Beam Me Up, Scotty

Oh, how I wish I had some Star Trek technology to help me with research on the Stewarts and McDougalls.  Mysteries wrapped in enigmas.

This is where tales of castles and Mary Queen of Scots and royalty got dangled in front of me.  Yeah, right, and I was a princess in a past life.  But, as always, I start with the family story that’s been told to me and launch from there to find whatever documentation I can find that will help me unravel things.  I'll be surprised if anyone other than a family member will be able to read this whole post.

To be honest, I’m not sure I can explain the history clearly.  Starting simply enough with Frances Elizabeth, my grandmother, whose maiden name I use on this blog, we know she was the daughter of Elizabeth Stewart and granddaughter of Edmund Spencer Stewart and they lived in Cameron County, PA.  At some point between 1900 and 1910, some of the family, including Edmund, changed the spelling to Stuart.  I always heard the change was the result of a family feud, but another family member heard that someone just thought there were too many Stewarts in town (if you think about it, if that’s said with the right intonation, it could very well be an indication of a feud).  Edmund’s obituary used the spelling Stewart.  But that’s just a distraction at this point.

The Stewarts came to Pennsylvania from Canada, perhaps by way of Maine, and were of Scottish heritage, with rumors of a relationship to Mary, Queen of Scots.  A very extended family member (if you’re reading this, thanks!) I connected with provided the background that the family “floated by raft in the 1850's bringing everything they owned from a short stay in Maine to Cameron County in 1869 before its formation and settled in what is now known as Village of Cameron” (Pennsylvania). But in reality, exactly when isn’t clear, because Edmund’s naturalization record has an immigration date of 1851, the 1900 census looks like it has an immigration date of 1856, the 1910 census looks like it has a date of 1869, and his obituary implies it was 1866. Based on Canadian directory information I uncovered, it was no earlier than 1865.  Two siblings, or half-siblings, have immigration dates of 1865 in the 1920 census.  So, tentatively, it looks like a stay in Maine from about 1865-1869 with Ashland being a possible location since it was mentioned in funeral documents.

Edmund was the son of Jane McDougall (other sources indicate it's possibly Shirk) and Hirman or Hiram Stewart, although because of other inaccuracies, I’m not certain that’s really his father’s first name.  After all, according to family history, after his father’s death, his mother Jane married Edmund’s uncle, Charles Hiram Stewart.  Maybe the inaccuracy is Jane being widowed and maybe Charles is really his father.  (And I thought soap operas were too extreme to be plausible.)  At any rate, supposedly Edmund's father died of diphtheria, along with several of Edmund's siblings, in Perth, New Brunswick.

Edmund was born in 1845 in Maine, New Brunswick, or Nova Scotia.  US census records over the years cite both Canada and Maine.  The 1861 Canadian census lists him as a native of New Brunswick.  His naturalization record cites New Brunswick (being naturalized at least rules out Maine!).  His obituary has Nova Scotia as his birthplace.  My search for a birth record on Edmund, so far unsuccessful, has focused on New Brunswick, but hasn’t excluded Nova Scotia.  Edmund died in 1919 in Cameron County and prior to his death,  a house fire in 1913 destroyed the family Bible and many family records, supposedly including a letter from England regarding an inheritance and a castle.  See what I mean, soap opera.

Edmund’s father, “Hiram”, and his uncle, Charles, were born on Prince Edward Island, no date for Hiram, but using the information from Charles’ funeral records, his birth date can be determined to be September 13,1814.  Unfortunately, because of Prince Charles Stuart, “Bonnie Prince Charlie “ (31 December 1720 – 31 January 1788), Charles Stewart was quite a popular name at the time.  I’ve scoured the PEI records and have not uncovered a record of a Charles Stewart that matches up with mine. 

I did find the family in the 1861 Canadian census, living in Perth, New Brunswick, Canada.  Charles and Jane were married by then, but I can’t determine if some of the children are step-children or if they are all his.  I found a Charles Stewart in the 1865-1866 Hutchinson’s New Brunswick Directory living in Arthurette, New Brunswick, and by comparing other head of household names from the 1861 census to the directory, I feel confident this is my Charles Stewart.  Several of the neighboring names were McDougall and because I had been told Jane (widow of Hirman, wife of Charles) was a McDougall, I wondered if these might be relatives.  I wondered if tracking the McDougall’s might provide some clues on the Stewarts and I’ve pursued it a little bit.  I haven’t had any breakthroughs, but, “I'm giving her all she's got, Captain!”

My Life Mostly in Cameron County, Part 5

Parts              One       Two      Three      Four

Part Five:

After our house burned, we moved into the first house above the Block Row.  We didn’t live there very long, then moved into the McFadden place, owned at that time by Mrs. Charlie Clinton.  I went to work at the City Hotel as head dining room girl in 1913 and one year after I was there, Dad and the two boys were struck with lightening.  That’s the day I met Riley Murray.  Mr. Dolan had Riley drive us, Mr. and Mrs. Dolan and myself, to Cameron.  Mr. Dolan had just bought a new Ford and Riley took care of it and was teaching Mr. Dolan to drive.  What a scene—Dad unconscious, Nelson so badly burned he couldn’t be moved, Dr. Johnston and Dr. Falk getting Dad ready for the hospital and Charles paralyzed, couldn’t stand or walk, but otherwise okay.  Dad had such a wonderful garden; I stayed home to take care of it for a while and to help take care of Nelson, as we had to wrap him in sheets wrung out of lime water and linseed oil every half hour.  I had to get on the bed and straddle him, put my arm under his knees while he put his arm around my neck.  That’s the only way we could lift him, he was burned so bad. 

Nelson was completely undressed, his brown jacket was tacked, as though by an ax, about 12 feet up in the tree nearby.  His underwear looked as though someone had shot BBs through the entire suit.  Mrs. Page took off her apron and wrapped him up to carry him to the house.  Mr. Jenks carried Dad, who was more cut than burned.  He had a pocketknife in his right hand pocket, it opened up and really cut him bad.  Mrs. Jenks carried Charles up to Mother.  Dad was taken to Ridgway Hospital.  Uncle John got the 4:15 Flyer to stop right by the house to put Dad on.  He was in the hospital for 6 weeks and Nelson got out of bed the day Dad got home.  That was before the road as you know it was built.  When we lived there, the road went back of Sadie Bunces house at the foot of the hill to Sterling Run.

A few weeks after this happened, I had to go up Russel Hollow for the cows.  I got old John out, put a blanket on his back—we had no saddle.  Everything went okay until a clap of thunder.  Poor old John was so stiff he crow-hopped and over the gate he went.  When we landed on the other side, I thought I was cut in two.  I slid off and away he went for the barn.  I had to get the cow from then on as we knew he was afraid of thunder and lightening.  He was hitched to the plow with his mate, Tom, who was killed when Dad and the boys were struck.  The only mark on old Tom was all the hair was burned off the inside of his left ear.  But the lightening made a hole in the ground big enough, that all the neighbor men had to do was roll Tom into it and cover him up.  John was on the plowed furrow, but Tom was on firm ground.

The Anderson Brothers built the new road and changed the course of the river, too.  A few years later the wooden railroad bridge was rebuilt or replaced by the iron one that stands there today.  Also torn down was the big wooden bridge which spanned the river where the old road was.  I think the stone pillars still stand there today.  I remember the Anderson Brothers well as I worked for one of the nephews.  They lived in the Isaac Wykoff home.  The house at that time was owned by Nancy Moore.  We all called her Aunt Nancy.  Her granddaughter, Cora Emig, was a telephone operator at the railroad tower.  That was the same year Tommy Page died of diphtheria.  I went down to the Pages through knee deep snow, didn’t notice the quarantine sign on the front door, as I always went to the back door.  As I entered Roy said, “Oh, Frances, you can’t come in.  We have Tommy’s bed down in the dining room.  He’s got diphtheria.  Tommy heard me talking and said, “I want to see Frances.”  So I went in and he said, “Frances, will you milk the cows?  We haven’t had any milk as Mom won’t leave me and I want some milk.”  So away I went, armed with two big pails.  Roy couldn’t milk, but he had fed and watered both cows.  They hadn’t been milked for 36 hours so their bags were really caked and sore.  What a time I had.  The big white cow was a devil at any time; she kicked me over half a dozen times before I got her milked.  The younger cow went into the manger a couple of times.  I lost a lot of milk, but got one full pail and part of another one. 

The Page home as it now stands was built on the foundation of the old Rockwell home.  Mrs. Rockwell was Roy Page’s grandmother.  His mother was her only daughter.  Mrs. Rockwell was known as a famous herb doctor and midwife.  She was always busy during the early days of lumbering in and near Cameron.  I used to stay nights with her when I was about 10 or 12 as Roy and his family lived in Keating.  He was head electrician on the Pennsylvania Rail Road from Renova to Emporium.  Mrs. Rockwell was quite old when I stayed with her.  She died in 1912 from cancer.  When I took the milk to the house, I found out they were running short of food, so I went to Uncle John’s store, told them about the Pages.  Jake Lester took his big hand sled and they loaded up all kinds of food and took it down.  As long as the Pages were tagged up until Tommy died, which was in about 8 or 10 days, every woman in Cameron prepared food and it was taken to the Pages.  I went every day and milked those two cows until Mrs. Page was ready to take over.  Tommy was buried in their front yard between the graves of his grandmother and his great-grandmother.  No one else ever got the diphtheria, but a little over a year later their young girl. Lethia, died.  She mourned over the death of Tommy.  She was 4 years old and would stand by their front window and sing “Tell Tommy I’ll Soon Be There”.  Dr. Bush said she just mourned herself to death.  I worked at the Pages before she was born and afterwards or whenever Mary needed help.

When we lived at the mouth of Mooley Hollow, Jack Clark and Dad used to trap bears.  In the flats between Russell Hollow and Whitehead, they made the bear traps out of saplings like a log cabin about 8 feet square.  Grace Clark and I used to go to the trap line every day to see if we had caught anything, as Dad and Mr. Clark worked all day in the mines. but there was a such heavy snowstorm, the snow was so deep we missed one morning in 1910.  When we got there on the second day, boy was that bear mad, hungry and thirsty.  He had the place almost tore apart and we sure hit for home.  Dad got Uncle John’s horse, Prince, and the wagon and we went to get old bruin.  Dad shot him and what a job to get him in the wagon.  The smell of that bear—Prince went wild.  We had an awful time getting it in the wagon.  Jack and Dad could hardly lift it and I had to fight ole Prince.  They sold the bear as was to some man who wanted the hide for a rug.  None of the Clarks or us would eat bear meat.  They also hunted jackrabbits at the old Huff farm at the head of Hunts Run.  They sure was big and such long ears.

Part 6

My Life Mostly in Cameron County-Frances Schwab Murray, 1966-Part 3

Before I jump to Part 3, I want to mention that, just before posting Part 2, I got the urge to research someone mentioned in that post.  When I typed from the original papers, I wasn’t really focused on content.  I just wanted to get it done as quickly as possible.  But, a little section caught my eye when I was finally focused on content.  My grandmother mentioned her Uncle George’s son Howard (Stuart) being buried in Michigan.  I thought I might be able in get confirmation of dates or locations in her story.  Off to Google I went.  Search results led me to hypothesize her naming error for River Rouge.  Using River Rouge and the Ford plant references, I went to Google maps and found a large cemetery, Woodmere, instead of Wildwood. Turns out Woodmere has amazing records.  I found a record for Howard Stuart, age 1 year, 9 months, 2 days, born in Pennsylvania, residence on Peterson Street, who died of scarlet fever in 1906.  My genealogical motto:  Trust, but verify.

Earlier posts in this series:

Part one

Part Two

Part Three:

I often wonder where the water is that we had 60 or more years.  In the creek it was bank-to-bank below our house.  A sawmill down from our house, across the creek had a spillway or boom built; the river was always filled with logs.  We kids used to cuff them although we were forbidden to do so.  They call it log rolling now.  One day I jumped onto a log and missed it, but hit a board on the boom.  It had a big spike in it.  It went clear through my foot.  One of the sawmill men came over, pulled me off.  Away I went crying, straight to my grandfather who always took care of all our sores or cuts.  He poured turpentine in that hole.  I can feel it yet.  And a slice of salt pork over the hole.  So I hobbled around on my heel for days.

Earlier, in the house where Alice was born, we had some little things happen, such as when Jennette took the shears and cut six-inch slits in a stand cover in our bedroom.  Here both she and I did our best to blame Walter Olkosky (the American Legion is named for him.  He was the first Cameron County boy killed in WWI).  His folks called him Waddick, Polish for Walter.  One time Mother had put her crock of cream and freshly churned butter in the springhouse.  We all went either to Cameron or to visit Grandmother Schwab, it was on a Sunday.  When we got back, Waddick had mixed sand in the butter and cream and dumped out all the pans of milk.  Boy, his dad almost killed him.  They lived across the road from us.  Several days later Jennette and I had a play house we took him to (he was one year younger than me) and fed him soap suds until he vomited. 

That cemetery I spoke of was where all the small pox victims were buried during the epidemic.  Several of mother’s uncles are buried there—Greenalch boys.  Bradytown was on top of the hill, so named for Andrew Brady.  There was lots of houses and a school house later.  Lena Leckner was the first teacher up there that I remember. (we all went to Cameron School, walked all the way, no nice roads like they have today, snow waist deep for us younger kids)  Mother’s Uncle Bill Greenalch and wife Julia ran the big boarding house.  Had lots of miners staying with her in Bradytown first called Mt. Hope.

We had a store and Post Office in Canoe Run.  The passenger trains used to stop four times a day.  Fred Webster was the manager of the store and ran the Post Office , too.  The coal company had an office in one side of the building and the company doctor, who used to come one or two days a week, had an office on the other side.  It was one story high, but larger than Joe Olivetti’s ground floor.  There was lots of nice homes in Canoe Run and we kids had great times there.  The oldest Minnow boy, Andrew, was hurt and died a few days later.  We used to swing on the steel cables.  He hit his head.  His sister Anna blew off several fingers playing with dynamite caps.  They were neighbors of ours.  John Minnow was the youngest of the family.  After we went to Detroit they built a school in Canoe Run in about 1904 or 1905.  Bruce Peterson was the first teacher there.  I wasn’t lucky.  They’d be no school-house in Canoe Run for me. 

When I started to school, we walked to Cameron--one mile-no bus, no cars, no snow plows, no paved roads, no cafeteria.  We carried our lunch in pails which had once held Karo Syrup or 5 pounds of lard, no fancy pail then.  School house was two story high—grades 1-4 downstairs , 5-8 upstairs.  One room, one teacher affair, heated by a pot-bellied stove in the middle of the floor.  No water.  We carried it from the nearby neighbor’s well.  Everyone drank out of the same long-handled tin dipper. Schoolhouse had the little houses out back—left side of field for girls, right side for boys.  This school burned in 1908.  We missed one week of school, but they set up school in the large dance hall of the Knights of Golden Eagle hall.  The floor was big enough to make two large rooms.  They rebuilt in 1909.  The school was a one story, two-room brick affair, heated by a furnace and built by the brick and stone masons—two brothers James and Mike Fitzpatrick.  It was torn down and the ground sold to Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Schreffler who built their home on the land. 

When we lived across from the coke ovens there was a family lived along side of us, only one small child.  He used to lick his wife and she’d come to Mother crying and black-eyed.  One night he was beating her terrible. Mother went to the boarding house where a construction gang was staying.  They were building the new coal tipple and crusher.  All from Ridgway Murphy & Hyde Company.  Bill Leilous was among the gang, they got a rope and went after him, pulled him from under the bed and took him down to the crusher scaffolding and was going to hang him.  My grandfather chased them away with a shotgun.  He was the night watchman at the plant.  That’s the last time we ever knew that man to hit his wife.  That’s when Aunt Mellisa met Bill.  They were married two years later. 

My grandparents Stuart [ed. note: aka Stewart] ran the boarding house in Canoe Run, next door to where Dad built our house. Grandfather did all the oven watching.  Baked their own bread, rolls, pies and cakes in the big oven.  It was a big affair.  What good times we used to have there in that big place.  Grampa, or Pap (and Mam) as we called them until I was grown, Pap played the fiddle (he never said violin), Uncle Charlie the banjo.  Aunt Mellisa and Esther, the piano.  All were beautiful singers.

It’s a wonder some of us kids weren’t killed as we climbed and roamed over the oven tops—up the steps to the top of the high crusher where the coal buckets came down their wire and dumped ore as we sneaked into the tipple on top of the mountain to try to sneak a ride in the coal-filled buckets.  It was in this same crusher and tipple that Mr. C.J. Goodenough of Emporium and Billie Nunn was trapped when they tried to break the frozen coal.  Mr. Goodenough went through with only scratches, but Billie was heavier and got stuck when almost to the bottom and suffocated.  That happened after we came back from Michigan, must have been around 1910 or so.  Everybody in Cameron went to help remove the body.  It took hours to get Billie out.  The men worked by lantern light.  The coke ovens was no longer running.  They were dismantling the tipple and crusher and so there weren’t many men working in Canoe Run by then.  Billie Nunn was a brother-in-law of Harry Morse.  He left four small children.  The men had to work by lantern light.  Held service for Billie in the Lodge room upstairs of the KGE (ed. note: Knights of the Golden Eagle) hall at Cameron.

The little dinky engine went within 30 feet of our front door when we lived in the Block Row.  In 1917 Neva Jenks and Goldie Segee’s sister worked as bookkeepers there.  Later on they both were hurt, not serious, when the engine ran away and jumped the track down by the Valley Hotel.  Henry Morris was the engineer and his son Harry, fireman.

Part 4

My Life Mostly in Cameron County-Frances Schwab Murray, 1966-Part 2

As a fair warning, this is the second of seven parts.  I want to to keep the length of each post manageable for readers.

Click here for Part 1

A year later Alice was born.  Dr. Smith of Emporium was Mom’s doctor, her first doctor at childbirth.  We lived in that house until Alice was about 2-1/2 years old, when Dad and Uncle Alfred built our house next door to the big boarding house that Grandpa Stewart ran, just above the coke ovens.  We lived there until 1906 when we moved to Detroit, Michigan.  We went by train to Buffalo, caught a boat and sailed the lake to Detroit.  It was my first sight of a big boat and water everywhere.  I was a nosy kid and had to explore the workings of the boat.  Mother missed me and with the sailors’ help, where did they find me, but down in the engine room watching those big wheels turn.  I’d never saw an indoors toilet before either until on that boat.  Every time you sat down water rushed up so you can imagine how many times Lake Erie rushed up and washed me. 

This being the day after Halloween 1966, it brings back memories of Oct. 31, 1906 in Michigan.  A gang of us kids went out--at that time it was all tricks, no treats--upset an outhouse.  The poor Italian fellow when it went over—his yells.  We lit out as fast as we could run and crawled under someone’s porch as the cops were hot on our trail.  That was down near the River Rouch [ed. note-Rouge] where the Ford Motor plant is now built. 

At that time, 1906, that big field was our playground.  We lived on Peterson Street.  My grandparents lived on Homels Street-the alley separated the two houses.  One day a bunch of us kids set out to see the Wildwood Cemetery [ed. note-Woodmere Cemetery] where Uncle George’s son Howard was buried.  A couple of the kids who lived on Peterson Street, were along.  There I saw my first vault and crematory.  Boy, what a scare.  Us kids watched as they put a body in a big pan and pushed it into the furnace.  As the heat increased, the body began to sit up.  When it moved, so did us kids and I know I never went back there again. 

We spent a lot of our time watching the soldiers as they drilled and paraded at Ft. Dearborn.  My dad worked in the tunnel that was being put under the Detroit River.  Uncle Howard Burlingame was the Super on that job.  He was Aunt Alice Clark’s first husband.  When the job was done, Dad went back to Pennsylvania.  He was working in Idamar, PA digging coal so in Jan 1907, Mother and us 5 kids, with Uncle Ed, left for PA too.  We went by train through that tunnel that Dad helped to build.  We stayed a short time with Aunt Jennie and Uncle Fred until our furniture came. 

We moved into one of the houses in the Block Row.  There, in May 1907, my youngest brother was born.  Dr. Walter Bush was Mom’s doctor and my brother was the first baby he brought after coming to Cameron County.  A few days after the baby was born, all 5 of us kids came down with whooping cough.  The hired help (our Aunt Esther) left, and when the baby was 10 days old, he got the whooping cough.  I slept on a cot in Mom’s room and I had to jump up and stick my finger down his throat to get the phlegm up.  Boy, what a job for a 10 year old kid.  Then a few days later we 5 kids came down with the mumps, so Dad had to come home as I didn’t dare go near the baby.  Dad was like a bull in a china shop.  He and I cooked some rice for our supper.  I don’t remember how much we used, but as it cooked, we bailed it out of the kettle with the dipper.  When it was done, we had a dishpan full.  Dad carried most of it out to the pig. 

Those were the days—no running water, outhouses, oil lamps, coal or wood stoves to heat those old houses.  The snow blew in on the floor through the doors and windows.  Bread froze, so did the water pail. 

Dan O’Brian, big lumberjack, he as the tallest and biggest man I had ever seen, in 1907.  He used to come to Schwab Bros. store, in Cameron, from his shanty house way up in the hills, to buy his groceries.  We kids were scared to death of him, as tales of his fighting powers were known by all the folks in Cameron.  He always wore a sleeveless jacket made from a cowhide, fur side out.  Summer or winter.  And a coonskin cap, but a tailless one.

That spring Dad and us kids were planting potatoes.  We’d had an early thaw, lots of snow and the early rains had the nearby creek running bank-to-bank with cold, muddy water.  The neighborhood kids, Yuharts, were throwing sticks in the stream.  Anne was about four years old.  She slipped into the stream and was washed down by us.  Dad and I together got her out.  Dad rolled her over a barrel.  Boy, did the water ever come out of her.  No first aid as we know it now.  When Charles was about 2 years old, we moved across the river at the mouth of Mooley Hollow.  That’s the house where Mary was born in 1910 and Evelyn in 1912.  The house was across the road from where Jack Stuart lives now.

One spring day shortly after Mary was born, Dad and several others and I went berrying in Russel Hollow for raspberries.  I stepped over an old log and a rattler hit.  He missed my leg, but its teeth got caught in my woolen skirt.  Boy did I ever move and yelled “I’m bit”.  Dad yelled stand still, but I took off for home and I could run.  The road out of the Hollow was fenced off and had a fence across the road, leading to the main road into Hunts Run.  When I got to that fence, I didn’t wait to open it up, but went over the top.  Somewhere in that leap I lost the snake.  Boy was Dad mad when he caught up with me, but I had only the yellowish-green marks on my skirt to show where it had hit.  My berry-picking was over for that day.  The summer before Evelyn was born I almost got it again while picking berries in Mooley Hollow.  I had come home for a couple of days.  I was working in Driftwood at Riley’s Hotel.  I had worn Dad’s Wisconsin boots.  They were high top boots (leather) and came up to my knees.  That’s what saved my leg as I stepped over a log in a dried up creek bed.  I was carrying a revolver, so I shot it.   

Up to this time, in the same hollow, there was some of the remains of a lumber camp.  Us kids used to play around them.  One day the three Lupole kids, my brother Nelson, and myself went up the hollow to pick gooseberries and my dog Shep followed.  As usual he went off after a squirrel.  Pretty soon we started for home, but he didn’t come to our call until we were pretty well in sight of home.  He came tearing down the road followed by an old mother bear.  He’d been chasing her cubs.  Boy, Shep was scared.  He’d run between my legs and down I’d go.  That old bear followed us clear to Walker’s house.  Good thing their place was fenced in.  We sure did a quick crawl under that fence and the old bear turned back.  I was about 13 at that time.

Part 3