Trouble Finds Lemuel C. Wood Senior and Junior

Neither Lemuel C. Wood Senior (let's call him "Capt. Wood") nor his son, Lemuel C. Wood Junior (let's call him "Junior"), actually made trouble for anyone, except for the Confederacy during the Civil War. Unfortunately, trouble came looking for them.

Capt. Lemuel Wood, Sr. (1792-1870) Hubby's 3d great uncle

Capt. Wood was a successful mariner based in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, at the major whaling port of New Bedford. He also owned 13 acres of farmland and livestock worth about $9,000 in 1860 (nearly $280,000 in today's dollars), according to that year's Census.

Sadly, the captain's first wife, Mercy Bowditch Taber, died of consumption in 1856. A year later, in 1857, he married Rosetta Howland Ellis, who died of either consumption or palsy in 1859 (records are inconsistent). One year after that, he married Julia Lambert Sampson--and she survived him by 21 years. In order to collect his Civil War pension, she had to prove that her first husband died (at sea during a whaling trip) and that Capt. Wood's previous two wives had died. Quite a fat file of paperwork and a lot of trouble, but she won her case.

Capt. Wood answered the call for Union service during the Civil War. According to some war records, he was commander of the USS Daylight. (Other pension records call him the "acting master" of the Daylight.) He was already in his 60s, with decades of experience on the water.

The USS Daylight sailed along the coast of Virginia and North Carolina, part of the Union blockade against the Confederacy. After the ship was damaged by Confederate gunfire, she was repaired and reassigned to the James River from October, 1864 to May, 1865, after the war ended.

Doctor's note attesting to Sarah H. Wood's deadly illness

Capt. Wood returned home at war's end. In 1870, a few months before he died at the age of 78, he told the Census his occupation was "mariner." He left his widow Julia an estate of $13,450--worth more than $270,000 today.

Lemuel C. Wood, Jr. (1828-1898) Hubby's 1c3r

The Captain's son and namesake, “Lemuel Junior,” first went into business as a merchant. At the age of 28, he married Sarah Howland Wood, on June 26, 1856. By the time their first child was born in 1857, the birth record recorded Junior’s occupation as “gentleman.” He and Sarah had four five children in all, but only two survived to adulthood. Two died within weeks of each other, one of "brain fever" and one of consumption. So tragic.

At the start of the Civil War, Junior became an acting paymaster for the Union Navy. He resigned that post in June of 1862. On September 22, 1862, he enlisted as a private in Company I, 3d Massachusetts Infantry, and was mustered in the next day. At the time of this enlistment, he said his occupation was “farmer.” On December 3, 1862, Junior was working as a hospital steward at Plymouth, North Carolina, according to his Civil War records.

Trouble hit Junior's family while he was at war in North Carolina. His wife Sarah was fatally ill with consumption. Letters written to her husband’s commanding officers requested that Junior be given a month of furlough to be at her side.

After weeks of letters back and forth, Junior was granted a month's furlough on April 5, 1863. It was just in time: His wife Sarah died on April 14th.

Junior returned to North Carolina after his furlough. His nine-month service with the 3d Massachusetts Infantry ended when he was mustered out on June 26, 1863. Then he joined the 23d Unattached Company Massachusetts Infantry as a sergeant for 100 days. According to the 1890 Veteran’s Schedule, he had dysentery and was “brought home sick.” From April to September of 1865, Junior was an acting assistant paymaster for the Union Navy, stationed aboard the USS Nantucket.

When he first left the service, Junior took a job as a grocery clerk and hired a housekeeper to care for his children. Eventually, he remarried in 1894, to Emma Louise Small Sherman, listing his own occupation as nursing (remember, he was a hospital attendant during the Civil War). Junior died four years later, at the age of 70, in Fairhaven, his birthplace.
--
You know I married my husband for his fascinating ancestors! This week's #52Ancestors blogging prompt is "troublemaker."

Hubby's Ancestors in the Civil War: Part 2 (Mayflower Connection)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower

In Part 1 of this series, I applied multiple criteria to screen for potential Civil War ancestors in my husband's family tree: (1) organizing male ancestors according to birthdate to identify those of military age in the 1860s, (2) eliminating men who died before the war and who were not in America at the time, and (3) prioritizing ancestors closer to the main tree.

This reduced the number of possible Civil War veterans to research from 71 men to 33 men.

Next, I peeked at the 1910 U.S. Census to see which ancestors said they were veterans--a clue, not definitive evidence. This gave me positive clues for a good number, but what about those not alive in 1910?

Quick-and-Dirty Search for Civil War Activities

For ancestors who died before the 1910 Census, I did a quick-and-dirty search on Ancestry. Did these men register for the Civil War draft? If so, did they actually serve?

Between checking the 1910 Census and my quick-and-dirty search, I reduced the number of possible Civil War veterans from 33 to 20 [correction: 21, now that I've identified Lemuel C. Wood, Jr. as a vet]. This list included great-great uncles, cousins of various types, and two men married to great-great-aunts.

Mayflower Connections 

Along the way to profiling my husband's Civil War veterans, I filled in many blanks on the family tree and looked at family connections to prioritize my research.

A name that made the initial list due to his birth year was Thomas F. Wood (1843-1925), my husband's 1st cousin, twice removed. He was born and died in the whaling center of New Bedford, Massachusetts, the son of Isaiah Wood and Mary T. White.

As I climbed Thomas's family tree, I saw that his grandfather Isaiah Wood was descended from Mayflower passenger Mary Norris and her husband, Thomas Cushman of the Fortune. Thomas's grandmother Harriet Taber was descended from Mayflower passenger Francis Cooke.

Having made these connections, I immediately determined that Thomas F. Wood was to be the focus of my first Civil War investigation. More in Part 3!

Sepia Saturday and Saturday Night Genea-Fun

James Edgar Wood in his 1917 Ford, Summer of 1917

This week's Sepia Saturday ties in well with my response to Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge! So I combined the two.

Sepia Saturday: Posing with the Car

Above, a photo taken of my husband's grandfather, James Edgar Wood (1871-1939) by hubby's father, Edgar James Wood, (1903-1986). Ed was only 14 when he took this photo of his father during a road trip from their home in Cleveland, OH to downtown Chicago, visiting Wood family members along the way. Ed had gotten a camera for his birthday and began a lifelong hobby of chronicling family activities.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Top 20 Surnames in Family Tree

Using RootsMagic7, and following Randy's instructions, I went to Reports, then Lists, scrolled down to "Surname Statistics List," and selected "Frequency of Surnames" from the list.

With 3,128 people in my husband's Wood family tree, I could have printed 17 pages for the "Frequency of Surnames" report. Instead, I printed only the first two pages. After that, the frequency of surnames dropped off sharply.

And the winner is . . . WOOD, which appears a total of 204 times (125 males, 78 females). The oldest date of a Wood ancestor record is 1551, the most recent date is 2019.

The top 20 are: Wood, Larimer, McClure, Work, Steiner, Slatter, McKibbin, Hilborn, Denning, Smith, Cushman, Brown, Taber, Nelson, Johnson, Bradford, Short, Caldwell, Rinehart, and Miller. 

By the time I got to Miller, there were only 17 appearances in the Wood family tree (11 males, 6 females), with the oldest date of 1803 and the most recent date of 2006. A Miller married a Work (the granddaughter of a Work-Larimer marriage) and that's how the Miller surname connects to my husband's Wood family tree.

Family History: Mayflower Sails from Plymouth

Because hubby has four Mayflower ancestors, world history is closely intertwined with family history in his family tree.

On this day, 398 years ago, the Mayflower sailed away from Plymouth, England.

Among the passengers were my husband's ancestors . . .

• Degory Priest
• Isaac Allerton
• Mary Norris Allerton
• Mary Allerton

Mary Allerton would grow up and marry Thomas Cushman (who arrived on the Fortune). Generations later, their descendant Lydia Cushman became my hubby's 3d great-grandmom by marrying Elihu Wood, Sr., on March 2, 1784 in Dartmouth, MA (snippet of record shown above).

Lydia and Elihu's son Isaac Wood, Sr., married Harriet Taber on May 18, 1806. They were my husband's 2d great-grandparents.

One of Harriet and Isaac's sons was Thomas Haskell Wood (1809-1890), who married Mary Amanda Demarest (1831-1897) on May 14, 1845 in Lafayette, Louisiana. These were my husband's great-grandparents. 

Telling these stories over and over reminds descendants how events that occur in the wider world can profoundly influence the course of many individual families' histories--including our own. Looking ahead to Mayflower 2020, which is only two years away!

52 Ancestors #25: Isaiah Wood and Harriet Taber of the "Little Compton" Wood Family

Isaiah Wood Sr. (abt 1784-1834) and Harriet Taber (abt 1790-1838) married in New Bedford, Massachusetts on May 18, 1806. They're hubby's great-great-grandparents. The 1810 Census finds them in New Bedford with one child.

Given the timing, this one child must be Thomas Haskell Wood, born in 1809. (As an adult, Thomas wooed New York teenager Mary Amanda Demarest and then married her in Plaquemine, Louisiana--a geographic mystery we have yet to solve.)

Harriet Taber: Our cousin (and family researcher extraordinaire) Larry linked Harriet Taber's line back to Philip Taber, born in England and transplanted to Plymouth, Mass in 1630. Philip moved around the area, settling in Watertown, Yarmouth, and Martha's Vineyard, among other areas. He died and was buried in Tiverton (part of Dartmouth, MA). 

Isaiah Wood, Sr.: Thanks again to cousin Larry, we know Isaiah Wood was of the "Little Compton Woods," who can trace their line back to John Wood "The Mariner," born about 1590 in or near Southwark, England. The men of the Wood family were seafaring, building and often captaining ships. Patriarch John "The Mariner" was just such a man, a Master's Mate or possibly a captain.

Surname Saturday and Getting Down to the DNA

The newly enhanced Ancestry DNA results are a much closer match for hubby's family tree origins than the old version. Above, the new map of his origins. Below, the summary of his origins, which make sense in the context of the updated Heritage Pie I created for him earlier this year.

Great Britain (England, No. Ireland, Scotland) and Ireland were the original homes of these families from hubby's tree:

• Bentley 
• Denning 
• Larimer
• McClure
• Shehen 
• Slatter 
• Taber 
• Wood

At left, 2022 snapshot of DNA at LivingDNA.

Western Europe was the original home of these families from hubby's tree:

• Demarest
• Nitchie
• Shank
• Steiner
• Rinehart

Surname Saturday: Heritage Pie Updated

Last October, I modified the idea of creating a heritage pie chart of great-great-grandparents and posted my pies with hubby's great-grandparents and my grandparents.

Today I have enough information to post a chart with the birth place of all 16 of hubby's great-great-grands (above). Except for 4 people, all of hubby's great-grandparents were born in the US (mainly Pennsylvania, Delaware, New York, Ohio). However, not all of the great-great-great-grands were US-born.

Here's what I know or suspect about where the families of each of hubby's great-great-grandparents were from originally:

Ireland: John Shehen and wife Mary (maiden UNK)--have evidence
England: John Slatter Sr. and wife Sarah (maiden UNK)--have evidence of English birth, but this family might have long-ago Irish roots
England: Ancestors of Isaiah Wood Sr.--have evidence
England: Ancestors of Harriet Taber--have evidence
England: Ancestors of Sarah Denning--need evidence
England: Ancestors of Lucy E. Bentley--need evidence
Huguenots (possibly France): Ancestors of Henry E. Demarest--need evidence
Huguenots (possibly France): Ancestors of Catherine Nitchie--need evidence
Scots-Irish: Ancestors of Benjamin McClure--have evidence
No. Ireland: Ancestors of Brice S. Larimer--have evidence
Germany: Ancestors of Jacob S. Steiner--have a clue (a letter from a descendant)
Switzerland: Ancestors of Joseph W. Rinehart--have a clue (a family story)
???: Ancestors of Elizabeth (maiden UNK) Steiner
???: Ancestors of Margaret Shank, who married Joseph W. Rinehart