Today I get to share another breakthrough with you and update part of a post from December 2015. In that post, I described a "brick wall" I ran into when searching for Minerva Callin (b. 1836), daughter of George and Polly Ann (Lewis) Callin, the main couple from Uncle George and the Underground Railroad.
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| Minerva Callin (1834-1895) |
Here is what the Callin Family History had to say about her:
Record of Minerva Callin Smith, who was the eldest daughter of George Callin, who was 2nd son of John Callin, 2nd son of James 1st.
Born in 1836.
Married to John Smith.
To this union four children were born:
Frank; died.
Flora.
Willie.
Helen; died.
And here is what I was able to confirm in our original post:
There is a record in the 1860 Federal Census for a family that fits this limited information rather well. They were listed in the village of Harrison, Winnebago county, Illinois. The head of the household is a blacksmith (aptly named) John N. Smith, age 28, born in Ohio. His 26 year old wife, Minerva, and 4 year old son, Frank, were also born in Ohio; 3 year old William J and 1 year old Hellen A were born in Illinois.
Thanks to the detailed enlistment records kept by Illinois, we know that John enlisted in the 74th Regiment of the Illinois Infantry, Company A, in September of 1862. That record confirms his name and middle initial, his occupation, and his 1860 residence, and it describes him as being 5'6", with black eyes, black hair, and a "dark" complexion. He mustered out of the unit in Nashville in 1865.
After that, though, my investigation petered out, and I said, "The name 'Smith' is far too common, even when paired with the other details we have, to zero in on the clues we would need to say anything more certain about Minerva and her family."
I always tell you that I'm happy to correct any errors I might make, and the universe seems happy to provide an endless stream of opportunities for me to prove that! So, here is what I have learned.
Further digging brought me to two Find-A-Grave memorials (now successfully merged) for a John N. Smith, born in March 1830 in Ohio, and died 29 July 1867 in Harrison, Winnebago County, Illinois. He is buried in Phillips Cemetery, Winnebago County. There were two un-sourced bio's which mentioned his wife, one giving her maiden name as "Minerva Keller." That is very close to the way Minerva's name appears on their marriage record:
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Ohio, County Marriage Records, 1774-1993 |
Since the pioneer Callin family did not have a high literacy rate until Minerva's male cousins began attending school in the years leading up to the Civil War, I am not surprised to see the name mispelled - in that record, it looks like "Kellon" or even "Kallon" to me, and I don't think anyone involved in making that record, other than the clerk himself, was likely schooled enough in letters to correct him.
The Find-A-Grave bio also said that Minerva remarried a "D. A. Robinson" and moved to Iowa, which gave me some clues to work with. (Look for "Robinson" families with children named "Smith," in other words.) And while none of the evidence I have found is complete or solid enough to give me 100% confidence, here is the rest of Minerva's story, as best as I can tell it.
After the death of her first husband, Minerva was left with five children to raise, the eldest being 11 at the time. (Mary, born about 1866, was not listed in the CFH.) Minerva Smith married Dana A. Robinson (b. 1818) on 14 February 1870 in Winnebago County, Illinois, and moved with children into the home of Dana's parents, Austin and Ann, in Burlington, Coffey County, Kansas. They appeared there on the 1870 Census; also in the household were Adalade (spelled "Adala" on the record) Robinson, age 24, who was likely Dana's daughter from his first marriage, and a farm hand named Henry Clay (no, not THAT Henry Clay) who would later marry Adalade.
Dana and Minerva had two children, a daughter called Lark (born in December 1870) and a son named Frederick (born in 1872). However, their marriage did not survive through the decade, and by 1880 Minerva was remarried and living with her third husband, William Daggett IV (1823–1901) in Silver Creek, Cowley County, Kansas. Their household in 1880 included three of William's sons, Flora Smith (age 18), Mary Smith (age 14), and Frederick Robinson (age 8).
At some point, probably after Frederick was old enough to be independent, William and Minerva moved out to California, where they engaged in at least one real estate transaction in Redondo Beach in 1895.
Not long after that June real estate transfer, Minerva's name appeared in the California, Death and Burial Records from Select Counties, 1873-1987 as having died on 3 September in Fresno County. The following July, another newspaper item tells us that William returned from California to take up residence in Cowley County, Kansas, with his son, George.
William died on 9 April 1901 and is buried in Wilmot Cemetery in Cowley County, Kansas. I have yet to find a record of Minerva's resting place.
As I said, I'm not 100% confident in all of this; the records I would expect to find to confirm pieces of this story are either not available online, or are not turning up in the searches I run (possibly because names and birth dates are recorded differently from what I would expect to see). Add the fact that there are hints of family strife here, with divorces and moves, remarriages and mis-reported names, and I can't be certain that I have the whole story.
But, to give as full an accounting as possible of the descendants of James Callin, here is what little I know about all of Minerva's children.
Children of Minerva and John N Smith:
I. Franklin Smith (born 1856) appears on the 1860 and 1870 Census records described above. Both records agree that he was born about 1856 in Ohio. That places him in Huron County, Ohio, Winnebago County, Illinois, and Coffey County, Kansas, respectively.There are at least three distinct men named "Frank Smith" who appear in the 1880 Census with the same approximate birth dates/place, none of whom quite match our Frank Smith. If the CFH is correct that he died before 1911, that still gives us four decades (from 1870 to 1910) in which we might find him. The search continues.
II. William J "Willie" Smith (born 1857) also appears in the same 1860 and 1870 records as his brother, Frank. Willie was born in Illinois according to both, and the CFH suggests he was still alive in 1911. As with his brother, the search goes on.
III. Helen A Smith (born 1859) only appears in the 1860 Census, and the CFH record indicates that she died, so it is possible that she died before her father, or at least before Minerva remarried. No record to confirm this has been found.
IV. Flora C. Smith (born 1862) appears on the 1870 and 1880 Census, in her mother's Kansas households. Both records agree on her age, putting her birth date about 1862, but the earlier record lists her place of birth as Ohio, and the later in Illinois.
V. Mary A. Smith (born 1866) appears in the same 1870 and 1880 records as Flora, though both records agree she was born in Illinois.
Both Flora and Mary are named as minors in the 23 May 1880 edition of the Winfield Daily Courant, when Minerva filed her annual claim of guardianship over them both.
With the possible exception of Helen, who may have died before her tenth birthday (thus not appearing with the rest of her family in 1870), any or all of these Smith children may have married and produced numerous progeny. If they did, they may have married in Kansas, followed their mother and step-father to California, or departed for parts unknown.
Children of Minerva and Dana A Robinson:
VI. Laura "Lark" Robinson (1870–1954) was born on 15 December 1870 in Gridley, Coffey County, Kansas. She married Jeremiah Luther Cook (1843–1919) in 1891, and when she died on 1 December 1954 in Independence, Jackson County, Missouri, according to the Kansas City Times, she left behind 89 descendants.We'll revisit Lark's family in more detail next week.
VII. Frederick Robinson (born 1872) only appears in one record: the 1880 Census. As I said with his half-siblings, the search continues. Unfortunately for us, there are big gaps in the online records between 1880 and 1900, and few clues to identify which of the hundreds of Fred Robinsons we are looking for.
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As always, if you've found one or more of your relatives mentioned in this blog, please get in touch. You might imagine I am especially eager to find someone who can help me connect the dots with the missing Smith and Robinson children.
You can comment below (anonymous comments are usually not as helpful), or email "mightieracorns" at Gmail.com.
We now have more ways to reach out:
a Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/MightierAcorns/
a Twitter feed - https://twitter.com/MightierAcorns
a Ko-Fi cup - https://ko-fi.com/mightieracorns
...and if you prefer a private group, we still have the Callin Family History group on Facebook for "cousins only" (there will be a question about how you're related to the family before you can join).
Until next time.... Happy Hunting!
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