Paroled

This is the parole record for my gg grandfather James Henderson Hogan. He served in the famed Florida Brigade during the Civil War. He was in all the major battles with the Brigade, twice charging Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg and was at Appomattox Court House when Lee surrendered.

A month later when he got back to Tallahassee, Florida he signed this Parole and Oath of Allegiance and went home to Taylor County Florida. James Hogan was born in 1835 in Stewart County Georgia and died in 1918 in the southern part of Taylor County. He is buried in New Hope Cemetery just off of Highway 19 in Taylor County.

JHH Medal

One of my Hogan cousins who lives in Maine sent me these photos of James Hogan's Woodmen of the World medal. It's over a hundred years old but it looks to be in pretty good condition. He was a County Commissioner in Taylor County Florida and it looks like he wore the medal with the silver metal chain. It has a clip so he could have attached it to his vest, coat or trousers. I guess if you are in politics you need something to attract attention.  

The Woodmen of the World organization was started in 1890 in Omaha, Nebraska as a fraternal organization but basically sold life insurance and annuities to it's members.

On of it's best known benefits was the tombstone it provided if a policyholder died. They did this on any policy sold from 1890 to 1900 and then started charging an extra $100 for the grave markers.

The fist one of these I had seen on a family plot was marking the grave of my wife's great uncle, Stonewall Jackson Glenn (1878-1913) in the Clay County Alabama Sardis Baptist Church Cemetery. 



During our Christmas trip to Florida in 2002 we visited the rural Alabama cemetery to meet some of her Glenn family. I wrote about that experience in an earlier story.  

Stonewall Jackson Glenn

The WOW marker for Stonewall Jackson Glenn stood out, literally from the others which were mostly home made rough stone. WOW discontinued the grave markers during the 1920s.