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Mary Heath, daughter of Bradford Heath (1808-1873) and an, as yet, unidentified mother, was born on the sixth of May, 1831, at Plattsburgh, Clinton County, New York. She married twice; her first marriage was to Jessie Howard on 7 November 1852, and this marriage extended to the time of Jesse's death sometime in 1864 or 1865. Her second marriage was to Hiram Baker on the fifth of March, 1871 and this marriage endured until Hiram's death in 1902. Mary was once again widowed; she spent her final days in the old soldiers home at Grand Island, Nebraska where she lived until her death on the second of November, 1911 at the age of 80. [1][2]
It is part and parcel of of the human condition to confront some form of hardship and heartbreak during life, but some encounter more than others; as your mother said, life is not fair.... Well, the life of Mary Heath was marked with such hardship and heartbreak that her endurance to the age of eighty, testifies to the courageous tenacity of her character. She was born into a frontier life at Plattsburgh, New York in 1831. Little detail has been recovered of her early life, but the 1850 census [3] reveals that by this date her father was reported as blind and was living with his son, Burrill, on the largess and in the household of his brother John H. Heath. This same 1850 census document bears no record of Mary nor of her mother, the wife of Bradford Heath. Hence it may reliably inferred that by the time Mary was 19, she was motherless, unmarried, and was responsible for making her own way in the world; simply because her father was incapable of providing for himself, let alone a family. It is unknown if Bradford Heath was blind from birth; the 1830 census shows that Bradford was newly married and the head of a Plattsburgh, NY household, and this suggests that he may well have had is sight at this time. But by 1850, Bradford was indeed blind and without a partner to assist in producing income and raising his children; these limitations would have had a profoundly negative impact on the household income of the family. Consequently, there can be little doubt, that much of Mary's childhood was spent in poverty. Certainly in the years following her mother's death, she would have needed to work to supplement the family income.
In 1852 there was a bright ray of sunshine in her life when Mary Heath met a local boy, Jesse Howard; who at six foot one, would have stood above the crowd, and with his bright blue eyes, he would have cut a most handsome and dashing figure. A romance ensued and they were soon were joined in marriage on 7 November 1852. [1] The Howard family has a long history of association with the Methodist-Episcopal Church, so the marriage was likely conducted in association with the Methodist church of Peru, NY. This 1852 union was memorialized in a set of Daguerreotypes; the earliest form of portrait photography that became popular in the late 1840s and early 1850s. These 1/9 plate images (shown below) are family treasures that have been passed down through
Jesse Howard and Mary (Heath) Howard |
Wedding Photo of Jesse Howard. |
Wedding Photo of Mary Heath. |
This marriage was followed with the birth of their first daughter, Esther, in 1855; unfortunately an epidemic of Scarlet Fever swept through the community when Esther was only about two and a half years old, and though Esther survived, she suffered permanent and complete hearing loss as a side effect of the disease, and thus was destined to go through life profoundly deaf and dumb. The family history shows that Mary was the mother of seven children, though all of her sons died as infants. The 1860 census record [4] suggests a missing child in the birth order, possibly son Earl or Jesse Jr, prior to the enumerated birth date of daughter Esther, and it is probable this eldest son of the couple, who would have been but a toddler when the epidemic swept the household, and presumably lost his life as a result of this epidemic (probable, but unproven).
In 1849 gold fever swept the inhabitants of the Eastern seaboard, and this fever created a mass-migration of instant wealth seekers to California; but there was a second and much less touted "gold fever" that swept the eastern states in the 1850's, just a few years later. This second gold rush was inspired by a one-time opportunity to grab a piece of "black gold;" that rich, black, loamy, prime mid-western farmland as it became available; the rush was to acquire one of these farms before the window of opportunity closed because these inexpensive per acre land prices were rapidly rising due to market pressure and speculation. In terms of sheer numbers of migrating humans, there were about 80,000 people caught up in the California gold rush; but the rush for the black gold of midwestern farmland brought, bin the years between 1850 and 1860, over 850,000 people to the state of Illinois alone, with the total migrating to the midwest far greater. Many of these migrants were foreign immigrants, but a large portion were descendants of the original colonists lured by the "golden" promise of flat, rich, loamy farmland; farmland that was devoid of trees, rocks, hills, and the poor soil that was so common in the established eastern state farming communities (particularly New York). This was not a get rich quick scheme, but every eastern farmer immediately grasped the enormous one-time value opportunity available if they could acquire a piece of this rich farmland when it was still inexpensive. The glitter of the 49er's gold and the allure of instant riches has elevated the story of the 49ers to a prominent place in the annals of American history, and indeed it is estimated that about $5 Billion worth of gold (in 2005 US dollars) was extracted during the peak "get rich quick" years from 1849 to 1852; but the gold rush story with a far greater impact is the rush for midwestern black gold that attracted at least 100 times the number of migrants (there were more than five million from Germany alone), relative to the California gold rush, and the midwestern land rush has delivered a massive economic value to it's owners and to the country, outstripping the value of the California gold rush by well over 1500:1. Considering the economic output of midwestern crop land was $76 Billion in just 2007 alone; it is safe to say that with the land producing this economic bonanza for well over 120 years, the wealth contributed by midwestern cropland has completely dwarfed the output of the California gold mines.
The Jesse Howard family was one of the millions that fell into the irresistible pull of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The first extended family members to make the trek from Clinton County, New York to Illinois were Mary Heath's grandfather, John Heath (1772-1860), and two of her uncles John H Heath (1799-1885) and Charles H. Heath (abt.1802-aft.1880), whose families settled around Afton Center, Dekalb County, Illinois in the early 1850s. There is land deed evidence that John Heath Sr. was in DeKalb County, Illinois as early as 1851, and John H. Heath's daughter Sylvia was married in Dekalb County, Illinois on 18 July 1856, suggesting that each of these three families had migrated to Illinois in the very early 1850s. Jesse and Mary (Heath) Howard soon followed, making the journey with Jesse's first cousin Charlotte A. (Howard) Burt (1827-1881) and her husband, William Burt, around 1857. The evidence supporting this migration date assertion is the birth of their daughter Eliza Ann Howard on 16 Aug 1857 at Afton Township, Dekalb, Illinois; further support for this migration date is provided by the birth of Wm and Charlotte Burt's daughter Delia in Illinois in 1858. Eliza Ann Howard's birth location at Afton Center, Dekalb, Illinois suggests Jesse and Mary first located near her Grandfather and uncles when they first arrived in Illinois, but by the time of the 1860 census enumeration, they had established an independent household at nearby Lisbon, Kendall, Illinois, and were then the parents of three daughters: Esther (5, deaf and dumb); Eliza (2); and Emily (1). Esther was born in New York, but both Eliza and Emily were born in Illinois. An additional observation is that this census record is the only primary source record for daughter, Emily; as Emily does not appear in any 1870 census record suggesting that she died at a young age, certainly prior to 1870.
Within six years of their arrival at Illinois; Jesse and Mary once again pulled up stakes and were on the move, this time headed to Bellevue, Nebraska, and once again their traveling companions were the Rev. Wm Burt family. This move to Nebraska was likely motivated by an unfulfilled desire to acquire a piece of that valuable Midwestern farmland; their arrival in Illinois in 1857 appears to have been too late to capture a bargain price on the farmland around the Chicago area, because too many people had arrived in Illinois before them and the resultant demand competition and land speculation had driven the purchase prices of Chicago area Illinois farmland beyond the reach of many late-comers, especially the young who had yet to acquire the capital needed to compete for farm purchase in a competitive market. The 1860 census reveals that Jesse and Mary had no real estate holdings and a personal estate of only $100, which squarely placed them in the category of young buyers with insufficient assets to compete in a speculative market. For example, as early as Sept 1852, Mary's grandfather John Heath paid $4.125 per acre for an eighty acre parcel of Dekalb County farmland, bench-marking the 1852 land price at 330% of the $1.25/acre price set for public, federal land just a few years earlier. [5] However at this same time, Nebraska was just opening up for settlement and it still offered expansive areas of rich farmland held by the federal government and available at $1.25/acre in accordance with the "the Land Act of 1820." So move they did, but as it so often happens, the plans of mice and men go astray; and this was the case for Jesse and Mary as their move to Nebraska was nearly concurrent with the onset of the Civil War and instead of breaking virgin ground to farm, the times called for Jesse to fight. He answered the call and enlisted with the Union Army in October of 1862.
"Casualty records for Nebraska units in the Civil War are incomplete. Frederick H. Dyer's Compendium of the War of the Rebellion (Des Moines, 1908) lists only deaths occurring in the Civil War proper; casualties for the Indian campaigns are not included. According to Dyer, Nebraska's losses were: killed in battle and dying from wounds, 35; dying of disease, 159; dying in accidents, 23; dying from other causes, 22; total deaths, 239. Thus more than 7 per cent of the 3,300 enlisted men from Nebraska lost their lives in the service."
"Families of men in service suffered the greatest hardship. Army pay was low (basic pay was thirteen dollars per month) and often irregular, and facilities for sending money home were not dependable. As a consequence many soldiers' families were left practically destitute, and such relief measures as were instituted were inadequate."
Thus, at the age of about thirty four, in the year 1865, Mary had lost her mother (as a child); three of her seven children had died; her husband, Jesse, had met a premature death; her blind father was alone and destitute--living in the poor house in Vermont; and her eldest daughter was deaf and dumb. She found herself as a young widow on the western frontier with four daughters, one with a severe disability, and her youngest child was only two; furthermore, she had lost , with Jesse's death, the meager income provided by his service salary, and though she may have gained or was in the process of gaining the title deed to a Homestead farm as they had planned, the dream of having a prosperous farm homestead and a bright future for her young family had also died.
Within four years, her daughter Emily Howard also died, and it is at this point that the courageous tenacity of her character was needed and demonstrated, as her situation required that she overcome her personal grief in order to provide a present and a future for her three remaining children, though the burden of grief she was yoked to bear was enormous. The choices she made tell us much about the character of her soul.
Her first item of business was to enroll her deaf and dumb daughter Esther Howard in the Iowa school for the deaf. At the time this school was located in Iowa City, Iowa; the "1880 Federal Census Schedules of Defective, Dependent, and Delinquent Classes" census records [8] tell us that Esther attended this school between the years of 1866 and 1869. There can be little doubt that it was Mary who got her daughter enrolled into this school, traveled with her to Iowa City so that she could attend, and some how Mary found the means to pay the tuition and board.
In 1869, there was a confluence of events that once again caused an upheaval in the family. By 1869, Mary's blind, destitute and aging father was stuck in the poor house at Caledonia, Vermont; the Iowa School for the Deaf was closing their facility in Iowa City and relocating to to Council Bluffs, Iowa; Mary would have completed the presumed five year Homestead residency at their Grand Island, Nebraska Homestead farm, and her third daughter Emily had died. She could have remained in Nebraska, but clearly the knowledge that her blind and aging father was destitute and alone in a poor house back in Caledonia, Vermont troubled her conscience. So in 1869, she chose to use her limited resources to make to the 1300 mile journey back to New York to care for her aging, disabled, and destitute father. Answering the call to serve her father in his unfortunate circumstances was undoubtedly a righteous decision derived from her strong Christian faith and principles, but there was a high personal cost to Mary to do this right thing and that cost was in the fracturing of her own family. But even before Mary would have been able to depart for New York, she would have had to gather her daughter, Esther, who had been attending the Iowa School for the Deaf in Iowa City, Iowa for the past three years. In 1869, the Nebraska School for the Deaf was newly formed in Omaha, Nebraska, and by 1870, the Iowa School for the deaf was relocated from Iowa City to Council Bluffs, Iowa. With both schools now operating in the Omaha/Council Bluffs area, Mary was faced with the difficult decision of what to do with her 14 year old daughter, Esther. If Esther went with the family to New York, she would lose her opportunity to attend one of these Deaf schools; and with it the opportunity to break through the silence of her world and to broadly open the window of future opportunities for her teen-aged daughter. The 1870 census records reveal the outcome of Mary's decision, as Esther Howard remained in Sarpy County, Nebraska with the Rev, Wm Burt family and was "At School." [9] But in 1870, Mary and her now seven year old daughter, Ella, were both living with her blind father, Bradford Heath (62), at Beekmantown, Clinton, New York, [10] and in a further fracturing of her family; her daughter, Eliza Ann Howard, now twelve, was living with at the William F. Rowlson (1833-1914) and Samantha (Robinson) Rowlson (1829-1909) household at Altona, Clinton, New York, [11] in order to attend school at the Robinson Inn under the tutelage of Alvira H. Walker (1847-1937). The school at Altona, is located about 15 miles from Beekmantown, making it a five hour walk and though not that far away, still well beyond the reach of a daily walking commute for Eliza. Clearly Mary (Heath) Howard placed a high value on education for her daughters, opting to ensure they we able to receive a proper education and trumping her instinct as a parent to hold her family together and under her own care and protection.
Her decision to return to New York to care for her father is undoubtedly one of those decisions, though made at a high personal cost, was one that left her with no regrets; as her father, Bradford, passed away in 1873, just three years after she returned to care for him. The 1870s were a healing time for Mary, as she had found a new life companion, Hiram Baker, whom she married at Clinton County, New York on March 5, 1871 [1]. Hiram and Mary set up a household in Altona, New York and they continued to live there through 1881. It was also time for her daughters to take their place in the adult world. Her eldest daughter Esther Howard, now 21, and having completed nine years of specialized education for the deaf, married on 31 March 1876 at Omaha, Nebraska, Joseph Russell, also a scarlet fever hearing loss victim. On 5 Sep 1877, her daughter Eliza Ann married Jerra Lewis Walker (1854-1928) and within two years of their marriage the couple joined a contingent of Clinton County New Yorkers whom migrated to Wadena County in central Minnesota, and finally, her youngest daughter Ella, was also married on 4 July 1879 to Newell Dudley at Altona, New York. So by 1880, Mary (Heath) Baker, now 49, was an empty nester, with one daughter living at Lisbon, Iowa; one at Thomastown, Wadena County, Minnesota; and one living near her in Altona, Clinton County, New York.
With the death of her father in 1873 and the departure of Eliza to Minnesota in 1879 (info from the obit of Jerra Walker), Mary's family ties to the Clinton County New York area had been reduced to herself; her daughter, Ella; and their New York born husbands. So it seems Mary and Ella must have convinced their husbands that Nebraska was the promised land and in 1881 the couples relocated to Grand Island, Nebraska. The motivation for this move is unclear. While it is true that Mary had left her daughter Esther in the Omaha area back in 1869, it is also true that eleven years had elapsed and by 1880, her daughter, Esther, was married; had three children; and had relocated to Lisbon, Linn County, Iowa. So what then was the motivating factor to tear up her New York roots, now ten years deep, and to move back to Nebraska? It could have been nostalgia, a love of the area, or a latent desire to acquire inexpensive land, but inexpensive land was also available in Minnesota near her daughter Eliza at the time. This suggests that Mary and Jesse Howard had actually acquired a farm property under the Homestead Act shortly after he joined the army in the 1860s; and that Mary continued to live on this farm the five years needed to acquire the deed to that property; this is pure speculation, but it fits exceedingly well with the facts and timeline and lays the ground work for further research. Furthermore this hypothesis provides a motivating basis for the observed and disruptive relocation these families made. In any case, the obituary of Newell Dudley [12] affirms 1881 as the year the two families jointly relocated to Grand Island, Nebraska from the Altona, NY area. The ensuing records show Newell Dudley and Hiram Baker engaged in farming operations for a number of years after their arrival likely through the 1890s. The following photograph records an image of Hiram Baker and Mary Heath in front of their Grand Island, Nebraska home in 1890, about ten years after Mary had returned to Nebraska.
1890; Hiram Baker and Mary Heath at their Grand Island, Nebraska home. |
The rest of Mary's days were lived out at Grand Island, Nebraska. Her second husband, Hiram Baker, died at Grand Island on 21 Jan 1902. In 1904, Mary applied for a widow's Civil War service pension [13] based on her first husband, Jesse Howard's Civil War service, and in 1908, at the age of seventy seven, she made a journey from Grand Island, Nebraska to Thomastown, Minnesota to visit her daughter Eliza, as well as the grandchildren she had never met, and to meet a brand new great grandson, Kenneth Floyd Crocker. The four generation photograph of Mary and her descendants (shown below) memorializes this event
Four Generations: (back) Eliza (Howard) Walker, Addie Eliza (Walker) Crocker, Kenneth Floyd Crocker. (Seated) Mary (Heath) Howard Baker |
Perhaps Mary's journey to Minnesota was prompted by a premonition of her coming demise, as her final years were spent in the care of the old soldiers home at Grand Island, Nebraska where she died on 2 Nov 1911, only three years after her journey to Minnesota.
Mary Heath was born on 6 May 1831 at Plattsburgh, New York, the daughter of Bradford Heath and his, as yet, unidentified wife. Mary is connected to her father through the 1870 Census in which she, and her youngest daughter Ella, are enumerated as living with her blind father, John Heath, at Beekmantown, New York in 1870. The 1860 census for Mary's uncle, John H. Heath, connects her father, Bradford, to Mary's only known sibling, her fourteen your old brother Burrill S. Heath, and as this census records no wife for Bradford, nor mother for Burrill, it also affirms that Mary's mother had died sometime between 1836 and 29 Nov 1850, the date this census was enumerated. There are a few clues buried in the presently available source information to pursue research regarding the identity of Mary's mother. First of all, it is highly probable that her maiden name was Burrill or Burrell, as this is a common surname in this area, and not a common Christian name and the name was likely passed to Mary's Brother in honor of her mother's family. The other clue resides in the 1900 and 1910 census records which note that the mother of Mary (Heath) Baker was born in New Hampshire or Massachusetts. It is worth noting that it would have been a reasonable expectation by the family that for Bradford's son, Burrill aged 15 in 1851, would have been fully capable of attending to his blind father after Bradford's father and brothers migrated to Illinois. However, Burrill Heath is not to be found in any 1860 census, while his blind father is enumerated in the poor house in Caledonia, Vermont; a near certain affirmation that Burrill died shortly after the extended family departed from Clinton County, New York in the early 1850s, leaving Bradford as a destitute pauper.
On 7 November 1852, Mary Heath married (first) Jesse Howard and they were married twelve years; Mary (Heath) Howard then married (second) Hiram Baker on 5 March 1871 at Clinton County, New York; this marriage union was childless. Jesse Howard and Mary Heath were the parents of seven children. [1] There are two information sources which confirm this assertion regarding the number of their children. The first document is the handwritten genealogy of Addie (Walker) Crocker (below); page 92 of this document lists the names of six of the seven children (Emily is missing from this list) of her grandmother Mary (Heath) Howard Baker, but without birth dates nor birth order. The 1900 Grand Island census record affirms this assertion noting that in 1900 Mary Baker was the mother of seven children only two of whom were still living in 1900. A listing of her children in hypothetical birth order is then as follows:
Addie (Walker) Crocker Family Genealogy, page 92. |
It is impossible to read the story of Mary Heath without noting the number of lengthy overland journeys she embarked upon, and this observation begs the question of "How did she do this?" The following section will briefly explore the corresponding state of the transportation systems available and then identify her transportation options for each the Journeys she took.
During the period of time encompassing the approximate duration of the life of Mary (Heath) Howard Baker the continent experienced three radical changes in overland transportation systems for the route from New York State to Chicago, Illinois.
Prior to 1826: In the years leading up to the birth of Mary Heath in 1831 (i.e. the period before 1826, the only way to get from New York to the now known Chicago area of Illinois would have required to travel by foot, horseback, carriage, stagecoach or oxcart; and/or by portage by foot between navigable waterways. From Clinton County, New York the probable route would have likely followed the St. Lawrence River to Lake Ontario thence to the Chicago area via Lake Erie, Huron, and Michigan. However, travel by large sailing ships was blocked by the Long Sault Rapids on the St. Lawrence River between Montreal and Lake Ontario and Niagara Falls prevented sailing between Lake Ontario and Lake Erie. However, by 1779 a 900 foot long, 7 foot wide canal system with three locks had been built around the rapids at Coteau du Lac, and this canal allowed bateau traffic (a bateau is a long, flat-bottomed boat, usually 40 feet in length and about 6 to 8 feet wide) to connect Montreal to Lake Ontario. Thus, the journey would have required portage of people and goods by foot around Niagara Falls and would have placed a significant limitation on the practical amount of household goods a family could take to the interior. There were indeed sailing ships on the great lakes as early as the1600s, and there were a few ships transporting goods across the great lakes through the early 1820s, but the number of travelers and the amount of goods transported were very limited and consequently the Atlas of the historical geography of the United States shows that the average travel time from NYC to Chicago area prior to 1826 would have been a 5-6 week Journey.
1826: In the eighteen twenties, there were a couple of shifts in the political and technology landscape that totally revolutionized the NYC to Illinois transportation paradigm. First of all, in 1820, the United States Government passed the "Land Act of 1820, this Act reduced the price of federal land in the Northwest Territories to $1.25 per acre and eliminated the credit sales of public land; this Act was the underpinning basis motivating the black gold migration rush to the mid-west in the mid 1800s, and legislative act created a massive market for improved transportation systems from New York to the Midwest. Around this same time there were three major advances in New York to Great Lakes transportation system technology. The first of these was the opening of the Erie canal on 26 Oct 1825, the second was the appearance of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_passenger_steamers steamship service on the Great Lakes in 1818, and the third was the opening of the Welland canal on 30 Nov 1829.. The net affect of these changes were enormous, as it was now possible to travel by waterway from New York to the Midwest with a single connecting point between the canals and the great lakes steamship service. So by 1830, map B from the Atlas of the historical geography of the United States shows that the average travel time from NYC to the Chicago area would have been a 2-3 week journey; now half the time it would have taken prior to these advances. Furthermore, it may have been possible to make the journey with only three transfers of passengers and goods; one from the origination point to the Erie Canal; a second transfer from the Erie Canal to a Great lakes steamship, and a final overland leg by foot to the final destination. The immediate beneficiary of this confluence of change was [https://project.geo.msu.edu/geogmich/michigan_fever.html the Michigan Territory, noting and increase in population of 8765 in 1820, to 31640 in 1830, a 260% increase in ten years.
1853: Railroads The next seismic shift in transport was the advent of the railroads. The very first railway built in the US was the Baltimore and Ohio completed on 28 Feb 1827, and by 1837, and shortly thereafter short runs of railroad line began to appear in other transportation bottlenecks. For example, in 1838 a short line was built to bypass the slowest stretch of the Erie Canal, and by 1842 a continuous rail line ran next to the Erie canal quickly displacing passenger with much faster service; however the canal continued to be competitive for as freight service provider carrying 13x more freight, by ton, than the railroads through 1852.
The first rail infrastructure connecting Chicago to New York was completed on 24 Jan 1853. With the advent of this infrastructure, map C from the Atlas of the historical geography of the United States shows that by 1857 the travel time from New York City to Chicago had been cut to two days, and undoubtedly the dominant mode of passenger traffic for this route by this date; and by 1860 80 percent of the farms in the Midwest were within five miles of a railway.
However, out in Nebraska, the construction of rail infrastructure moved much slower; it wasn't until 17 November 1863 that the transcontinental railroad (TRR) effort was launched by President Lincoln when he declared Council Bluffs, Iowa to be the Eastern terminus of the route. Work then started on the TRR at Omaha, Nebraska and continued for six years until the Transcontinental railway was completed on 10 May 1869. The 1860 railway routes shown in the Map B reveal a complete absence of railway routes in Nebraska, and furthermore, Map C shows that by 1870 the only rail line in Nebraska was the recently completed transcontinental railway route.
Automobiles
The first practical automobile for the American public was Henry Ford's Model T which was first available in 1908, however the model T would have been rare or non-existent at Grand Island, Nebraska until the mid 1910s to 1920, and it is possible that Mary (Heath) Baker never saw a Model T prior to her death in 1911.
In light of the preceding narrative on transportation options, the following text provides a probable transportation route followed for the cited journeys:
End of Biography
The following section of this profile provides detailed information found in the various cited sources. The purpose of this section is to provide the reader access to the information contained within the cited sources; to identify source data conflicts and identify the origin of data errors; and, finally, to provide a platform to analyze, cross-correlate, and comment on important aspects of the cited historical data record.
1850: 1850 census for her father, Bradford and brother Burrill. Mary not included in this census, would have been 19 at the time and likely hired out as a live in domestic (not proven):
1860:
1860 census record for John Heath, grandfather of Mary (Heath) Howard:
1860 census record for Bradford Heath, father of Mary (Heath) Howard:
1870: In 1870, both Jesse Howard and his daughter Emily are absent from any known census record, thus presumed deceased, and his family fragments: his wife Mary and youngest daughter Ella return to Clinton County, New York and are living with Mary's Blind father, Bradford Heath; whereas daughter Eliza Ann, despite having returned to Clinton County, NY with her mother and sister, is found living in the household of William F. Rowlson (1833-1914) about 10 miles away; but Esther, now fifteen, remains in Sarpy, Nebraska and is living in the household of Rev. Rev. William and Charlotte Burt, while attending school:
1880:
1885:
1900:
1910:
Civil War service records for Jesse Howard, first husband of Mary Heath:
1848: Illinois Land purchased by grandfather, John Heath:
1852: Illinois Land purchased by grandfather, John Heath:
Obituary of son-in-law Newell Dudley:
Obituary of son-in-law Jerra Lewis Walker (1854-1928):
J. L. Walker, a pioneer resident of Thomastown, passed away at his home in Staples on Monday, February 6. The deceased was born in Altona, N.Y., May 21, 1854, and was 73 years, 8 months and 15 days old at the time of his death. He was united in marriage to Eliza A. Howard in 1877 at West Plattsburg, N.Y. Mr. and Mrs. Walker came to the Thomastown community and settled on a farm ten miles north of Staples in 1879, being among the first settlers in that community. They made their home in Thomastown until 1913, when Mr. Walker retired from the farm and came to make his home in Staples. Mr. and Mrs. Walker were the parents of six children, five of whom survive the father. The immediate family and relatives left to mourn his passing are: the wife and three sons, Willis M. Walker of Staples, Wallace W. Walker of Minneapolis, Lloyd H. Walker of Staples, two daughters, Mrs. Martin Paulsen and Mrs. Hans Crocker of Staples, 17 grandchildren, two brothers, M.O. Walker of Minneapolis, and William P. Walker of Plattsburg and a sister, Mrs. E.A. Pringle also of Plattsburg, N.Y., besides a host of friends he had won by his untiring, sacrificial nature. Mr. Walker’s motto always has been “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Mr. Walker has spent an ideal and exemplary life among the people of this community and his friendship has been valued by the many people of the Thomastown and Staples communities where he made his home for so many years. In his passing the community has not only lost a pioneer resident, but one of the builders of the locality in which he made his home.
Funeral services are being held today (Thursday) afternoon, at 0ne o’clock, from the M.E. Church in Staples, being conducted by the pastor of that church, Rev. H.W. Mitchell. Interment is to be made in the Thomastown cemetery, near the old home of the deceased.
The following section provides a listing of source material that is pertinent to the profile subject, but not presently cited in the narrative text of the profile. Census records at Ancestry.com:
The following section provides a listing of web-published genealogies pertinent to the profile subject; these genealogies are valuable in presenting an alternate perspective on family links for the profile subject. However, these genealogies may or may not be correct and are not presently cited as source material in the narrative text of this profile.
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