, who was a sawyer at the old Hutchinson Bow Factory, was killed in 1866, when he fell on the large circular saw and his body was nearly cut in half.

  The old lady was born on a farm near Allentown January 17, 1830. She says that she worked on a farm in her younger days and, from force of habit, she cannot sleep after 5 o’clock in the morning and she invariably retires at 8 o’clock. She has lived in the old borough for the past fifty years and says that when she first became a resident the borough was a vast commons, corn fields and apple and peach orchards. She has never ridden in an automobile, nor has she ever been inside of a moving picture theatre. She passes her time in sewing and in reading the Bible.

  Her eyesight is remarkably good and her hearing is still acute. She says that since the old borough has grown into a city the noise is somewhat disturbing to her. She says that although she had her residence in the old borough for the past fifty years, yet during the most of that time she practically lived in the country, walking home every day after work and leaving early for work the next day.”¹

[transcription ends]

The article is chock full of details one would never normally learn, and that I would not know without having read her newspaper. I am curious whether she ever did get to see a movie or ride in an automobile before she died.

A summary of facts stated or suggested in the newspaper article, in timeline format:

Notes:

1. This birth date conflicts with other sources, and it is unclear which is likeliest to be correct. Other dates given for her birth are 02 Jan 1829 (family record, plus her age in at least three Federal census entries suggest a birth year of 1829), 01 Jan 1830 (death certificate). A May 1835 date of birth from her 1900 census entry is an outlier and probably was not supplied by her.
2. The place of birth stated in this article is new information. From prior research it was clear she married in Monmouth County, New Jersey, thus my inference is that she likely lived in Monmouth County at least for a time prior to her marriage. First marriages often occur in the brides’ hometown in this era.
3. Residence of Chambersburg tracks with other records.
4. The year of her husband’s death is incorrect in this account. Charles Carson actually died three years earlier, in 1863. Other blog posts that I have written on the subject of his death are here and here. The circumstances of his death as described are likely to be accurate and align with information discovered previously in other news articles.

¹  “Mrs. Carson, at 84, Is Up Daily at 5,” Trenton (New Jersey) Evening Times, 08 April 1914, p. 5., col. 3; digital image, NewspaperArchive (https://newspaperarchive.com : last accessed 15 Sep 2018).