John DeLoss Brown and Lincoln

 ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

One way to find stories about ancestors is through newspaper clippings. An example in point is the clipping about the time that John Deloss Brown shook hands with Abraham Lincoln:

This clipping relates that John D. John shook hands with Lincoln at Tolono when the president's train stopped there for ten minutes.

The next step is to search for additional context for this event. As luck would have it, I did not have to look far for long. It turns out that Tolono is a village in Champaign County, Illinois. There is a historical marker in Tolono, indicating where the event happened, and an informative article in The News-Gazette. 

Shortly after John Deloss Brown married Nancy Johnson in Pike County, Illinois in 1857, they moved to Champaign County, Illinois. I'm not sure exactly where they lived in the county. 

Tolono was a railroad intersection where people routinely changed trains. The layover between trains might be for several hours. Because Lincoln's step-mother lived in Charleston, he would catch the train in Springfield, get off in Tolono, and change trains to go on to Charleston in Coles County. During his layover, he might play horseshoes with a resident of Tolono or play chess with the telegraph operator. 

However, on 11 February 1861, the newly elected President's train arrived in Tolono at 11 a.m. so that Lincoln could give a twenty-minute speech on slavery and saving the union. Even though it was raining, about 1,000 had gathered to greet the train. They were waving handkerchiefs as the train pulled into the station. The village leaders fired off canons in celebration. 

Lincoln had planned to give this speech in Danville, but he was so taken by the turn out in Tolono that he delivered the speech there instead. 

President Lincoln gave the speech from the platform of the rear car. A few minutes afterward, he was off again. He may have stepped down for a few minutes, but he most likely leaned down shook hands with those closest to him. 

John Deloss Brown must have been very nearby if he had the opportunity to shake Lincoln's hand. John D. Brown may have been a resident of Tolono at that time, or he may have traveled several miles to meet Lincoln's train. Since I have not found him on the 1860 census, I don't know. Almost exactly six months after this speech, on 12 August 1861, John D. Brown enlisted in the 2nd Illinois Cavalry and served for the next three years.

11 February 1861 was the last time President Lincoln was in Tolono, Illinois, and it was the last formal speech that he delivered in Illinois. 

 

Charles Albert Brown in Jerome, Arizona

   ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

The social notices in the Weekly Pantagraph of Bloomington, Illinois, included several notifications about C.A. Brown, aka Charles Albert Brown, son of John Deloss and Nancy (Johnson) Brown of Weldon, Illinois.

In 1897, C.A. Brown left Weldon, Illinois for Arizona where his two brothers lived. That social notice led me to information on brother Isaac Sherman Brown, who I had not been able to locate previously. This was covered in a previous post.

Another notice published in 1903, provided information as to when and where C.A. Brown married Sadabell Austin. It also places them in San Francisco, California. This is a marriage date I had not been able to find before.

But where was C.A. Brown between 1897 and 1903? So far, I have not pinpointed him on the 1900 census. It could be expected that he was in Jerome, Arizona for a period of time, but how long? 

At this point, no more newspaper notices have turned up to help the search. 

My next strategy was to try an old fashioned Google search, and something unexpected and a little weird bubbled to the surface in connection with the murder of a former Jerome, Arizona, madam named Jennie Bauters. 

This excerpt from "Belgian Jennie" Bauters: Mining Town Madame" by Melanie Sturgeon reveals that one C.A. Brown was a young miner, living in Jerome, Arizona from 1896 to 1900. His observations about Jennie Bauter's brothel and the town's prostitutes were taken from something called the C.A. Brown Collection in Jerome, Arizona Historical Society. 

At the end of the nineteenth century, Jerome, Arizona was a western boomtown filled with saloons, brothels, and outlaws. It was a small but wild town. 

This profile of a young church-going, man, who lived in Jerome for a brief period of time beginning in 1896 or 1897, roughly fits what is known about John Deloss Brown's son Charles. At this point, I need to be able to access the C.A. Brown collection and find out if the Historical Society knows anything more about him to be able to determine if he is the same C.A. Brown.

Still, this is a tantalizing bit of information even if it is a bit of a rabbit hole...

Daughters of John D. and Nancy (Johnson) Brown

   ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

My search for any more newspaper references to Johnsons has sent me down a few rabbit holes on the Brown family. All of my little digressions are helping to flesh out the Brown family and may yet lead me to the Johnsons. 

Nancy Johnson and John Delos Brown had two daughters who died as young adults, both unmarried. 

Daughter Eva C. Brown was a twin to Emma C. Brown. She died at home at the age of 21. The Champaign County Gazette published her death notice on 6 August 1879:

"Eva, daughter of John D. Brown, of Weldon, DeWitt county, died at the home of her parents, August 1, aged twenty-one years. Eva was born in this township, and was a niece of justice Brown, who attended her funeral."

Her birth in Champaign County correlates to John D. Brown's obituary, which states that he and wife Nancy moved to Champaign County shortly after they married in Pike County, Illinois in 1857. The twins were the Browns' eldest children. It is possible that their twin births might have merited a newspaper notice in 1858. Something to watch for. 

Because Eva died in 1879, her birth was noted in the 1880 mortality schedule. The mortality schedule confirmed that she died at home from an inflammation of the stomach. It also noted that she had been a resident of DeWitt County, Illinois for twelve years. That would mean that the Browns had moved to DeWitt County in 1867. 

Eva's younger sister Catherine E. Brown died at the age of 22 in 1894. A relentless search for the family in newspapers finally netted information about her illness and death. I found it by searching for her, using a potential nickname: Kate.

In early April, she was suffering from a "nervous trouble" as reported by the Weekly Pantagraph.  I have no idea what a nervous trouble would be.

Two weeks later, she was termed an invalid with little chance of recovery. At the point this notice was run, she had already died on 18 April 1894. News, of course, did not travel quickly in that time period.

A week later the same paper ran her death notice with the added information that she had been sick for many months. 

Catherine E. Brown was buried in the Nixon Township Cemetery where her mother was buried later. They share a tombstone. Eva C. Brown is probably buried in the same cemetery. It is unclear why she does not have a tombstone. 

William Johnson - A Clue to Johnson Ancestry

  ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

William Johnson, who went to visit his cousin Mrs. J. D. Brown in Weldon, Illinois in December 1894, is probably my best clue for figuring out anything more about Samuel Johnson, the father of Nancy (Johnson) Brown aka Mrs. J. D. Brown and sometimes Mrs. John D. Brown. A social notice in the Daily Review stated that he was from Burr Oak, Kansas, so it is with crossed figures that he was a first cousin, that I embark on researching William Johnson of Burr Oak, Kansas.

Burr Oak, Kansas is in Jewell County. Since William Johnson was living in 1894, I first checked the 1900 census in hopes that he was still living there. In 1900, there was one William A. Johnson living in Burr Oak, Kansas. He was 52 years old, having been born in February 1848. Plus, he was born in Illinois, and both of his parents were born in Kentucky. He seems like a very good fit for a cousin to Nancy (Johnson) Brown who was also born in Illinois while both of her parents were born in Kentucky. Significantly, William was divorced and had one son living with him: Edward C. Johnson who was 22 years old and was born in Illinois in November 1877. Edward's father was born in Illinois and his mother in Ohio. In looking at this, I realize that I should be able to find Edward, age two, living with his parents in 1880. Before I did that, however, I checked for other Johnsons in Jewell County, Kansas. Were any more of them born in Illinois or a likely prospect for William's ex-wife? This would help me be able to pinpoint the family on the 1880 census. 

The most interesting household to emerge was that of Mary E. Johnson in White Mound township of Jewell County, Kansas. Like William Johnson, she was divorced, and like the mother of Edward C. Johnson, she was born in Ohio. All of her children were born in Kansas, and all of them had a father born in Illinois and a mother born in Ohio. She became my best candidate for the ex-wife of William A. Johnson. The children with Mary Johnson were Manwell Johnson, age 8, born October 1891; Bertha R. Johnson, age 19, born November 1880; John O. Johnson, age 17, born January 1883; Pearl L. Johnson, age 16, born May 1884; David R. Johnson, age 13, born January 1887; and Maude A. Johnson, age 10, born 1889.

Next, I went forward to the 1910 census, looking for William A. Johnson, but he was nowhere to be found. I wanted to see if a later census might link him to Mary E. Johnson or her children. I also did not find a memorial for him on Findagrave. Next, I looked for an obituary or death notice in the newspapers. I did not find either, but I did find a murder in Jewell County, Kansas: 

The death of W. A. Johnson at the hands of Roy Wilson suggested that I could not find William A. Johnson in 1910 because he was, in fact, deceased by then. This still did not help me determine if there was a connection between William A. Johnson and Mary E. Johnson, so I kept looking for more information about this murder. 

This article helped me determine that W. A. Johnson was William A. Johnson and that William A. Johnson was the father of Pearl Johnson who appeared in Mary E. Johnson's household in 1900. 

You would think that murdering her father would have soured Pearl Johnson on Roy Wilson's affection, but apparently not.

But I digress.

Armed with a family unit, I was ready to go back to the 1880 census. They turned up again in Burr Oak, Jewell County, Kansas with an additional elder daughter. William Johnson, a mail carrier was age 30 and born in Illinois. No parents' births were provided for him, which suggests to me that he did not supply the information on the census. His wife was Mary E. Johnson, age 29, born in Ohio. Her father was born in Ohio and her mother in Iowa. With them was a daughter Ettie May Johnson, age eight born in Illinois, and a son Eddie C. Johnson, age two, born in Illinois. The births of these children in Illinois suggested to me that William and Mary married in Illinois. 

A social security application for Manuel Sims Johnson, born in Burr Oak, Kansas on 22 October 1891, revealed that his parents were William Johnson and Mary E. Hill. 

A marriage record for William A. Johnson and Mary E. Hill turned up in Macon County, Illinois, dated 17 September 1872. 

I have seen trees that link this William A. Johson to parents Lawson Johnson and Sarah Anthony. There is just one problem with that. Their son William Johnson, born 9 November 1846 in Scott County, Illinois was two years older than the William A. Johnson I am seeking. More importantly, the other William Johnson died 30 October 1932 in Aurora, Kane County, Illinois, leaving a death certificate that names his parents as Lawson and Sarah Johnson, so he is ruled out.

At this point, I have been unable to locate William A. Johnson in Illinois on the 1870 and 1860 census. However, a William A. Johnston, aged two and born in Illinois turned up in the household of John A. Johnston in Pike County, Illinois. This suggests that John A. Johnson, who witnessed a deed for Samuel Johnson, in 1834 was his brother. 

On the 1850 Pike County, Illinois, census, John A. Johnston was 33, born about 1817 in Kentucky. He would have been seventeen in 1834, just old enough to witness a deed but maybe not old enough to be living on his own. Two brothers, Samuel and John, could have come to Illinois on their own, or they might have been with their parents. So I still need to do some digging on that. 

John A. Johnston's wife was Elizabeth, age 22, and also born in Kentucky. They would have fit the profile of William A. Johnson's parents. Two-year-old William A. Johnston born in Illinois was in their household along with sibling John R. Johnston who was under a year old. Also in this household was Cenia Johnston, age 35 and born in Kentucky. She is either an unmarried elder sister or a widowed sister-in-law. Since the 1850 census did not have a martial code, I am left hanging. However, I should factor her in when looking for census records that might include her as a child. I am hampered by having no idea when Samuel Johnson was born. I have not been able to identify John A. Johnson or John A. Johnston's household in 1860 or 1870. Yet.

One thing to keep in mind is that in order for Nancy (Johnson) Brown to have a cousin who would travel from Kansas to Illinois to visit her suggests a relationship between them. They would have at least known each other as children, which is a strong argument for William A. Johnson of Jewell County, Kansas to be the same person as William A. Johnston of Pike County, Illinois, where the children and widow of Samuel Johnson lived until the 1860s. 

On the one hand, I am glad to have something that suggests more strongly that John A. Johnson and Samuel Johnson were related to each other. On the other hand, I had hoped to find another Johnson brother with a more distinctive name and maybe an easier path back to the area of Kentucky they were from. 

Googling for Joel Herbert Brown

 ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

A google search can turn up more information than you thought possible. Use as many variants of a person's name as you can think of and narrow with a keyword for location or any other unique term you can think of. 

To search for Joel Hebert Brown, son of John Deloss and Nancy (Johnson) Brown of DeWitt County, Illinois, I used the following combinations paired with the words Jerome Arizona: "Joel Herbert Brown," "Joel H. Brown," "J. H. Brown," "Joel Brown," "J. Herbert Brown," and "Herbert Brown." Because I wanted the words in his name to appear together in the text, they were in quotation marks. I was searching specifically for the years when he lived in Jerome Junction, Arizona, and google did not disappoint.

The first item that turned was an insurance industry book on insurance payouts for 1906, the year when Joel H. Brown was killed in a train accident in Arizona. The payout was $1,000. 

The next item was the most interesting. Joel H. Brown and a partner evidently patented a hand truck in 1898. This patent was filed in the United States.

The following year, they filed the patent in Canada. This time more drawings were included, and Joel Herbert Brown's first name was used in the patent. 

Since Joel H. Brown worked for the railroad, my guess is that this hand truck would have been his ideal and perhaps a piece of equipment he would have used on the job. 

Isaac Sherman Brown's Death Notice, 1898

    ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

When you are searching newspapers for information pay particular attention to the little social notices that provide clues as to where people are living and who they may have married.

In 1897, Charles A. Brown, son of John Deloss and Nancy (Johnson) Brown of Weldon, Illinois, struck out for Arizona. While this notice in the Weekly Pantagraph of Bloomington, Illinois, does not tell me who his brothers were, it does tell me that he had two brothers living in Arizona. I knew that his brother Herbert Brown and gone to Arizona and was killed while working for the railroad. I've been searching for his other brother Isaac Sherman Brown for many years, and this is the clue that Sherman had gone to Arizona and was still living in 1897 although I had been unable to find him on the 1900 census. 

When Nancy (Johnson) Brown died in 1911, her death notice stated that she had one son living, which I knew was Charles A. Brown. I knew that Herbert Brown was deceased by then, so that implied that son Isaac Sherman Brown also was deceased by 1911.

There is an I. S. Brown buried in the Jerome Cemetery in Yavapai County, Arizona. His unusual metal maker has a birth date of 1866, which matches the Isaac Sherman Brown who I was searching for. It also states that he was a native of Illinois. The death date on that marker is 16 September 1898. I decided to double down on researching this I. S. Brown and got an immediate payoff. More than likely, the last time I searched Arizona newspapers it had not been added to the database and now it has. 

The clincher is that this I.S. Brown was a native of Weldon, Illinois. That bit of information makes the link. It's interesting to note that he was a blacksmith, which makes me think that a fellow blacksmith made his marker. 

Now I have a young widow and two children to search for. My search of the 1900 census did not turn them up in Yavapai County, Arizona. More than likely she remarried or moved in with her family in another location. Still, if these children did not die until well into the 20th century, it may be possible to locate them. 

Nancy (Johnson) Brown's Obit, 1911

   ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

The obituary for Nancy (Johnson) Brown eluded me for a long time. I thought there should be one since the Browns were a prominent family in the little village of Weldon, Illinois, at the turn of the twentieth century. But repeated searches turned up nothing. I did find a few social notices that referred to Nancy's bad health, but nothing about her death.

To find this, I went to the Weekly Pantagraph of Bloomington, Illinois, a newspaper that routinely reported news from Weldon. Then I went to the newspaper issued right after her death and went through it page by page. When I found it, I saw that the problem was that the paper had her listed as "Mrs. John A. Brown" instead of Mrs. John D. Brown. Even though I had searched for her under just the name "John Brown," I had not pulled it up in my search results.

This obituary is woefully thin on information. Her given name Nancy is not included nor is her maiden name, Johnson. As is typical in that time period, her identity is submerged in her husband's.  Her children are only listed as numbers and genders, not names. Her husband's name is incorrect. The one piece of information that connects this obit to her is a birthdate that matches the one on her tombstone in the Nixon Township Cemetery in Weldon. The place of birth, Milton, Illinois, confirms my suspicions. 

I had hoped for information about her parents, Samuel and Esther (Bryant) Johnson. Searching later issues of the Weekly Pantagraph did not turn up more. 

So Long 2020, It's Been Real

   ©  Kathy Duncan, 2021

The end of the year brings with it time to reflect on my progress this past year. 

The year ended with a total of 112,923 page views, 18,488 for the year.

The most popular post for the year was Jack Pope Murdered Lewis Dorer, which recounts how Jack Pope had murdered another Red River County, Texas, resident over 25 years before he murdered his wife and her family in Oklahoma.

The second most popular post for the year was Lodowick Thompson of Lancaster and Kershaw Counties, SC, which reviewed the records of my 4th great-grandfather in both counties as well as Southampton County, Virginia.

The third most popular post for the year was The House That Compassion Built, which of the three was my personal favorite. It recounts the story of a little house that a community built for my great-grandmother and her children as well as their later move from Titus County, Texas to Red River County, Texas. 

The most thrilling post for me was Iley N Selph From the Harding/Dabb Collection, which I was only able to write because I was contacted by Shelley Ledbetter who had located a large collection of photographs and documents from my husband's extended family in an antique shop in Missouri. Among the many items were two photographs of my husband's grandfather and one of his great-grandfather. I was able to acquire the collection and will be posting about it for a long time into the future. 

The post that represented my best breakthrough was Granderson D. Nevill Takes a Wife, which recounts how I located yet another wife for Granderson D. Nevill. She was Kitty Ann, and for now, she is considered his fourth wife out of five. There is, of course, plenty of room for him to have had more wives who are as yet unknown. 

Here's hoping that 2021 is much better than 2020. At this point, it's hard to see how it couldn't be. The best to you in the New Year, and I hope you break through your own research brick walls in the coming year.