We spent the last year and a half (give or take) since The Montgomery Connection learning everything we could about the Montgomery family, but we still don't know a lot about these last two great uncles. In fact, when it comes to one of them, I feel like I haven't learned much more than what we saw in the biographical sketch about their brother, Theodore:
To these parents were born five children- Mary, now deceased;Sarah, now the wife of Henry Davidson,living in Halsey,Oregon;Theodore, of whom this sketch is concerned; Porter, deceased at Vicksburg, Miss.;and Callen, now interested in the mining business in Coloma, Cal.(from the Fulton County, Indiana Handbook, published by Tombaugh House)
When records can't be found, we have to make some guesses, and today's story starts with a lot of guesses.
Porter Montgomery (b. ca. 1828)
I have determined that Porter was born around 1828, because most biographies (like that attached to Theodore) list children or siblings in order of birth. We know that these two younger Montgomery boys had to be born before their mother's death in 1834, so they were almost certainly born in Richland County. Since we have a pretty good idea when his (we assume) younger brother Cal was born, and since we know how human biology works, 1828 is a good guess for Porter.As for the rest of Porter's story, the line "deceased at Vicksburg, Miss." suggests that he might have died in the Civil War. The Siege of Vicksburg was considered a turning point in the war, taking place in the spring and summer of 1863. Porter would have been about 35 years old, so it's possible that he was there, but I haven't been able to place him there with any certainty. For one thing, there is only one record of a Porter Montgomery in the National Parks Service's Civil War Soldier database, and that person served in the 8th Regiment, Pennsylvania Reserve Infantry (37th Volunteers) - which never saw service south of Virginia.
Also, the Civil War took place from April 1861 through April 1865, so if he was alive during that time, we should expect to see Porter appear somewhere in the 1850 and 1860 Census. Instead, we find no records of a Porter Montgomery who matches our boy in any of the databases.
It's possible that, like his older brother, Theodore, Porter might have served in the Mexican War in the 1840s - and if he died in that war, he would not appear in a later census - but that war wouldn't have placed him in Vicksburg. Of course, he could have gone to Vicksburg for any number of reasons at any other time, and we may have simply not found such a record, yet.
But, as I said, these are all just guesses - at least for Porter.
Callin "Cal" Montgomery (1830–1912)
Cal Montgomery was born in October 1829, according to the 1900 Census - which I have found can be off by a year in either direction as often as it is correct. His other appearances in the census records put his birth "abt 1831," so I suspect the correct birth date is October 1830.(The 1900 Census was the first one to ask for a month and year of birth, but I suspect most census takers asked "how old are you?" and then did the math - which would explain why they would be a year off for people who were born in months after the one during which that census was been taken.)
We do not know much else about Cal's early life. He certainly lived in Rochester after his father remarried and moved there around 1837. Cal was not named as one of the members of his brother's party when Theodore traveled to the gold country around 1849; but Cal would have been 20 at the time, and since there is no 20-year-old Callin Montgomery listed in Rochester on the 1850 Census, it seems likely that he either accompanied his brother's party, or set out on his own soon after.
The earliest record we have for Cal is a "C Montgomery" listed in Coloma, El Dorado County, California, on the 1860 Census: born abt 1831 in Ohio, which most likely means he was born in Richland County, Ohio.
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| 19th century placer miner (Wikipedia) |
Military records suggest that he enlisted in the Union Army, serving in Company F of the 4th Regiment, California Infantry on 16 October 1861. He was stationed at Benicia Barracks in 1863, and he mustered out on 26 August 1864 at Drum Barracks.
After the war, he returned to Coloma, appearing in the 1870 Census as a saloon keeper with a wife, Laura S, age 18. While he gave the same birth date (abt. 1831), he gave his place of birth as Indiana. I'm inclined to think that one census taker probably asked that question as, "where were you born" and the other asked "where are you from" - and Cal would have been about 7 or 8 years old when his father moved the family to Rochester, Indiana.
1870 is the only time we see Cal married. Laura, who was recorded as being "3/4 white" and born in California, does not appear in any other records. By 1880, Cal was listed as single again, living in Gold Hill, El Dorado County, and working as a placer miner.
Numerous voter registration records and occasional mentions in The Record-Union of Sacramento over the years establish Cal as the kind of colorful side character you might see in an old western. He was the ol' prospector who passed word of a generous stranger in Coloma to a Wells Fargo official in Placerville, thus helping authorities solve a stage coach robbery. He was the grubby old timer who dealt with the remains of a Chinese man who was suffering from leprosy and committed suicide, leaving a corpse no one wanted to go near hanging in remote cabin. (Fair warning: that story was written to sell papers, not to pay respects to the dead.)
Cal lived in El Dorado county until he was in his eighties, appearing on the 1910 census at a Pilot Hill address in Greenwood. The California, Death Index, 1905-1939 records his death on 3 October 1912 in Napa County, California. When he died, someone had him buried in Veterans Memorial Grove Cemetery in Yountville, Napa County, and I did find his Find-A-Grave memorial.
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| Callin Montgomery, on Find-A-Grave |
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So there you have it: unless we make another major breakthrough and open up another years' worth of research, I think we have tracked down as many of James Callin's descendants as is currently possible. I've already re-started the process of compiling all of the information in these blog posts into book form, and I expect it will probably take several months (if not a full year) to copy-edit and proofread all of it.
Though I'm not sure quite what to do next, I don't plan on abandoning this blog. I hope to turn my attention to puzzles and problems in other branches of my family, and I'd love to figure out a way to bridge the focus from the very specific "people I'm related" and the very general "here is how to do a genealogy" so this blog can be more useful to more people. I'm open to ideas!
As always, if you've found one or more of your relatives mentioned in this blog, please get in touch. 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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