I spent thirteen years living in State College, Pennsylvania, right next door to Boalsburg. In addition to housing possessions from Christopher Columbus, Boalsburg makes another claim to fame. The tiny little town of Boalsburg is one of several that claim to be the site of the first Memorial Day commemorations. The graves of fallen Union soldiers were decorated starting in October 1864. Of course, there are lots of places that claim this honor. But Boalsburg is the one I am familiar with. Every year, there is a large Memorial Day commemoration there.
There are many veterans in every generation in my family tree, some in my direct line, some among the uncles, aunts, and cousins. John Oliver Brewer is one who is almost in my line. John Oliver Brewer was the first husband of my great-great-grandmother, Sarah Louise Council.
John and Sarah married in 1858 in Sebastian County, Arkansas and started a family there. Their first child, a daughter, Mary Angeline Brewer, was born in February 1860 and lived just a few months. Their second child, a son, Philip Dodridge Brewer, was born in June of 1861.
Northwest Arkansas was a hotbed of border tensions during the Civil War. Even though it was a part of the Confederacy, there apparently was a large degree of support for the Union in the area. According to Grandmother Dickson, this led to things being pretty ugly from time to time and to people being pressed into service on one side or the other at the point of a rifle.
In the spring of 1863, on March 10, John Oliver Brewer enlisted in the 1st Arkansas Infantry of the Union Army. His brother had joined the Union Cavalry already. John never say service. After being mustered in at Fort Smith, he went with his unit north to Fayetteville. Were he caught the measles. John Oliver Brewer died in hospital in Faytetteville on the 18th of May, 1863, barely two months into his service. He left his young widow, Sarah, behind with a young son to care for.
Sarah Louise Council Brewer Pension Application, 1864
In 1867, Sarah remarried to Hume Field Bailey and had a substantial family, including my great-grandfather, Charles Council Bailey. in 1891, Hume died. In her old age, Sarah again fell back on her status as the widow of a Union veteran who died in service. She applied again for a pension, after proving that her second husband (Hume) had never served in the Union Army and had certainly never served the Confederacy. Again she was awarded a small pension to assist in her old age that she continued to receive until her death.
Phil was adopted by Hume and grew up to have a successful career as an attorney. He was the first commissioner of the Oklahoma State Supreme Court as Oklahoma transitioned from a territory into statehood.
Philip Dodridge Brewer Obituary
In the end, had it not been for John Oliver Brewer’s service with the Union Army, I wouldn’t be here today, I suppose. I don’t know how he felt about enlisting and serving. But it seems sort of anticlimactic to be struck down by what we consider now to be a childhood disease while in camp.
In my on-going research on the Dickson family, I have talked off and on to other researchers. Over the last few weeks, I have been corresponding with another Dickson researcher about my line. Prior to finding the picture I talked about in the last section, I hadn’t really had a good connection to her line at all. But, with the firm connection to David Dickson, the wall starts to tumble down.
Ann, the other researcher, told me of a group of Dickson researchers who pooled their efforts a few years back. A book, compiled by Claire Jean Potter Ferguson Sullivan, Ph. D., came out of those efforts that traces this Dickson family back to about 1607. As it turns out, this is one of the books that is not only available from the Family History Library, but is available online!! You can find the FHL library entry and the digital version here.
I am so excited! Of course, this is a Ronald Reagan moment – trust but verify. It looks like there is good documentation in this book. Many of the references and documents it uses are included in the text, but it still needs to be analyzed and verified. I did Y-DNA testing some time back. Now to see if this plays out with the documentation.
It looks like my line could be:
Grandparents – Robert H. Dickson, Jr. (b. 1919, d. 2007) and Susan Louise Bailey (b. 1919, d. 2006)
Great-grandparents – Robert H. Dickson, Sr. (b. 1878, d. 1942) and Ethel Mildred Garner (b. 1887, d. 1974)
Great-great-grandparents – John H. Dickson (b. 1836, d. bef. 1889) and Martha A. Taylor (b. 1858, d. bef. 1942)
3-great-grandparents – David Dickson (b. 1808) and Eliza Johnson (b. 1812)
4-great-grandparents – Joseph Dickson, Jr. (b. abt. 1785) and Mary McNairy (b. 1791)
5-great-grandparents – Joseph Dickson, Sr. (b. 1744) and Elizabeth Moulton (b. abt 1757)
6-great-grandparents – John Dickson, Sr. (b. abt 1704, County Down, Ireland)
7-great-grandparents – Michael Dickson (b. abt 1682) and Nancy Campbell
8-great-grandparents – Joseph Dickson II (b. abt 1657)
9-great-grandparents – Joseph Dickson I (b. abt 1630)
10-great-grandparents – Simon Dickson (b. abt 1607, England)
It seems like the documentary trail gets fuzzier as you go farther back, but this is at least a good place to start. And while the book identifies the Dickson line, it also identifies many of the grandmothers and even some of their parents and grandparents.
I feel pretty good about the line back to the immigrants. They come from Ireland to Chester County, Pennsylvania and then move down into North Carolina. From there, they head to Tennessee and into Alabama and Mississippi.
Each generation opens up a whole new set of research possibilities.
So, now to start to verify and be confident of all of this new data. Looks like my work may be cut out for me for the next several months or years.
In the last two posts (part 1, part 2), we have established fairly well via the census that John H. Dickson, my great-great-grandfather is the son of David Dickson and Eliza Johnson Dickson.
But, the census is not terribly compelling evidence. In this post, I will share a more compelling circumstantial reason for believing this to be true.
In the family of David and Eliza Dickson, John H. has a hypothetical sister, Mary E. Dickson who is one or two years his senior. To be complete, let’s look at Mary’s family.
Sometime prior to 1854, Mary married Lorenzo Dow Williams from Carthage, Leake County, Mississippi. Other researchers have told me that Lorenzo went away to the Civil War and was killed near Franklin, Tennessee. I have not yet found his service record. The two Lorenzo Dow Williams records I found were for the Union Colored Troops (not him) and for a man from Greene County, Mississippi who was discharged in Fernandia, Florida due to injuries (also not him). However, in any case between the 1860 1 and 1870 2 census, Lorenzo disappears from the census record.
Mary and Lorenzo have four children together:
George Collier Williams, born June 1854, Leake County, Mississippi, died 26 August 1945, Fort Smith, Sebastian County, Arkansas
Mary Catherine Williams, born 1856, Leake County, Mississippi, died 1916 in Arkansas
William David Williams, born 25 Feb 1861, Leake County, Mississippi, died 1 Mary 1928, Senatobia, Tate County, Mississippi
Frances Dow Williams, born 1863, Leake County, Mississippi, died before July 1916
After Lorenzo died, Mary lived with her parents for a time, since she and her children were with them in the 1880 census. In 1876, Mary married again to Andrew J. Gates and they moved to Arkansas. They settled first in Lonoke County 3 and then moved in to Prairie County. 45
Interestingly, John H. Dickson, Mary’s presumed brother, moved to Prairie County, Arkansas around that same time – just prior to 1880 – and lived there (I believe) until his death before 1889. Another researcher has shared that he believed that David Dickson (Mary and John’s father) had a brother who had moved to Prairie County sometime before the Civil War. This would be one of the few close relations outside Mississippi and a good reason for these children to move on to Arkansas.
The clincher to me in connecting John H. Dickson to Mary E. Dickson, and therefore to David and Eliza Dickson was a picture I found in my grandfather, Robert H. Dickson, Jr’s belongings.
George Collier Williams, Robert H. Dickson Sr.
This is a photo of Robert H. Dickson, Sr. (on the right), my great-grandfather who died in 1942 in Fort Smith, Arkansas. With him is a George Williams. The names are in my grandmother’s handwriting. But, my grandfather wrote on this “cousins”. That’s the key I have been looking for.
As I look through all of Robert Dickson’s relations, the only person who could be a cousin, of roughly his age, named George Williams, is George Collier Williams (1854-1945), son of Mary E. Dickson and Lorenzo Dow Williams. The only way for George and Robert to be cousins would be for George’s mother and Robert’s father to be sister and brother, and therefore have the same parents.
So, while this is still circumstantial evidence and not quite bulletproof proof, to me it solves the mystery of who my great-great-great-grandparents on the Dickson line are and points me to a new line of research.
In the next posts in this series, I will start to document Mary and John’s parents, David Dickson and Eliza W. Johnson.
1860 U.S. Federal Census, Leake County, Mississippi, pop. sch., Carthage, Page 67, Dwelling 634, Family 634, L. D. Williams. ↩
1870 U.S. Federal Census, Desoto County, Mississippi, pop. sch., Township 5 R 7, page 52, dwelling 365, family 365, David Dickson. ↩
1880 US Federal Census, Lonoke County, Arkansas, pop. sch., Totten Township, ED 188, Page 6, Dwelling 53, Family 54, Gates, A.J. ↩
1900 US Federal Census, Prairie County, Arkansas, pop. sch., Hickory Plain, ED 74, Page 10, Dwelling 172, Family 172, Gates, Andrew. ↩
1910 US Federal Census, Prairie County, Arkansas, pop. sch., Hickory Plain Township, ED 104, Sheet 9A, Dwelling 158, Family 160, Andrew J Gates. ↩
This is the second in a series where I try to unravel and figure out my Dickson ancestry. I am not necessarily working toward a narrative goal here. I am mostly capturing my research to be sure that I have a sensible understanding of the family.
In the first part, we started with our most recent known facts and started to work backwards. We began with my grandfather, Robert Harrison Dickson, Jr, and traced his family and movements backward.
Eventually, we found him in a family as a child with his parents, Robert Harrison Dickson Sr. and Ethel Garner Dickson. Tracing that family back through the census, we found Robert Sr, as a child in the family of his parents, John H. Dickson and Martha A. Dickson. We stopped at the first census where Robert Sr. appeared – 1880 US Federal Census of Prairie County, Arkansas.
In this post, we will try to round out John H. Dickson’s immediate family a little bit so that we can make some more progress. We will also identify a possible family of origin for him that we will look at more later on.
On the very first day that I ever went to a library to search in the census, back in 1988, in the 1880 census, I found John H. Dickson and his young family in Bridge Bend Township, Prairie County, Arkansas. We identify the family because we find Robert H. Dickson Sr, his brother Cecil, and his sister Minnie in the household. The 1880 census is important because it gives two new pieces of information not found on previous censuses. First, it shows the relationship of a person to the head of household. Second, it shows where a person’s parents were born. Robert, Cecil, and Minnie are listed as children of John, so we know for sure at least who their father is. We are pretty sure of the mother, but the proof is not quite as solid yet. 1
1880 US Federal Census, Bridge Bend Township, Prairie County, Arkansas
This census reports that John H. Dickson was born in Alabama, his father was born in Tennessee, and his mother was born in Virginia. His wife, Martha, reports that she was from Alabama. The two older children (Robert and his brother Cecil) were born in Mississippi and the youngest child (Minnie) was born in Arkansas. The information on the children fits what we already know, so we are confident we are looking at the right family.
The oldest child is 4 years old, indicating a birth in about 1876. If we look for marriage records, we find a record in a database of Mississippi marriages for J.H. Dickson to Martha A. Taylor on 12 Sept 1872 in Desoto County, Mississippi. 2 This fits with where Robert H. Dickson Sr. reported that he was born, so we are fairly certain this is the right marriage. But it also tells us that we will not find the couple together in the 1870 Census. Instead, we will have to look for each of them (John and Martha) as children in homes of thieir parents or else as individuals or else as parts of other families. John’s age indicates that he could have had a previous marriage; Martha’s age indicates that a previous marriage is unlikely for her.
Searching the census for a family where John H. Dickson, born about 1836 in Alabama, perhaps with parents from Tennessee and Virginia, we find one family that is a good fit. In 1870, in Desoto County, Mississippi, we find the family of David Dickson with a number of children. 3 This appears to be our most likely candidate family. In fact, it seems like the only one we find in a census search that comes very close. However it has its own issues that we will need to work through.
1870 US Federal Census, Township 5R7, DeSoto County, Mississippi
In particular, the way the surnames are reported looks a little odd. Typically, when a line or ditto marks are shown, that means that the surname is the same as the one above. If that were the case for this entry, then we would expect this family to be David and Eliza Dickson, Mary E. Williams, John H. Williams and a number of other Williams folks. We might think that John must be Mary’s husband from this or a brother in a different family. So, it’s a confusion that we need to work through. Our initial suspicion is that Mary is in fact Mary Williams, but the ditto marks for the rest of the family refer to Dickson rather than Williams. That would mean that she probably was a daughter who married and is now listed back in this family rather than in her own family. So, we will look further and come back to see if this holds up.
Stepping back one more census, to 1860, we again look for John H. either in his own family, his parents family, or somewhere else. When we look again at David Dickson / Dixon, we find his family, along with John, in Leake County, Mississippi, in the center of the state rather than the north of the state. 4 In this family, David and his wife Eliza and John are all consistent. The children change somewhat, but they appear to be consistent with the later census. John is listed out of order from the rest of the children, presumably because he is old enough to be on his own, so is considered by the census taker separately from minor children.
1860 US Federal Census, Carthage, Leake County, Mississippi
If we take one more step back in the census, to 1850, we find John as a child in the home of David and Eliza again. 5 At this point, they are located in Marengo County, Alabama about 140 miles east of Carthage, their location in 1860.
At this point, it might be valuable to summarize the family across the censuses. The following table shows the individuals in David and Eliza’s household across the census years, along with ages and birth places.
Name
1850 Census
Marengo, Ala.
1860 Census
Leake, Miss.
1870 Census
DeSoto, Miss.
1880 Census
David Dickson
42, Tennessee
52, Tennessee
62, Tennessee
–
Eliza
38, Virginia
48, Virginia
58, Virginia
(in the home of J.F. Pardue, Tate, Miss.)
60, Alabama
Mary
14, Alabama
–
(Mary E.Williams)
35, Alabama
(Mary Gates, in home of A.J. Gates,
Lonoke, Ark.)
44, Alabama
John
12, Alabama
22, Alabama
32, Alabama
(Prairie, Ark.)
44, Alabama
Lucinda
8, Alabama
18, Alabama
–
–
Frances
5, Mississippi
15, Mississippi
25, Mississippi
–
Ann
3, Alabama
(Hester A.)
13, Alabama
(Hester Ann)
22, Alabama
–
William
–
8, Alabama
18, Alabama
(W.A.,
Tate, Miss.)
29, Alabama
Lucy A.
–
5, Alabama
15, Alabama
(L.A. Pardue,
Tate, Miss.)
25, Alabama
As we mentioned before, the 1870 census is interesting in that a large number of young children are listed, all born in Mississippi. These appear to be the children of Mary E. Williams. The oldest is 13 years old and the youngest is 7 years old. This could put some brackets around a possible date for when she and her husband were no longer together and give us a way to search for what happened to him. There is also a 63 year old woman, Lucy Vaugh, born in Virginia in the home. A theory would be that she could be Mary’s older sister. This is worth pursuing.
All of this is pretty good circumstantial evidence that John H. Dickson, my ancestor, is a part of this family. The census isn’t iron-clad proof, though. And I still don’t have anything that says “David is John’s father” or “John is David’s son.” I’m close though.
In the next post, I will share a picture that tied this together, at least to my satisfaction, and can let me move on to the next step.
1880 US Federal Census, Prairie County, Arkansas, pop. sch., Bridge Bend Township, ED 247, page 211, dwelling 218, family 218, John H. Dickson. ↩
Ancestry.com, “Mississippi Marriages, 1776-1935,” database, Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com : accessed 26 May 2012), J.H. Dickson to Martha Taylor, 11 Dec 1872, Desoto County. ↩
1870 U.S. Federal Census, Desoto County, Mississippi, pop. sch., Township 5 R 7, page 52, dwelling 365, family 365, David Dickson. ↩
1860 U.S. Federal Census, Leake County, Mississippi, pop. sch., Carthage post office, page 67, dwelling 426, family 426, David Dixon. ↩
1850 U.S. Federal Census, Marengo County, Alabama, pop. sch., Not stated, page 44, dwelling 304, family 304, David Dickson. ↩
This is the first in a series of “On this day” posts. Today is 1 May 2016. And today, we are going to meet Sallie Vincent Cason, born today in 1857.
I think I have mentioned the Rev. Jeremiah H. Cason and his wife Bettie Cooper Cason before. And I am sure that I will mention them again. They are a big part of my research and of the family stories that were passed down.
Rev. Jeremiah H. Cason, Baptist missionary and preacher, Captain, 41st Alabama Infantry, CSA
Bettie Cooper Cason
Rev. J.H. Cason and his wife Bettie were very early Baptist missionaries to Africa. In September 1856, they and three other missionary couples set out for the Yoruba country, which today is a part of Nigeria. This was one of the very first groups from the Baptist church to go into Africa.
They married 3 July 1856 and spent the summer raising funds for their missionary efforts. They sailed from New York to Africa on a trading vessel, the cheapest and slowest way to get there, and arrived early in January in 1857.
That spring, Jere Cason wrote the following letter to his supervising pastor, Brother Poindexter.
Ijoye, Yoruba, May the 15th 1857
Dear Bro Poindexter
Your kind favor came to hand May 5th. It was a comforting letter and manifested much interest on your part in our mission. We were sorry to learn that Bro Taylor was unwell and hope he has long since been permitted to engage in his duties.
On the 1st day of May we were delighted by the birth of a fine daughter. It grew and
promised well to be raised. On the 12th it died and I followed it to the grave in a small band of Africans. Mrs Cason is doing pretty well and we hope she will be up in a few days.
That little girl was Sallie Vincent Cason, named for Jere’s mother. How sad. But, how matter of fact about things, too. Jere doted on his children and grandchildren. He wrote letters to each grandchild on they day it was born, welcoming that baby to the world. So, you now that he and Bettie were devastated by the death of their daughter. But, they also felt a duty to their call and their mission. I can hardly imagine.
I found this letter through the Baptist Foreign Missions Board archive in Nashville, Tennessee. They sent me copies of all of Jere’s letters. I went to visit them and made copies for myself of the letters from the other missionaries serving with them. It’s such an amazing thing for the archivist to bring a box of letters that are 160 years old, that were mailed back to the US from Yoruba, Africa.
Wrenacres 