Aug 30

Tombstone Tuesday–James Henry Brewster

James Henry Brewster (1841-1916), Mt. Hope Cemetery, Montgomery County, Kansas

This is the tombstone of James Henry Brewster. The tombstone is located in the Brewster plot of Mt. Hope Cemetery, Independence, Montgomery County, Kansas. The tombstone is inscribed BREWSTER, James H., Penn. 1841-1916, Co. E 80th O.V.V.I.– Jane, his wife 1840-1940.

James Henry Brewster was born 9 August 1841 in Pennsylvania. He was the son of Jackson and Mary Ann (Martin) Brewster and was the older brother of my great-great-grandfather, Daniel Brewster. James Henry Brewster married Jane Newton 8 March 1866 in Tuscarawas County, Ohio. Jane Newton was born in 1840 in Ohio and died in 1940 in Montgomery County, Kansas.

James Henry and Jane Brewster had eleven children: Henderson Angelo (1867-c1946), Franklin Delano (1868-1933), Caroline “Callie” (1870-1947), Margaret “Maggie” (1871-1942), Jesse B. (1873-1944), Flora Belle (1875-1965), Niles Orland (1876-1902), Millie Nell (1878-bef 1970), Daisy (1880-bef 1900), Emerson Walter (1883-bef 1970), and Jennie (1884-1969).

James Henry Brewster was enumerated with his family in Goshen Township, Tuscarawas County, Ohio, in the 1880 US census. His occupation was stone mason. The family moved to Kansas a few years later.

The 1903 Montgomery County, Kansas, History gives quite a bit of information about James Henry Brewster:  (James Henry Brewster) has lived four miles east of Independence for the past twenty years, and is himself one of the leading contractors of the county. (He) is a native of Pennsylvania. He learned the stone-cutters’ trade and followed it for some years in the east. He married Jane Newton in 1865 or ’66, and lived in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, until his coming to Kansas in 1884. He has since cultivated the farm on which he now resides, and, in addition, has carried on an extensive business as a general contractor in the county. Many of the larger public buildings are of his construction, notably the last two school buildings built in Independence. His citizenship during his residence in Montgomery County has been of the highest quality and the large family which he has reared reflects credit upon the different communities of which they are members. (James and Jane) are both life-long members of the M. E. Church, and are held in high esteem by a large circle of friends. Their children are: Henderson A., a contractor at Coffeyville; F. D. [Franklin Delano], [a contractor at Independence]; Caroline, Mrs. Harvey Wilson of Burlingame, Kansas; Maggie, wife of John Dreher of Montreal, Canada; Jesse B,  a contractor at Bartlesville, I.T.; Flora B, Mrs. Frank Stovall of Guthrie, Ok. Ty.; Minnie N., wife of F. G. Wilson, of Independence; Miles [Niles] O., deceased in 1902, at twenty-three years; Emerson W., a bricklayer of Oklahoma City; Jennie, single; and Daisy, who died in infancy. (source: History of Montgomery County, Kansas, Duncan, 1903:734-5)

Montgomery County, Kansas, Courthouse at Independence

The above photo shows the current Montgomery County, Kansas, Courthouse in Independence. James Henry Brewster built a courthouse for Montgomery County in 1886 at a cost of $34,900. Several of his sons continued the construction business as the Brewster Bros. Franklin D. Brewster was the contractor for a new city hall in 1915. The Brewster Bros. built other buildings that included a Junior High School in 1922, a large ice storage building in 1924, and various remodeling jobs of city buildings and churches.

James Henry Brewster stipulated in his Last Will and Testament: I desire that my Executor shall erect at my grave a plain, simple, granite stone, two feet square and three feet high with a polished tablet (set permanently) which shall show my name, age and nativity with the name of the company and Regiment in which I fought under my country’s flag for Liberty—Co. E. 80th O.V.V.I. (Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry); and it is my wish that my late comrades in arms—the G.A.R.—shall be in charge of the services at my funeral. (source: Last Will and Testament of J.H. Brewster, on microfilm at the Montgomery County Courthouse, Independence, Kansas, Item VIII)

Thanks to my fourth cousins, Jean M. & Deb B., for sharing these photos and information about James Henry Brewster and his family with me several years ago. They are direct descendants of James Henry Brewster and descend from his daughter Caroline “Callie”.

Aug 26

James Henry Brewster Meets the Dalton Gang

James Henry Brewster (1841-1916) 1913 photo

Occasionally I am asked if there are any famous ancestors in my family tree. I always have to think about that question. I have searched for an ancestor that did something remarkably noteworthy, but I haven’t come up with much. Most of my ancestors were just common folk, doing ordinary jobs and the necessary chores from day to day.

I can’t trace my ancestry back to Charlemagne. I have not discovered that I descend from any US presidents or any famous war generals. There are no great inventors, famous authors or actors in past generations of my family.

Sometimes I get so desperate for information about some of my ancestors that I think I would welcome a notorious ancestor into the family tree. At least there would be a paper trail if an ancestor was an outlaw or a fugitive. No such luck there, either.  My ancestors were all God-fearing, law-abiding citizens. However, sometimes the good guys meet up with the bad guys.

I have one collateral ancestor that was in the wrong place at the wrong time and he did meet up with some very bad guys. He is the one person I usually think about when asked about a famous ancestor in my family tree.

James Henry Brewster is not in my direct ancestry line. He was my great-great-granduncle, the older brother of my great-great-grandfather, Daniel Brewster.

The Brewsters were originally from Pennsylvania. James Henry lived in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, from about 1850-1884, when he and his family moved to Cherryvale, Kansas. He was a very successful stone mason and contractor there. He built the Montgomery County, Kansas, courthouse in about 1886, as well as several other city buildings. Some of his sons continued the family construction business as the Brewster Brothers. James Henry and his brother Daniel both served in the Civil War, both in Company E, 80th OVI.

James Henry Brewster has gone down in history as one of the men standing in line in the First National Bank in Coffeyville, Kansas, when the Dalton Gang robbed the bank and afterward had their last shoot-out.

The Dalton Gang had a good start on a life of crime. They stole a herd of cattle and robbed several trains between 1890 and 1892. A couple members of the gang had escaped from jail and a reward was offered for their capture.

On Wednesday morning, 5 October 1892, five members of the Dalton Gang rode into Coffeyville, Kansas. They wore disguises and planned to rob two banks at the same time. Once in town the Daltons were recognized by several townspeople. The word was spread and many citizens armed themselves with their own guns and with weapons from nearby hardware stores. The citizens were ready and waiting for the gang members as they came out of the banks.

Gang members Gratton Dalton, Bill Powers, and Dick Broadwell robbed the C.M. Condon & Co. Bank. Bob and Emmett Dalton robbed the First National Bank across the street. Bob Dalton was the leader of the Dalton Gang and that morning they took nearly $25,000 from the two banks.

As they emerged from the banks the robbers were fired upon by the citizens and law officers.  In the end, eight men died and four men were wounded. Gratton and Bob Dalton, Bill Power and Dick Broadwell were killed. Emmett Dalton was severely wounded. Four of Coffeyville’s defenders were also killed: Marshall C.T. Connelly, Lucious Baldwin, George Cubine, and Charles Brown. Three other citizens were wounded.

Here is how the Montgomery County History describes the event:…the First National across the street. Bob Dalton and Emmet entered here about the same time the other three men went into Condon’s. They covered the cashier, Thomas G. Ayers, and the teller, W. H. Shepard, with their guns and ordered everyone present to hold up his hands. The men in the bank in front of the counter at the time were J. H. Brewster, the well known contractor, who built the county court house, A. W. Knotts, who was afterward deputy sheriff, and C. L. Hollingsworth….  This account goes on to give a detailed description of the shootout that occurred that day. (source: History of Montgomery County, Kansas, Duncan, 1903:35)

That is the story of my semi-famous collateral ancestor. James Henry Brewster was a very successful contractor who constructed buildings that are still used today and was a man who survived the last shootout of the Dalton Gang.

For more information about the Dalton Gang you can view the Dalton Defenders Museum website and The Dalton Gang’s Last Raid, 1892.

 

Aug 23

Tombstone Tuesday–Curtis R. Schumm

Curtis R. Schumm tombstone, Zion Lutheran Cemetery, Schumm, Ohio.

This is the tombstone of Curtis R. Schumm, located in row 3 of Zion Lutheran Cemetery, Schumm, Van Wert County, Ohio. The tombstone is inscribed SCHUMM, Curtis R., son of L. & S. Schumm died Nov 15, 1901 aged 1y, 1m, 15d.

Curtis Richard Schumm was born 30 September 1900, the son of Louis J. and Sarah (Breuninger) Schumm. Curtis was baptized 14 October Oct 1900 at Zion Lutheran, Schumm.  The sponsors at his baptism were Victor Schumm and Richard Stamm. (source: records of Zion Lutheran, Schumm, Book III:68)

There is no record of Curtis’ death or burial in the church records of Zion Lutheran Church, Schumm. Their church records seem to be very complete and I was surprised that his death and burial were not recorded.

There is a record of his death in the Van Wert County Probate Court. According to their records Curtis Schumm died 14 Nov 1901 of a bowel inflammation.  Their records state that he was 1 year, 2 months and 14 days old. He was born, lived and died in Willshire. (source: Van Wert County Death Book #2, 1893-1904:199)

Louis and Sarah had two other children, Frieda (1893-1945) and Cornelius L. (1896-1986). Curtis was my first and second granduncle.

 

Aug 19

Black Creek’s Black Gold

A pumpjack in Indiana, about 4 miles from Chattanooga (2011)

Black gold, devil’s tar, earth oil, flowing gold, fossil oil, rock oil–these were all terms for what we now call petroleum or crude oil that were used in the early part of the 20th century.  Ohio led the nation in oil production for several years around the turn of the century and Mercer County helped make that possible. There is oil beneath the ground in Black Creek Township, in the surrounding Chattanooga area and in neighboring Indiana. In fact, my great-grandfather, Jacob Miller, had seven working oil wells on his Black Creek Township farm in the early 1900s.

Ohio has a rich history of oil and gas production that began over 150 years ago. The first discovery of oil from a drilled well was in Ohio in 1814, when a saltwater well driller discovered oil at a depth of 475 feet in Noble County. The first well drilled in the state was in Trumbull County in late 1859.

Oil and gas were discovered in Findlay, in northwestern Ohio, in 1884. It was found in Trenton Limestone at a depth of 1092 feet. That started a 20-year oil and gas boom. The Lima-Indiana oil and gas fields extend in an arc across Lucas, Wood, Hancock, Allen and Van Wert Counties and into northeastern Indiana. In 1896, 6,456 wells were drilled in Ohio and more than 23 million barrels of oil were produced, making Ohio the leading oil producing state in the nation from 1895-1903. John D. Rockefeller became involved in the oil business at this time through ownership of oil and gas reserves.

Black Creek oil fields, Ohio Department of Natural Resources

Oil and gas were produced from more than 30 individual geologic formations, primarily of limestone, dolomite, shale, and sandstone. Depths range from 50 feet to as deep as 9,100 feet. Oil and gas are generally believed to have formed through geochemical alteration of decayed organic remains of plant life and marine organisms that have been deeply buried and subjected to high temperatures and pressures.

Wells could be shot as soon as they were drilled. The method of “shooting” a well began by lowering a torpedo (a long cylinder) into the well and very carefully filling it with liquid nitroglycerin. Water was poured into the well to keep the explosion force downward and outward. To detonate the nitroglycerin a squib with a stick of dynamite or something called a “go-devil” (a heavy piece of metal shaped like a cross) was dropped into the well and exploded the nitroglycerin on impact. The go-devil got its name because the person wanted to “go like the devil” once it was dropped in the well.

Koch well, north of Chattanooga, Ohio. Ohio Oil Company.

A device called a pumpjack brought the oil up from below the ground. On the Miller farm all the pumpjacks were driven by a powerhouse which was located on the west part of the farm. The powerhouse consisted of a large iron turntable with rod-lines that ran to and powered the wells. My dad and my uncles talk about riding back and forth on the turntable when they were kids. The oil from the wells was stored in several large oil tanks at the powerhouse. From there the oil drained into a pipe that ran eastward under the ground and drained into another pipe at State Route 49. The oil went through this pipeline and eventually ended up in Lima.

The pumpjacks on the Miller farm were taken down before I was born, but I remember seeing a pumpjack on the Caffee farm when I was a child. The Caffee farm was just west of the Miller farm and their last pumpjack was taken down about 1964. There is still a pumpjack and several large oil containers across the state line in Indiana, about 4 miles southwest of the farm. I took the above photo of that pumpjack a few days ago. It was not running at the time.

My dad has the geological surveys and logs of the Miller oil wells. Below are the results of the drilling by the Ohio Oil Company:
Well #1: Started 11 April 1901, completed 27 April 1901; depth of 1196 feet; produced 40 barrels/first 24 hours.
Well #2: Started 23 July 1901, completed 5 August 1901; depth 1188 feet; 23 barrels/first 24 hrs.
Well #3: Started 13 Sep 1901, completed 1 Oct 1901; depth 1196 feet; 87 barrels/first 24 hrs.
Well #4: Started 21 Oct 1901, completed 16 Nov 1901; depth 1173 feet; production not given.
Well #5: Started 22 Nov 1901, completed 7 Dec 1901; depth 1202 feet; 30 barrels/ first 24 hrs, 20/second 24 hrs.
Well #6: Started 11 Aug 1902, completed 28 Aug 1902; depth 1234 feet; 40 barrels/first 24 hrs.
Well #7: Started 16 June 1903, completed 26 June 1903; depth 1145 feet; 30 barrels/first 24 hrs, 20/second 24 hrs.

Location of Jacob Miller oil wells on 80 acre Black Creek farm. Thanks to my dad for drawing this map.

The torpedoes used to shoot the Miller wells contained from 160-200 quarts of nitroglycerin. That really sounds like a lot of explosives! What a dangerous job that would be to bring in and detonate that amount of explosives. My dad said they brought the nitroglycerin in by wagon and it was hung from the top frame of the wagon. This method worked like a shock absorber so the ride would not be so rough and set off the explosives.

May dad has some papers that accompanied oil checks sent to Jacob Miller. They were from Oil City, Pennsylvania, and it is interesting to note the price of oil in the early 1900s. On 30 October 1908 Jacob received a check for $22.03 for 22.25 barrels of oil at $.99/barrel. On 16 Aug 1909 Jacob received a check for $12.12 for 14.96 barrels of oil at $.81/barrel. The oil wells on Jacob Miller’s farm produced oil until some time in the 1940s. Well #4 was the last working well on the farm.

I grew up on what used to be called Wildcat Corner. It was once the location of Wildcat School No. 9, a two-room school house a mile north of Chattanooga. The school was used in the early part of the 1900s and was the only two-room schoolhouse in the township. I have heard that the school got its name from the many oil wildcatters in the area at that time. My aunts Ruth, Helen, and Em all went to Wildcat School.

Wildcatters from the Ohio Oil Co., a mile north of Chattanooga, Ohio.

Some oil well terms as defined by the Oil & Gas Dictionary of Historical Terminology:
Gusher: Aka “flowing well”, named because natural gas under the oil was released when the exploring drill struck the pocket. The gas rushed to the surface, carrying the petroleum ahead of it, causing it to flow spontaneously, often throwing it high in the air over the derrick and into the sky.
Shooter: One who shoots oil wells with nitroglycerin to loosen or shatter the sand and to increase the flow of an oil well.
Go-Devil: A device used to explode the nitroglycerin in shooting an oil well, so called because after dropping the Go-Devil you were to “go like the Devil.”
Dead-in-a-Hurry: A worker who transports nitroglycerin. The name comes from the dangerous nature of the occupation. Many men lost their lives in this profession, and because of the danger were not allowed to carry life insurance, thus leaving their families in dire straits.
Pumpjack: aka nodding donkey, pumping unit, horsehead pump, beam pump, sucker rod pump (SRP), grasshopper pump, thirsty bird, jack pump, is the overground drive for a reciprocating piston pump in an oil well. It is used to mechanically lift liquid out of the well if there is not enough bottom hole pressure for the liquid to flow all the way to the surface.
Derrick: A lifting device composed of one tower or guyed mast.
Wildcatter: One who drills for oil in unproven territory in the hopes of striking it rich.

Ohio remains a leading producer of oil and gas, ranking in the top half of all oil producing states in the nation. Commercial quantities of oil and gas have been found in 76 of Ohio’s 88 counties. More than 275,000 productive oil and gas wells have been drilled in Ohio and 64,378 are still in operation, most in the eastern third of the state. Most of Ohio’s production wells are referred to as “stripper” wells, which means that they produce less than 10 barrels of oil per day. Ohio ranks 4th nationally behind Texas, Oklahoma and Pennsylvania in the number of wells drilled. In 2010 Ohio wells produced more than 4.78 million barrels of oil and more than 78 billion cubic feet of natural gas. Market value for oil and gas production totaled nearly $718 million dollars.

Sources of information:

Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Geological Survey

Ohio Department of Natural Resources Interactive gas and oil map 

ODNR Division of Mineral Resources Management—Oil and Gas

Oil & Gas Dictionary of Historical Terminology   

Ohio Oil and Gas Association, Oil Boom History

History of the Petroleum Industry in the US: Wikipedia 

Indiana Gas Boom: Wikipedia

Aug 16

Tombstone Tuesday–Maria M. Hofmann

Tombstone of Maria M (Schinnerer) Hofmann, Evangelical Protestant Cemetery, Van Wert County, Ohio.

This is the tombstone of Maria M Hofmann. The stone is inscribed HOFMANN, Maria M., wife of Christian Hofmann, 1857-1934, John 5-24 [text]. The tombstone is located in row 2 of the Evangelical Protestant Cemetery, Harrison Township, Van Wert County, Ohio.

Maria Magdalena Schinnerer was the sixth child of Frederick Schinnerer and his first wife, Margaretha “Mary” Deier. Maria was born 16 November 1857 in Dublin Township, Mercer County, Ohio. She was baptized at home three days after her birth. The sponsors at her baptism were Mrs. Maria Schumm and Mrs. Magdalena Schumm. (source: records of Zion Lutheran, Schumm, Book I:56)

Maria married Christian Hofmann on 16 November 1879 at Zion Lutheran Church, Schumm, Ohio. (source: Van Wert County Marriage Book 5:199)

Maria was enumerated as Magdelena Hoffman in the 1900 US census, Monroe, Allen County, Indiana, with husband Christian and their eight children. She was enumerated as Marie M Hofmann in the 1910, 1920 and 1930 US censuses in Pleasant Township, Van Wert County, Ohio. According to the 1910 US census Maria had 9 children and they were all living. In 1920 she was a widow, still living in Pleasant Township with her children Adolph C, Otto J, Herman, August R, and Pauline. Marie was living with children Otto J and Paulina A in Pleasant Township in 1930.

I was able to determine the names of Maria and Christian’s children as well as estimate their birth dates and places of birth by using the 1900 and 1910 censuses:  Julia A (Jun 1881), Fredrick J (Aug 1883), Amelia L (1884), Henry C (Nov 1886), Otto J (Nov 1889) Adolph C (Sep 1891), Herman J (Apr 1893), August R (Aug 1897), and Pauline AC (c1905). Their first eight children were born in Indiana and Pauline was born in Ohio.

Evangelical Protestant Cemetery, Harrison Township, Van Wert County, Ohio

Maria’s husband, Christian Hofmann, (1854-1914)  is buried in row 5 of the Evangelical Protestant Cemetery.