A Tale of Two Mothers

This is the tale of two mothers: Barbara Barnhart Dell and Susannah Tilghman Parker. These two women, who were the mothers of my great-great-grandparents, are buried side by side in the cemetery of Wards Chapel Methodist Church in Harrisonville, Maryland. It is fitting that they share a final resting place, for their lives were strangely similar and intertwined.

Both women were born in what is now Carroll County, Maryland. Barbara, who was born about 1810, was the daughter of David Barnhart. I have yet to identify Susannah's parents, but she was born about 1790. If the information on their tombstones is correct, both women (especially Susannah) lived very long lives for that time period. Barbara died in 1881 in her 79th year. Susannah died 11 years later, in 1892, in her 101st year!

Both Barbara and Susannah had very large families. Barbara and her husband, Nicholas Dell, had 8 children. Susannah and her husband, Zebedee Parker, had 9 children. Both Barbara and Susannah were widowed. Nicholas Dell died between 1850 and 1860. Zebedee Parker died between 1840 and 1850. Neither Nicholas nor Zebedee are buried with their wives. I have yet to locate a final resting place for either of the husbands.

These two families were joined in 1854 when Barbara's oldest son, Jesse W. Dell, married Susannah's daughter, Susannah Parker. (These were my great-great-grandparents.) Four years later Barbara's daughter, Tobitha Dell, married Susannah's son, Columbus Parker.

Both these women lived out their later years in the homes of their sons. Barbara went to live with Jesse and his family and Susannah lived with Columbus and his family.

This morning I discovered one other thing that these two mothers had in common; something no mother should ever have to go through: the death of a child.

When I first visited the cemetery at Wards Chapel about 10 years ago, I noticed a stone engraved with a shield and this simple epitaph: "W.H.H. Dell / Co. E / 5th MD Inf." Because of the inscription, I suspected this was the grave of a soldier, and I wanted to know more about the person who was buried there. One day, years later, I was doing some research online and came across a photograph of a Civil War era cemetery. In the picture was row after row of identical stones, and each one had that same shield design as the one at Wards Chapel. I knew then that my anonymous soldier had served during the Civil War.

I later discovered that a "Henry Dell" served with the 5th MD Infantry Regiment in Co. E from October 1861 till September 1862. Further research in the service records at the National Archives revealed that "Henry" was wounded in the battle of Antietam on Sept. 17, 1862 (the bloodiest single-day battle in American history). He died three months later on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day of 1862. He had either succumbed to his injuries or had contracted an illness while in the hospital.

Barbara and Nicholas Dell's youngest son was listed in the 1850 census as Harrison Dell. In 1860 he was listed as Wm. H. Dell. This information, along with the name in the Civil War records and the initials on the tombstone, have led me to believe that the young man buried at Wards Chapel was named William Henry Harrison Dell and that he was Barbara's youngest son.

Last night I was trying to fill in some gaps in my Dell family research. I located a death notice for Henry Klausman, who was married to Barbara's youngest daughter Sarah in 1864. The obituary noted that Henry had served in the Union army during the Civil War. I decided to research his war service on Ancestry.com, and I came across a very interesting piece of information. Henry had also served in Co. E of the 5th MD Infantry Regiment!

I made a note of this tidbit, then went on to something else. This morning I was thinking about my discovery, and I had a brainstorm. Susannah Parker's obituary had mentioned that her youngest son, William, had died in the Civil War. If William Henry Dell and Henry Klausman were in the same unit, then perhaps William Parker was as well.

I went back and checked the record, and sure enough there was William Parker. The notation next to his name indicated that William died at the battle of Antietam! So both Barbara and Susannah lost their youngest sons in that fateful battle, one on the battlefield that day and the other in a hospital three months later. What a sad coincidence.

Eureka!

Well, it's been a while but I finally found something new to blog about. After taking a break from genealogy for several months, I recently got back to working on my family history book. For the past week or two I've been researching farm life. The second chapter of my book is about James Hickey's time as a farm laborer on the farm of John Fox (who would later become his father-in-law). I wanted to have an idea of what life was like for James and his future in-laws.

I was able to find quite a bit of information about farming in Maryland in 1850, but I also wanted to know more about the setting of John Fox's farm (the layout of the land, etc.). To do that, I needed to know where the farm was located.

A few years ago I had found an entry from 1843, in the Baltimore County land records, which detailed John's original purchase of over 200 acres. I knew the property was located near Perry Hall, just south of the Gunpowder River. Pinpointing the exact location on a modern map, though, proved quite a challenge.

I knew that John Fox had died in 1872 and that his wife had died five years later in 1877. However, in spite of years of searching, I had never been able to locate a will or any probate records for John.

Two years before his death, he was listed in the census as a farmer with property valued at $8000. If he had been in possession of that much property at his death, there should have been an estate to settle. No such luck, though.

If he didn't have the property when he died, then he must have disposed of it sometime before his death. A thorough search of the land records, though, revealed no such transaction. I tried searching under John's name, his wife's name, even his sons' names. Nothing.

Last night I decided to look back at the original land transaction to see if I could get some new clues. First, though, I decided to look back over some notes written years ago by a distant cousin. She also had done extensive research on the Fox property. I had looked at the notes before and followed up on some leads, but had not found what I was looking for. This time, though, I hit the jackpot. It's like I said in a previous blog: If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

After several hours of backtracking through land records, I came across a deed from April 1872 (two months before John's death) which explained everything. The deed was from H. C. Wysham, trustee, to Emma Renshaw. Since John Fox was neither the grantor nor the grantee in the transaction, his name did not show up in any indexes. However, John and his wife are mentioned in the deed. It seems that John and Mary had a mortgage on the property which was not repaid, so they lost possession of their land, which was being sold to satisfy the debt.

Now that I knew what had become of the property, I still wanted to know where it was located. Since Emma Renshaw was now the owner of the property, I searched for her name in the land record index and came across an entry which showed that she sold the property in 1881. There was a notation in the 1881 deed that the property would thereafter be known as Rockland.

With this new piece of information I tried a Google search for Rockland near Perry Hall, Maryland. Eureka! To my delight, I discovered that Rockland Farm (also known as the Spamer Homestead) is on the Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties. I followed the link on the Maryland Historical Trust website and located a 19-page PDF file about the property. A line in the first paragraph particularly caught my eye: "The 1850 Sidney map denotes the Spamer Homestead as belonging to John Fox." The PDF file contains a history of the property, a USGS map showing its location, and photos of the house which was built in the early 1800's.

If you'd like to take a look at the PDF file, follow this link:
http://www.mdihp.net/dsp_county.cfm?search=county&criteria1=R&criteria2=BA&criteria3=&id=3365&viewer=true