Adonijah Foot
Privacy Level: Open (White)

Adonijah Foot (1823 - 1860)

Adonijah Foot
Born in Springfield, Massachusettsmap
Ancestors ancestors
Husband of — married 20 Jun 1848 in Springfield, Hampden, Massachusetts, United Statesmap
Husband of — married 5 Sep 1855 in Eastport, Tishomingo, Mississippi, USAmap
Descendants descendants
Died at age 36 in Carrollville, Mississippi, USAmap
Problems/Questions Profile manager: Kathy Durham private message [send private message]
Profile last modified | Created 23 Jan 2018
This page has been accessed 336 times.

Biography

The Adonijah Foot of this profile was born on May 8,1823 in Springfield, Massachusetts. He was the youngest of eight children born to Adonijah Foot and Clarissa Woodworth. His father was the first Master Armorer at the Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts. His family had lived on the Armory grounds at least since 1809. He was just two years old at the time of his father's untimely death in 1825. Sometime after his father died, Adonijah moved with his mother and his six living siblings (ages 8 to 16) moved down from the hill on which the Armory stood to the growing town of Springfield on the Connecticut River.

[Add Adonijah's life-changing years at Springfield's "Old High School" ; Also his civil engineering work in Lebanon, NJ before his first wife and daughter died about 1852.]

From 1853 until his premature death one month shy of his 37th birthday, Adonijah was the Resident Engineer of the 4th Division of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad. He was in charge of finishing construction of the last section of this railroad, between Rienzi and Baldwyn. [See map showing the section between Rienzi and Baldwin in the column to right.] https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Special:EditPerson&u=24561035# About two weeks before Adonijah's death, he was severely injured by an accident falling from his horse while on the job. According to family records, the cause of death on April 12, 1860 was work-related -- two weeks earlier, he was knocked off his horse in a forested area near Carrollville, a pre-railroad town to the west of Baldwyn on the map. He was severely injured and died two weeks later. Click on the obituary from his hometown paper, the Springfield Republican (April 16, 1860) in the column to the right. It was written by the editor Samuel Bowles, Adonijah's high school friend and brother-in-law. [1]

Exactly one year after Adonijah's death, the Civil War began. Festivities to celebrate the completion of the Mobile & Ohio railroad were held in January, 1861, but normal freight and passenger service between Mobile, Alabama and the Ohio River to the north were short-lived. After the Union victory at the battle of Shiloh in April 1862, the Confederate forces pulled up the tracks as they retreated to southern Alabama.

Adonijah's gravestone was still propped up against a tree in the abandoned Old Carrollville Cemetery, Frankstown, Prentiss County, Mississippi in 2017. [2]

Research notes:

  • Note on spelling of last name: Contemporary records for Adonijah (1823-1860) will show his last name as "Foot" rather than "Foote", including birth and marriage records, as well as his gravestone. Adonijah's father (who is widely documented in both Springfield town records and in early 19th century documents related to the Springfield Armory) will be found only under "Foot". The same is true of contemporary records of his siblings in Springfield records, and for his grandfather Jesse Foot and and other Foots of Colchester and Stafford, Connecticut from the early 1700s through the Civil War.
  • To be added when time permits: Sourced info on Adonijah's Springfield coed high school, where he learned civil engineering basics and met his first wife; working in New Jersey on RR line; deaths of 1st wife Julia and daughter Mary in 1851. [3]


Sources

  1. Obituary for Adonijah Foot, "Springfield Republican", April 16, 1860. Page 4.
  2. Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 16 March 2020), memorial page for Adonijah Foote (8 May 1823–12 Apr 1860), Find A Grave Memorial no. 73825390, citing Old Carrollville Cemetery, Frankstown, Prentiss County, Mississippi, USA.
  3. Chapin, Charles Wells. History of the "Old High School" on School Street, Springfield, Massachusetts and the "Female Seminary" on Maple Street. Springfield, MA: Press of the Springfield Printing & Binding Co, 1890. Page 103, 104. https://archive.org/details/historyofoldhigh00chap_0/page/n172
  • Foote, Abram. Foote Family: Comprising the Genealogy and History of Nathaniel Foote of Wethersfield, Conn. and his Descendants. Rutland, VT: Marble City Press, 1907. Vol. 1, pp. 222-3, 350.




Is Adonijah your ancestor? Please don't go away!
 star icon Login to collaborate or comment, or
 star icon contact private message the profile manager, or
 star icon ask our community of genealogists a question.
Sponsored Search by Ancestry.com

DNA Connections
It may be possible to confirm family relationships with Adonijah by comparing test results with other carriers of his Y-chromosome or his mother's mitochondrial DNA. Y-chromosome DNA test-takers in his direct paternal line on WikiTree: Mitochondrial DNA test-takers in the direct maternal line:

Have you taken a DNA test? If so, login to add it. If not, see our friends at Ancestry DNA.



Comments

Leave a message for others who see this profile.
There are no comments yet.
Login to post a comment.

F  >  Foot  >  Adonijah Foot

Categories: Descendants of John Skinner, Skinner Name Study