Presidential Connection

I started reading Jimmy Carter's latest book this week. I had requested a digital copy about a month ago from our local Library, before he announced he had cancer.

I had never read any of his other books so when I heard him announce his cancer fight live in a press conference, while driving across the State a couple weeks ago I was even more interested in reading it.

In the first chapter he talks about his family history and how the Church of Later Day Saints had given him a book about his ancestors back when he was President. His son has since become interested in genealogy and has traced the family tree in more depth. 

I have to admit Jimmy Carter was and is my favorite of all the Presidents I've known about first hand.

This reminded me that I found a family connection to his mother a number of years ago. Bessie Lillian Gordy Carter, who the press called "Miss Lillian" was the first cousin of the wife of my first cousin, 2x removed.

Eleanor Gordy married Carl William Bahrt in 1926, the son of my Great Aunt, Luddie Garner Bahrt. Eleanor was born in Columbus, Georgia and Carl was born in St. Petersburg, Florida. They met when he went to college at Georgia Tech. They ended up in Galveston, Texas where he worked as an Engineer. They died within a month of each other in 1989.

The 1925 Georgia Tech yearbook has this bio for Carl: 

"Carlos has succeeded in making an ideal college life for himself. A happy medium between hard study and the social side of life. Consequently he has developed into an efficient engineer and a dog with the women."

I wonder if that last trait would show up in our DNA match.

Gone a Hundred Years

Today is the 100th anniversary of my grandmothers' death. It is kind of strange to think that your grandmother has been dead for 100 years.

Obviously I never met her and my Dad was only three years old when she died.

Seth Rowell family

Ila L Rowell was born in 1885 in the Shady Grove community of Taylor County Florida and died August 24, 1915 in Perry, Florida. She was only 28 years old and apparently died from a heart problem.


This Rowell family picture was taken about 1900 and shows her standing on the far left at age 15. Her mother Martha Jane Williams Rowell is standing next to her and her father Seth David Rowell is sitting on the far right. Her grandmother, Versanoy Smith Rowell is sitting next to her father.

She married Millard Fillmore Green in January 8, 1905 and had her fist son, Alton a year later. She had four more sons over the next 10 years.

Ila Rowell Green

On the 1910 census it showed she also had one daughter who had died.

Most of the Rowells I've met have red or light colored hair but all her photos look like her hair was dark. My oldest sister was named after her but didn't inherit the dark hair.

A transcript of the Perry newspaper article is below.

The Taylor County Herald
August 1915


Death of Mrs. Ila Green


The many friends and even neighbors of Mrs. Ila Green were shocked Tuesday about noon to learn that she was dead. She had been in better health than usual during the past few weeks, but Tuesday morning was complaining some, nothing to cause alarm, and her body was found about 12 o'clock, still warm, but lifeless. Heart failure is given as the cause.

Ila Rowell Green Grave Marker

Mr. Green was away from home at the time of her death, being the county census enumerator, but was reached during the day and came home at once, and the shock was almost unbearable to him.


Mrs. Green was 28 years of age and a devout Christian. She was a member of the Baptist church and her life work demonstrated that she was truly consistent with her belief. Mr. and Mrs. Green had been married ten years and five boys, the youngest less than a year old, are left motherless, while no words can express the loss to this husband and companion.


The funeral took place Wednesday morning in the City Cemetery, Rev. J. A. Kirtley having charge of the ceremonies. Many friends attended the burial service thereby expressing their appreciation of the life work of this good woman.

Ila Green was buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery in Perry, Florida. The first family member in a large plot my grandfather bought. He was the last one buried there in 1973.

Her grave marker had deteriorated so much my grandfather had it replaced shortly before he died with a marble column.

Stay Away From the Big City

Thomas Fulford was the brother of my great great grandfather. He was one of those people who I only learned of because they were listed on one of the census records.

When you do family history research there are a lot of these folks. They show up on a census or bible record as being in the family but then you don't know what happened to them. When the next census was done, ten years later, they aren't listed. I probably have hundreds or thousands of these people in my records.

Thomas Fulford was the youngest son in the family of Col. Thomas and Susan Fulford and was born in 1840. On the 1850 and 1860 census he was living with the family in the Straits area of Carteret County, North Carolina and then he disappeared.

In my records I just showed that he died sometime after 1860 but had no other information about him. With the Civil War just after that, I assumed he had enlisted and died or just moved away by the time the 1870 census came out.

Recently I obtained some family estate records from the period and one of them was a $20 promissory note to Ralph Martin signed by Thomas Fulford on September 18, 1860 in New York City.

Promissory Note

The note was very unusual and I had no information about him or other family members living in New York and wasn't sure why this would be in the family records. I decided to check Census and City directories in New York for him.

He was not and there was only one Fulford listed who had been born in North Carolina, a distant cousin Captain William Hawkins Fulford. Captain W. H. Fulford was a Sea Captain who operated out of New York and sailed literally around the world many times in the 1860-1870s.

I had newspaper records of him regularly delivering cargo to Carteret County, North Carolina around this same time and wondered if Thomas Fulford had hired on as a member of his crew and that is how he ended up in New York. It was certainly possible since they were close to the same age and Capt. Fulford's father and siblings lived in the area.

So if Thomas Fulford was living in New York in September 1860, what happened to him?

I started checking the death records which were available online and found a listing for a Thomas Fulford on October 11, 1860. It didn't have any details other than a name and date so I contacted the City of New York to see if they had death certificates from this period.

I was surprised to receive the ledger below, which shows the Thomas Fulford who died October 11th was born in North Carolina and 21 years old, which matched my great uncle.  

Then I noticed the second page and cause of death listed as Confluent Smallpox. It wasn't unusual for Sailors to contract Smallpox while traveling to other countries and then bring it back to port towns. Philadelphia had a Smallpox epidemic in 1860 and New York had over 2,000 cases even though effective vaccines had been available for over 40 years.

New York City Death Certificates October 1860

Confluent Smallpox was one of the more severe forms of the disease where the blisters form over the entire surface of the skin and the fatality rate was double that of the ordinary type. It was a gruesome and painful way to die. The death certificate shows Thomas died at a hospital but does not say which one.

He was buried in the Trinity Church Cemetery. In the family records I found a receipt to Griffin Titus for the funeral and grave marker. The total cost was $66.00 and $21.25 was for a grave marker.

Funeral bill

I decided to try and locate his grave. Trinity Church Cemetery is an old one and they have tours for tourists to show the graves of famous people, such as Astors, Audubons and former NYC Mayor Koch who are buried there.

I found a New York City Historian and newspaper columnist who wrote about Trinity Cemetery and he was kind enough to respond to my email. I asked if there were records to identify the location of old graves. He had a copy of a book published in 1931 "Gravestone Inscriptions of Trinity Cemetery, New York City, New York," that listed all the legible markers.

There was one for Thomas and the marker was shown in the "Parish Ground" of the Eastern Division of the Trinity Church Uptown Cemetery.

Book excerpt

The cemetery office has an archivist who checked the area. He said he could not locate a marker but from the description in their records he gave the location as "behind the Church of Intercession near the tree stump altar."

There are thousands of graves in the cemetery and I don't know if I will ever get there to check myself but plan to try.

Finding Miss Mittie

My uncle Julian died three years ago and I did some research on his family. This turned up several questions that just recently were answered.

The family knew Julian's father, even though he died before Julian married my aunt, but didn't know anything about his father's parents. Julian's father was born when his father was very old so Julian never met his grandparents.

Julian Fraser Riddick

Julian's father, Julian Washington Riddick  was born in 1892 in Jackson County Florida and died in 1960 at the VA Hospital in Pinellas County Florida.

On the 1900 census I found him and his father, Julian Fraser Riddick, living in Grassy Point, Washington County Florida but there was no sign of a mother or the many siblings that I knew he had. His father was 55 years old at the time and listed as a Widowed School Teacher. The next record I found for his father was his death in 1903 at the Old Confederate Soldier's Home in Jacksonville, Florida.

There were three generations of Julian Riddicks so it's a little confusing but the first one was born in 1845 in Suffolk City, Virginia. He enlisted in Company A, Virginia 16th Infantry Regiment on April 17, 1862 at age 16. He was discharged the next year as a Private. The Confederate Government passed a Conscript Act then excluding those under age 18.

When he died in Jacksonville his death certificate was completed with information given by Elizabeth Winfrey Reddick from Greer, Florida who he married in 1872 and had been listed as his wife on the 1880 census. She even filed for a Civil War Pension as his widow in 1917.

So where was this Elizabeth in 1900? I finally found her and four children on the census but she listed herself as a widow three years before Julian Fraser died. Elizabeth eventually ended up in Manatee County Florida with several children, the same town as Julian and his father. When she died in 1925 she was buried in the Manasota Cemetery, where Julian's father was buried in 1960.

I figured there had to be a divorce as many times women would list themselves as a widow after their marriage broke up, out of convenience. I couldn't find a divorce record as those weren't being reported to Tallahassee at the time but found a marriage record for a J Reddick and Mittie Harrison dated November 26, 1888 in Jackson County Florida. I wasn't sure if this was Julian as there were many Riddicks in the area.

Another family member told me they heard Julian and Elizabeth broke up. He wasn't sure if they divorced, but he thought Julian married again and had several children with the 2nd wife. So was this Mittie Harrison the 2nd wife, and if so, where was she on the 1900 census and why wasn't she listed on the death certificate instead of Elizabeth?

The Dothan Eagle October 28, 1931

I found a Mittie Jane Harrison listed in Holmes County Florida, near Jackson and also found a record of her 2nd marriage on January 4, 1905 to James Newton Gay in Jackson County. It didn't take long after that to find records of her on subsequent censuses, her husband's death in 1917 and her death in 1931.

The unusual thing about her death is that it was reported on the front page of the Dothan, Alabama newspaper as a result of a terrible truck accident. She was killed instantly when her step-son lost control, after being hit by another vehicle and his truck turned over several times.

Julian's family knew he had a uncle named Grady Reddick, who was younger than his father but I couldn't find Grady or Mittie on the 1900 census. He wasn't living with his father and wasn't living with Elizabeth. I figured he was with Mittie but even now I can't find them on that census.

I decided to obtain Grady's death certificate from 1960 to see what it said about his parents. Thankfully, his wife knew more about the family than the rest of us and she listed his parents as Julian Riddick and Mittie. So this became the proof needed that Mittie Harrison was the grandmother rather than Elizabeth.

Julian Fraser Riddick had eleven children born between the two wives and the youngest, daughter Anna Verra grew up with Elizabeth, the first wife. So there are still some questions that I will have to save for another day.

Henry's Design Flaw

Augusta Franklin Wilson was my grandmother's brother. He was born on March 5, 1904 in Oneco, Florida and died at age 18 on January 18, 1923.

Manatee River Journal Jan 25, 1923

His father had a farm in Oneco, where he grew tomatoes other row crops. Manatee County Florida is still a major producer of tomatoes.


Frank was killed when his Dad's new Fordson tractor turned over on top of him. I have heard this story for years but only this week found a newspaper account of the event.


This is from the Manatee River Journal, dated January 25, 1923. Gasoline powered farm tractors had to be unusual in 1923, especially on small farms in rural parts of Florida.


Henry Ford only started selling the Fordson tractor in 1917. Like the Model T it soon took over the market from the smaller companies who had been there before.

Augusta Franklin Wilson

The Fordson tractor is recognizable in photos because it had a unusually large radiator on the front. This helped keep the 20 hp engine from overheating but also because the tractor had a reputation for the front end rearing up. The extra weight was supposed to prevent the type of accident that killed Frank.


Obviously they still had work to do on fixing the problem. If they had ambulances at the time, I'm sure some Ambulance Chaser would have sued Ford for negligence.


Frank was buried in the Major Adams Cemetery next to his younger brother Freddie who had died thirteen years earlier.

The Era G

Dinah and her dog Nicky aboard the Era G

I have looked at this picture many times and but recently noticed the name of the boat and realized what it meant.

The "Era G" was a boat owned by my uncle Alton Green in the late 1950s to mid 1960s. We have some old home movies from trips to visit him and show us riding in the boat.

Alton was living in Jacksonville, Florida at the time and on his 5th marriage.

We called her Aunt Dinah but I didn't find out until a year or so ago that her given name was Era.

Dinah and Alton

Era Dinah Dorough was born in 1903 in Tallassee, Alabama and died in 1998 in Catawba County, North Carolina. She and Alton were married twice and divorced twice. Neither one ever had any children.

When she died Dinah was living with her sister Rubye's family because she had been sick. When Alton died in 1976, he had been living with my Dad after he came down with cancer. Both Dinah and Alton are buried next to their sibling.

Spy School

I have a couple nephews who dreamed of being a Spy when they were younger, maybe they still do. It made it easy to find birthday and Christmas presents they would appreciate for several years.

I wrote a story a while back about a distant cousin, Emeline Pigott, who was a famous Confederate Spy in North Carolina.

I found this receipt in the estate file for my ggg grandfather, Thomas Fulford. It shows his daughter Susan was going to a school, taught by the future Confederate Spy in 1858.

Susan Fulford was born on August 15, 1850 to Thomas and Susannah Whitehurst Fulford in Carteret County, North Carolina. her brother David was my gg grandfather. Her father died when she was four so her oldest brother was her legal guardian until she married and had to keep receipts like this of the expenses he paid.

Susan Fulford married Russel Willis on January 16, 1873 and they had nine children. She died September 29, 1924, living in the Marshallberg community, after falling and breaking her hip. This was five years after her former teacher. Susan and her husband are buried in the Victoria Cemetery.

Grandfather's Champion Oak

Nathan Adams was my gggg grandfather. In genealogy speak, that is my fourth great grandfather. His great granddaughter, Sallie Adams, was my great grandmother.

Nathan Adam's Will -1820

Nathan Adams lived on the bank of the Newport River in Carteret County, North Carolina. I have been researching the family for a while, trying to find out what happened to his grandson, William H. Adams, who was Sallie's father.

Nathan Adams was born in 1760 in Carteret County and lived in what is now Morehead City. During the Revolutionary War he served at Fort Hancock on Cape Lookout in Captain Tillman's Company.

He first acquired land in 1783 when he leased 32 acres from his wife's step father Absalom Shepard. He continued to acquire land for farming and owned over 600 acres when he died.

All of it was near the Newport river and on Bogue Sound. He wrote his will on September 9, 1820 and it distributed his personal property and a Beaufort, NC town lot among his wife and seven daughters. In 1819 he had divided his farm and plantation house among his four sons.

When Nathan Adams died in 1830 he was buried in the family cemetery on the river. There is no marker for him now but at one time there were a number of wooden markers on the older graves. During the Depression, the WPA sent workers out to compile census records of graves in cemeteries. They did a census of Carteret County cemeteries in 1937 but missed this one, no doubt because it was small and on private property.

Nathan Adam's Will - 1820

Nathan Adam's oldest son Elijah Adams (1788-1854) was the father of William H. Adams and received  half of a 50 acre plot on the Newport river which was split with his brother Jesse.

William H. Adams was shown living with his father Elijah up through the 1850 census in the Bogue Sound area and after he died with his mother in the newly incorporated Carolina City, North Carolina. On October 4, 1868 he married Hope Jane Foreman and they were shown living in Newport on the 1870 census.

William H Adams doesn't appear on the 1880 census and his wife Hope is listed as a widow. She remarried a couple years later to Samuel Garner and moved to Perico Island in Manatee County, Florida. I assume William Adams died before 1880 in Newport but haven't found any records to prove it.

I was looking for him in the the Carteret County Wills and Probate records recently, page by page, since there is no index, and came across information about his grandfather Nathan and his land holdings. In checking the location of the properties I found that 175 years after he died he was recognized for having a Champion Live Oak tree on his farm.

Nathan Adam's Oak

In 2005 a local conservation group, the Carteret County Tree Awareness Group started a campaign to locate and identify the Champion Live Oak tree for the county.  They publicized the effort in the newspaper and TV and had over 50 trees nominated. The group then went out to look at all the trees, measured and estimated ages.

The winning tree, determined to be the largest and oldest was found on the former property of Nathan Adams, in the middle of the Adams Family Farm Cemetery.The cemetery is located on Crab Point Loop in Morehead City, North Carolina. At the time of the award a gggg granddaughter of Nathan Adams still owned the land around the cemetery.

The tree is estimated to be 310 years old with a date of planting in 1705. It is located very close to the bluff of the Newport River and it has survived an estimated 100 hurricanes over the last 300 years.  

The Champion Live Oak for North Carolina is located in Airlie Gardens in Wilmington, NC. It is estimated to be 470 years old.

Wild Ponies of Shackleford Banks

Sheckleford Banks

My wife and I have been to the Outer Banks of North Carolina several times on vacation and also for me to visit some dead relatives in the area.

One of the unique places is the Shackelford Banks, a barrier island just offshore from Beaufort, North Carolina. It is currently populated only by wild ponies.

The original owner of the property was John Shackleford who acquired it in 1713. The Island was always sparsely populated, mostly by fisherman who lived there to be closer to the fish. The last community, Diamond City, was disbanded in 1902.

My Fulford family ancestors owned land on the coast facing the Island.

Thomas Fulford grave marker

The story of the ponies on Shackleford Banks is that they can be traced to Spanish explorers who somehow got off the ships as they passed the coast and swam to shore.

I don't know how they got there but there have been wild ponies on the Island for several centuries.

In the 1800s folks from the mainland would hold round ups to collect horses, they could then use on their farms and plantations.

I found this inventory record in the estate file of my gg grandfather Colonel Thomas Fulford.

Thomas Fulford died on April 20, 1854 and is buried in the Fulford cemetery on Piper Lane in Gloucester, NC.

NC Estate Files - Thomas Fulford

Stephen F. Fulford, his oldest son, was handling the estate and acting as guardian to three minor siblings. He had to provide regular accounting of expenses and inventories of assets.

One of the items he listed in May 1861 was three ponies on the Core Banks, valued at $526.93.

Thomas Fulford's estate inventory listed him as the owner of a 200 acre tract of land on Shackleford Banks.

Summer Vacation Post Card

Like many folks in the South in the 1970s, my grandpa Green had a picture of Martin Luther King on his living room wall. His actually had been there for several more years than those that were sold after the 1968 murder in Memphis.

I have often thought about the photo and just recently came across it in a box that contained old letters, rental house journals and other papers. When he died in 1973 I guess my Dad packed them all up and they stayed out of sight until my sister found them a couple years ago.

This week as I was reading the old letters I found the photo. It supposedly was taken in 1957 and shows MLK sitting next to several men who were supposed to be members of the Communist Party in America,


The post card was produced by the "American Opinion" organization in Belmont, Massachusetts. It is known today as the John Birch Society.

I'm not sure how my grandpa got it because as far as I know there wasn't a local branch of the John Birch Society in Perry, Florida. He read the news and undoubtedly saw it advertised somewhere and sent off  for it, or one of his friends gave it to him.

Looking at this card today and especially considering he had it up on his wall for five years after King was murdered it would be easy to criticize him. When you consider he was born 15 years after the end of the Civil War and both his parents lost family members in the war, I can at least understand how he came to have such deep opinions about integration. I have other family members who feel the same way and don't have an excuse for it.

Abner W. Berry was born in Texas and died in June 1987 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina at the age of 85, after suffering a stroke. He had been a community organizer for the Communist party in Harlem in 1934.

Aubrey W. Williams was born in Alabama and died on March 15, 1965 of stomach cancer, in Washington, DC. He had worked for the WPA during the New Deal and later became head of the Southern Conference Education Fund. In the 1950s he became a target of the Senate Subcommittee on Internal Security investigating Communist Party membership.

Myles Horton was born in Savannah, Tennessee and died in January 19, 1990 at the age of 84. He founded the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee in 1932. The post card calls it a Training School for Communist.

The school did serve as a training ground in a way. Rosa Parks visited it shortly before her decision to refuse to give up her seat on the bus. She credited the school for giving her courage. The school was integrated which was illegal when it was started in Tennessee.

Horton was also investigated by the Senate for Communist Party affiliation and denied being a member. One of his friends, a communist organizer, testified before the Senate that Horton was not a member but agreed to have a communist party member work at the school to recruit the students for membership. The school was shut down in February 1960 by the Tennessee Supreme Court based on the fact that integrated classes were still a violation of State law.

Trolling the Colonel

Sometimes you find really strange stuff about your family in the newspapers.

Captain Carl William Bahrt was a distant relative by marriage. His son Carl William Jr. married Luddie Garner in 1903. She was the sister of my great grandmother, Sallie Adams Fulford.

Manatee River Journal November 21, 1889

Capt. Bahrt has an unusual story that I still haven't figured out. I've been doing research on him, assisting his grandson and great granddaughter, trying to sort out some of the family stories to determine which ones are true.

I came across this newspaper clipping from the Manatee River Journal dated November 21, 1889 and was again amazed at the things you find over a hundred years later. I'm sure no living relative had ever seen it or heard of his chicken raising exploits.

It tells that he had a chicken with four wings. It was actually published two months after Capt. Bahrt died, which tells you something about the competency of the newspaper editors.

At the time they wrote they story, he was living in Manatee County Florida in a community called Fogartyville, that is now only a historic marker. He had retired as the Captain of a two masted Sloop, based in Fogartyville, he used to carry cargo and passengers across the Gulf of Mexico and as far as New York City.

In 1895 he was appointed the Lighthouse Keeper at Mullet Key in Tampa Bay with an annual salary of $550. He was also the Federal Quarantine Officer for the area,which was actually a pretty important job, inspecting ships as they came into port to make sure the passengers and crew did not have any disease. Yellow Fever was a regular visitor to the area, usually brought in via a ship.

So when I googled four winged chickens to find out how rare this was I discovered there is a story circulating that Colonel Sanders and his folks have been trying to create mutated chickens with not only four wings but four legs.

Something about the popularity and high prices of the football viewing staple of hot wings.

He Could See the Music

I've found some old newspaper articles that mentioned my grandmother Edith's first cousin, William Jasper Wilson. I had never heard of him which is understandable since the Wilson family was so large.


My great grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Wilson had at least 24 siblings so keeping up with the next generation is pretty daunting.

Tampa Tribune Sept 10, 1916

The first newspaper article from 1916 mentioned he was visiting his sister, Mattie Wilson Kight in Cortez, Florida. Two of his sisters had married Fishermen in Cortez.


This was eight years before my grandmother left the farm to marry a fisherman and moved there herself. The article called him the "blind pianist."


William Jasper Wilson was born on January 24, 1884 in Dade City, Florida, the first child of Jasper Peter and Georgia Catherine Tate Wilson. The family moved to Oneco, Florida in Manatee County in the late 1890s.

Manatee River Journal - January 18, 1917

His father's farm was pretty close to his brother Ben's and several other Wilson relatives.


On the 1910 Census Willie Wilson was listed as a Piano and Organ Tuner. Since he was living at home on the farm, I assume he had already gone blind. If he was able he would have been helping on the farm like his brothers.


I found several other articles that mentioned him playing music at parties and other events in Oneco and Bradenton.


My great uncle Walt told me his father Ben Wilson left the Baptist church because the preacher accused him of dancing at a party in Oneco. He denied dancing and was pretty straight lace according to Walt, so was probably telling the truth. I wonder if he was just listening to his nephew play the piano.

WWI Draft Registration

When Willie filled out his WWI draft card on September 12, 1918 he was shown as blind and his occupation as Piano Tuner.


Two years later, on the 1920 Census, still living at home, he was listed as a Musician,

Tampa Tribune Sept 10, 1929

My uncle Alton Green made a living as a full time Musician for a while during this same time in Sarasota, Florida just a few miles from Oneco. He played the trombone in swing bands so I don't know if he ever met Willie Wilson. Sarasota was still part of Manatee County for the 1920 census and didn't become a separate county until the next year.


I don't know how much success Willie had in his music career. He was almost always called the blind piano player in the paper so he must have been well known.


He died fairly young, on September 8, 1929 and was buried in the Braden River Cemetery next to his father who had died a few months earlier and his mother, who died in 1906.

Braden River Cemetery

They Were Expendable

This was the name of a book and a John Wayne movie from 1945. I don't remember seeing the movie or reading the book before, but did pick up the book this week to check it out. That was after I found out it told a story that involved a distant relative.

William Henry "Sonny" Posey was the first cousin of the wife of my 2nd cousin. He was born in 1920 in Cortez, Florida to William George and Ruth Richards Posey. His father was a commercial fisherman in Cortez so Sonny grew up on the water.

Guadalupe AO-32 with PT Sq 3 boats aboard

In 1938 he joined the Navy and was trained as a cook. He volunteered for duty aboard a 77 foot Patrol Torpedo Boat and was in the Philippians when Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941.

A couple months later as part of Patrol Torpedo Squadron Three he helped rescue General Douglas MacArthur and the top US Military officers from the invading Japanese. From what I can determine looking at crew lists, Sonny was the cook on PT boat 41, the flagship of the Squadron, which was commanded by Lt John Bulkeley.



PT Squadron Three arrived in Manila in September 1941 aboard the USS Guadalupe. There were six boats in the squadron and they transported them from the US lashed to the deck of the Guadalupe. At the time there were only 29 PT boats in the entire US Navy.

When they arrived they found all their fuel supplies had been sabotaged. There was both water and rust in the gas. Someone had also dissolved wax into the barrels so that it clogged the engine gas filters. There was no other 100 octane gasoline available so they had to use the contaminated fuel. They would regularly have to stop and clean the filters after an hours run. The wax coated the gas tank on the boats with a half inch of congealed wax.

PT Boat 41

They took part in a number of rescue and minor conflicts with the Japanese for several months before they received orders to pick up MacArthur, his family, top military brass and the President of the Philippines and transport them over 560 miles of open ocean that was controlled by the Japanese Navy. Two of the PT boats had been destroyed so there were only four available for the mission.

MacArthur was originally supposed to be evacuated aboard a US Submarine but there were too many Japanese ships in the area to risk bringing in a Sub.

The PT boats were smaller and could maneuver easier but also weren't able to put up much of a defense if discovered by the Jap Navy. They decision was MacArthur had a better chance of getting through on the PT boat.

Lt Bulkeley's Action report

The plan was for MacArthur to board PT 41 at dusk on March 11, 1942 and it would take the lead. If the convoy was discovered by the Japanese, the other boats, with other military brass were to act as decoys so PT 41 with the General aboard could get away.

The boats left Manila Bay on schedule but started having various mechanical problems as well as rough seas and high winds and they got separated. One of the boats broke down and another had to stop mid way to clean the clogged gas filters. Most of the passengers, including MacArthur were overcome with sea sickness.

PT 41 arrived at Cagayan on time the morning of March 13th but then had to wait several hours for the B-17 transport to arrive. The other boats and passengers arrived late but made it.

Four B-17s were part of the evacuation plan. One crashed on take off, two crashed into the Australian desert on the trip over and the one that made it had engine problems so MacArthur wouldn't chance flying on it. He and his entourage would not get off the island until March 18, 1942.

As he left MacArthur made a promise not as famous as his "I shall return." He told Bulkeley "If possible when I get to Melbourne I will get you and your key men out."

A biography of MacArthur, "American Caesar" recounting the trip mentions MacArthur's young son playing with a monkey owned by the cook of PT 41 while they were waiting to be picked up by the B-17s. Sonny Posey had named his pet monkey "General Tojo." According to the book "They Were Expendable," the cook on a PT Boat was also responsible for supervising the boat motors, manning a machine gun along with cooking on an electric hot plate.

On March 19 1942 PT 41, the only one still operational went back to pick up President Manual Quezon of the Philippines to evacuate him to Cagayan.

St Petersburg Times - July 4 1942

After the second transport they patched up the boats as best they could and tried to engage and harass the Japanese ships in the area. The crews remained together but eventually ran out of spare parts as well as torpedoes and ammunition.

By April 12, 1942 they had to abandon the boats and PT 41, the only one still operational was transferred to the US Army. The Army planned to take PT 41 to Lake Lano and use it to patrol and prevent Japanese float planes from landing on the lake. The trucks taking it to the lake never made it and since the Japanese were getting too close the boat was blown up to keep it out of their hands.

On April 13, 1942 General MacArthur sent a B 17 back for Lt. Bulkeley and another one later for the other four officers.

83 officers and crew members originally started the mission across Manila Bay. Five officers were evacuated out and five men had been killed in the patrols. The others were left on the islands to fend for themselves as were all the other US military and civilians. Several found passage on passing US ships or patrols.

Nineteen were known to have joined other US military left behind as Guerrilla forces on Mindanano. Many of these survived and were rescued when Allied forces took back the Philippines several years later.

Thirty eight of the crew, including William Henry Posey were captured by the Japanese and held as POWs. Officially Posey is listed as MIA with a date of death on December 17, 1945. That would seem to indicate the date he went MIA as December 1944.

Another member of PT Squadron Three, Earnest Earl Pierson is also listed as MIA with the same date of death. Pierson was born in Michigan and grew up in Indiana. His parents moved to Aripeka in Pasco County Florida after he enlisted in the Navy.

Bulkeley receives Medal of Honor from President Roosevelt

Eight of the crew members who were taken as POWs are known to have died in captivity. Nine who joined the Guerrilla forces on the islands are known to have died also. Forty six crew members survived, either taken out with Bulkeley or the other transports or surviving as POWs or part of  the Guerrilla force.

When Lt. Bulkeley arrived home he received the Medal of Honor from President Roosevelt  and MacArthur's praise, who said; "You have taken me out of the jaws of death. I shall never forget it". 

Comforting Words

 My wife's great grandfather, Benjamin Franklin Longacre was quoted in the newspaper 108 years ago. I would assume he was paid by the local drug store for his testimonial.

Abilene Semi Weekly Farm Reporter July 31, 1907

At the time he was a 35 year old farmer in Myrkle, Texas with six children at home.



I hope he actually got the relief reported in the paper but probably just as useful was whatever compensation he received for talking about the unnatural secretions.

In case you are interested in trying them, you can still buy Doan's Kidney Pills today.


I am tempted to add his review to those on Amazon and see what kind of feedback he gets.

Take Him Down 15th Street

I was stuck in Wilmington, North Carolina last month for two days during an unusual Spring snow. My flight home was cancelled because of ice in Charlotte and I couldn't find another flight. I decided to check out some local family connections. I met with a distant relative of my wife's who I've corresponded with for over ten years and then decided to visit some dead relatives.

My great grandfather's brother lived in Wilmington and I had wondered if he had any children. One problem doing genealogy research on long deceased distant relatives is you often have to depend on the census and other public records to recreate their family.

Samuel Harker Fulford was born on the Straits of Carteret County North Carolina on May 31, 1875 to David and Mary Catherine Fulford. He was one of the youngest in the family and his older brothers and sisters moved to Manatee County Florida in the mid 1880s. He was too young to join them so he stayed home and eventually moved to Wilmington where he became a policeman.

Samuel Fulford House

He was married twice. The first time on July 17, 1907 to Virginia Piner, a local girl from Carteret County. She died less than four months later from Typhoid fever.

He moved to Wilmington after this and met Louise Stedman King and they were married within a couple years. I found them on the census records but none listed any children. One relative of Louise told me she had at least one miscarriage but didn't think they had a child survive.

Being a policeman, I found a number of newspaper articles that mention Samuel Fulford in the local papers but only his obituary mentioned his family. It said he left wife, nieces and nephews but no mention of children. The local historical society has recognized two of his houses in their historic district.

The last house he owned was at 209 South 15th Street. It is listed as The Fulford House in the historic district and was shown as his residence in his obituary. He died on September 25, 1962 at age 87, eight months after his brother Marvin, so he was the last of the 10 Fulford children.Both he and Marvin made it past 85, more than 10 year older than any of their siblings.

Samuel and Louise Fulford

Samuel was buried in the Oakdale Cemetery at 520 North 15th Street in Wilmington. There are two old cemeteries in Wilmington, almost next door to each other.

I drove downtown to visit his grave the first day I was in Wilmington and arrived at 5:10 pm only to find the cemetery office had closed at 5. Normally this is not a problem and since I had a map and the plot number I figured I could go to the grave anyway. No, for this cemetery, they close and padlock all the gates at 5 pm! I don't think I've ever seen a cemetery you couldn't visit after hours. It was interesting that the cemetery next door, which is almost as old didn't have any gates.

Since I couldn't find his grave, I drove to his house and then realized it was only a few blocks down 15th Street from the cemetery. The old neighborhood has mostly small frame houses and his is one of the largest and only brick houses.

William King plot

The next day I was still in town with nothing to do, so I went back on my way to the airport and found his grave. It was literally in sight of the locked gates that had stopped me the day before.

The cemetery plot was owned by his wife's father William King. It has her parents and several other King relatives but no sign of any children for Samuel and Louise.

Louise died in 1967 and I'm pretty sure I was the only Fulford relative who has been to their grave in 50 years.