William Henry Harrison Dell

Today I made one of the most exciting discoveries that I have ever made in my years of family history research. In my blog last year about the Tale of Two Mothers, I talked about the young man who is buried at Wards Chapel Cemetery with a stone inscribed simply W.H.H. Dell, Co. E, 5th MD Inf. Ever since I first laid eyes on that stone I have wanted to know more about the soldier buried there.

Through my research over the years I had surmised that his name was William Henry Harrison Dell, and that he was the son of Nicholas and Barbara Dell, but I had never been able to prove it. I had located his Civil War service records and learned that he had been wounded at Antietam and had died 3 months later of disease, but there were very few details in the records.

About a year ago I learned that William Henry Harrison's mother had applied for a widow's pension. I knew from experience that Civil War pension files can be loaded with information. However, those files are kept at the National Archives in Washington. I added a trip to Washington to my genealogy "to do" list, but I knew it might be months or years before I could arrange a trip there.

A few days ago I got an e-mail from Ancestry.com about a special offer. Another genealogy website called Fold3 was offering an annual membership to Ancestry members for just $39.95 a year. Fold3 specializes in military records, and the price was right, so I signed up today.

After I signed up with Fold3 I went to their home page to see what they had to offer. They claimed to have Civil War pension files, so I decided to check it out. The database was searchable by state, then Arm of Service, then Regiment, then company.

I worked my way through the links to Company E and waited for a list of names to come up. When the names appeared I could not believe my eyes. There were only 5 men listed, but the second name on the list was William Henry Harrison Dell!

I followed the link and spent the next hour or more reading the files and getting a snapshot of this young man's life and death. I was able to confirm that his name was William Henry Harrison and that he was in fact the son of Nicholas and Barbara Dell. Before his enlistment he had worked at the Oakland woolen mill and also as a farm hand. He had given most of his wages to his mother for her support, even sending home a large portion of his military pay after he enlisted.

The files also detailed William Henry Harrison's last days. There were affidavits from one of his commanding officers and from the surgeon and doctor who attended him in his final illness. According to the afffidavits, Henry contracted dysentery a few days after the battle of Antietam and was treated by the company surgeon. When his condition worsened he was sent home on furlough, under the care of his local doctor. It was at his home that he died on December 23, 1862.

I am so thankful to have finally had the opportunity to "meet" William Henry Harrison Dell, to get a glimpse at his character and to honor the sacrifice he made. His death must have been a tragic loss, especially to his mother, but it is a comfort to learn that he died at home and not in some hospital far away from his family and friends.

Hot on the Trail

I've been out of the loop for a while, due to wedding planning, Christmas, extra hours at work, etc. A few weeks ago, though, I got back to researching my family history. In my last blog, over a year ago, I was talking about my two great-great-great-grandmothers, Barbara Barnhart Dell and Susannah Tilghman Parker. When I got back to my research this month I decided to concentrate on my Dell and Parker ancestry. I hope to write a book about the Dells and Parkers, focusing on these two women and their strangely parallel lives, and I had a lot of gaps to fill in.

Over the past few years I've done a lot of research in old newspapers. I keep a log of interesting things I come across that I might want to follow up on. Unfortunately I'm not as good about the following up part. So one of the first things I did this month was to go through my log and start following up on some of the leads.

As I was going through my notebook I came across a reference to two articles that looked particularly promising. The articles were from 1821 and 1826, and both mentioned an insolvent debtor named Zebadiah Parker.

The 1826 article was a notice by S. Barry, sheriff of Baltimore County, regarding some land belonging to Zebadiah and William Parker. The sheriff had seized the property and was going to offer it for sale at public auction the following month. The property was described as "about 18 miles from Baltimore, and near the 'Deer Park Road.'" This was very interesting to me, because my Dell and Parker relations lived very close to Deer Park Road, and I had never been able to locate any land records for Zebadiah Parker. I was pretty sure this was the same Zebadiah Parker who was married to Susannah Tilghman Parker, but I wasn't sure how to proceed from there.

The first thing I did was to search the Baltimore County land records around 1826, hoping to find a record of the sale. I was able to find a deed transferring the property from Standish Barry to Jesse Bennett, but I still didn't know how Zebadiah Parker came to own the property.

A few days later I had the inspiration to look through the administration index for Baltimore County for that time period. With a common name like Parker, I didn't really have much hope of finding anything conclusive, especially since the earlier records for Baltimore County include Baltimore City as well. However, I hit the jackpot. I located an administration in 1824 for a William Parker. The administratrix was Rachel Parker.

When I saw that name, it rang a bell. Years before I had found a Rachel Parker in the census on the same page as Zebadiah Parker. I had wondered then if she might be his mother, but had never been able to prove it. Another clue that I might be on the right track was the names listed under "securities": Edward and Eli Triplett. I knew the Tripletts lived in the same area as my Dell and Parker relations, and several of them had married into the family. Further research on Edward Triplett revealed that he married Elizabeth Parker in October 1817 (2 years before Zebadiah Parker and Susannah Tilghman were married).

I am now pretty sure that Zebadiah Parker was the son of William and Rachel Parker. The land that was being sold in 1826 was originally deeded to William Parker in 1779, and it was his property up until his death about 1824. William's estate was settled in 1826, just a few days after his land was sold at public auction. There were no heirs listed in the Administration Account, probably because there were more debts than assets. I think it is likely that William Parker and Elizabeth Parker Triplett were also children of William and Rachel Parker. I hope to eventually find the court records detailing the Parker insolvency case. With any luck they will confirm my suspicions about Zebadiah Parker's ancestry.