Aunt Polley

Mary "Polley" Hogan was an aunt of mine, but a long way back. I'm not even sure how far back. She was either the sister of my great great grandfather James Henderson Hogan or the sister of his father, James Hogan.

She was born about 1829 in Stewart County Georgia shows up on the census as of 1850. She is just listed with the Hogan family so it is impossible to know if she was a sister or aunt. Later she was living with James Henderson Hogan's sister Rebecca Hogan Purvis.

In fact she lived with Rebecca and her grown children for the rest of her life. On the census records she was listed as either Mary or Polley, as the Aunt of the householder.

Polley died 111 years ago today, on April 24, 1900 in Webster County Georgia. She was buried in the Poplar Springs Baptist Church cemetery near Preston, Georgia. I was sent a very poor photocopy of her picture about 15 years ago and then two years ago another Hogan researcher sent me an original.

Major Adams

Major Alden Joseph Adams was quite a colorful character in the history of Manatee County Florida. He has a cemetery named for him, due to donating the land. It was because of the cemetery that I discovered he was a relative.

My great grandparents, Benjamin and Ida Wilson are buried in Major Adams Cemetery and I have been there a couple times. I took photos of many of the graves and put them online at findagrave. I recognized a couple of the names on the markers but didn't see any relatives other than those I already knew about.

Major Adams was born in 1843 and received his rank after enlisting in the 44th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment on August 29, 1862. He served during the Civil War as a clerk, never in combat. He is listed in the military records as being discharged as a private, but somehow, I guess because he claimed family connections to two US Presidents also named Adams, he was called Major after the war. It didn't hurt that he was on he winning side.

After the war he became a writer and traveled to Europe doing stories for newspapers. Adams is better known for his land development than his military career. He bought a 400 acre plot on the Manatee River in south Florida in 1876 and started to build his home there. Well he went

a little beyond the scope of a home or anything folks in the area had ever seen before. His Villa Zanza or Adams Castle as some called it had 16 rooms, three stories and was made of concrete, He finished it around 1882 and then bought thousands of additional acres in the area. Adams collected wild and exotic animals and raised horses long before middle Florida ever dreamed of having a Derby winner.He built a citrus grove that was reported to have over 8000 trees.

Major Adams became senile in his old age and was committed to the mental ward of the DeSoto Sanatorium in Jacksonville, Florida where he died in 1915.

The family connection? His second wife Maude M. Davis was the daughter of Charles Luke Davis who was a third cousin and Mary C. Bishop who was a 4th cousin. Both the Davis and Bishop family came from Carteret County North Carolina.

Googled again

Google has put more old newspapers online. The search feature isn't perfect because not all the articles are indexed. I'm not sure how it works, you can find some articles by searching for keywords but the article in the next column on the same page may not show up in the search.

In any event, if you know the date of an event you can browse the newspapers by year, month and day and then read the issues that has the article you are looking for. They don't have every issue of the papers but it looks like they have 50-60% of them.

To see which newspapers and locations are available start with this page.

I have found a number of articles about family members, going back to the 1920-30s. You can't print or save the image but you can read the article and if you want, transcribe it or save the link.

A Baker's Dozen

For many years I thought my great grandparents on the Green side had 12 children.

My grandfather Millard Fillmore Green was the oldest child of the twelve, or at least that is what I had been told all my life. It wasn't until I looked at the actual family bible owned by his parents a few years ago that I realized there were thirteen children and he had an older sister.

She wasn't listed on the birth register of the bible. I was given a photocopy of those pages listing births and deaths 15 years ago and transcribed it for my genealogy records.

My cousin Hubert Horne let me take the bible and scan all the pages that had writing on them and that is when I realized her mother listed Elizabeth on a separate page under the title family history.

Granted she didn't live long, but Elizabeth Green was born April 5, 1879, (132 years ago today) almost nine months to the day after her parents were married, July 4, 1878. She died the next day and the only memory of her was the entry her mother made in the bible. Younger brother Millard was born 11 months later on May 15, 1880.

Children of ANDREW GREEN and REBECCA HOGAN are:

i. ELIZABETH GREEN, b. April 05, 1879, Perry, FL; d. April 06, 1879, Perry, FL.

ii. MILLARD FILLMORE GREEN, b. May 16, 1880, Perry, Florida; d. July 08, 1973, Perry, FL

iii. JOHN HENDERSON GREEN, b. January 01, 1882, Perry, FL; d. June 13, 1918, Perry, FL

iv. ELVERTON NAPOLEON GREEN, b. March 04, 1884, Perry, FL; d. October 28, 1934, Cortez, Manatee County FL

v. LUTHER DANIEL GREEN, b. February 07, 1886, Perry, FL; d. July 04, 1886, Perry, FL

vi. ARTHUR SYLVESTER GREEN b. June 02, 1887, Shady Grove, Taylor County FL; d. October 22, 1937, Gainesville, Alachua County FL

vii. FLORENCE LEONA GREEN, b. November 27, 1890, Perry, FL; d. October 1965, Bradenton, FL

viii. MARIAN EQUILLA GREEN, b. February 22, 1891, Perry, FL; d. March 12, 1895, Perry, FL

ix. KATHLEEN ELMIRA GREEN, b. November 06, 1892, Perry, FL; d. July 08, 1986, Bradenton, FL

x. JAMES EUGENE GREEN, b. May 22, 1895, Perry, FL; d. November 17, 1899, Perry, FL

xi. LYDIA IRENE GREEN, b. March 13, 1899, Perry, F; d. August 28, 1999, Bradenton, FL

xii. EVA LAVINIA GREEN, b. December 24, 1901, Perry, FL ,d. August 14, 1990, Bradenton, FL

xiii. SARAH EVELYN GREEN, b. April 19, 1903, Perry, FL; d. September 16, 1989, Bradenton, FL

10 years

Today marks the 10 year anniversary of my Dad's death.

I wrote an account of the last night a year later; what happened with the family around him and his passing. I've shared it with my siblings but it is still too raw to post here.

That was the first time I had seen a person die, unfortunately though not the last.

Next Friday, April 1st would have been his 99th birthday. He shared the same birthday as my oldest niece.

To think that he would be almost a hundred is amazing. I remember him much younger, I guess just like when I look in the mirror I see a much younger me than the age on the driver's license.

MIA no longer

I wrote about my great great uncle, William Burgess Fulford a while back. He was born in 1843 and served in the CSA during the Civil War. He enlisted in the 2nd North Carolina Infantry on June 3, 1861 was wounded at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863. He was captured and held as a POW at Point Lookout Maryland for two years. My wife and I visited Point Lookout last year while on vacation. It is amazing William Fulford survived two years there.

He later ended up in Hillsborough County Florida where I found him on the 1910 census. I have never been able to find anything about him from the end of the Civil War until he showed up on that 1910 census, listed as a sewing machine machinist. The census said he was a widower but I don't know if he ever had any children.

I lost him after that 1910 census and now only by accident have found out what happened to him.

A member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans from Jacksonville, FL wrote me recently about the memorial I put online for his brother Stephen Fulford. They wanted me to add his military service record which I did. They are documenting the place of final rest for as many CSA vets as they can find.

Looking at the Jacksonville SCV web page I noticed a grave listing for William Burgest Fulford. My great uncle's name had been misspelled with a T at the end of some military records so I looked further at the information they had and discovered it was the same person. Burgess is a family name, he signed his civil war pension with it and so I know it is the correct way to spell his middle name.

I also located a December 25, 1924 death certificate for W.B. Fulford in Duval County Florida records showing his last residence was the Old Confederate Soldiers Home. It had his correct identification, place of birth and date of death.

I then found him on the 1920 census in Jacksonville, although the name was spelled Folfore.

The Old Confederate Soldiers Home was a seven room house that cared for about 10-12 aging veterans. It closed in 1938 with the death of the last CW vet. I am trying to determine if the patient records were saved when it closed.

I would like to find additional information about William Burgess Fulford to clear up what happened during all those missing years. He was buried in the Old City Cemetery in Jacksonville, Florida but they again got his name wrong on the marker.

Almanacs

In the few papers and things kept from my Grandpa Green's stuff were four copies of annual Almanacs.

He had the 1947 and 1963 editions of The Ladies Birthday Almanac along with the 1958 and 1973 edition of the Grier's Almanac.

I can remember him having the Almanac hanging from the living room wall. Each of these have remnants of string that he had tied around a nail.

He had a large garden and used the Almanac to choose the best days for doing things with different crops. I'm not sure why he kept these particular issues, other than the last one which was the year he died.

The older ones are so brittle the pages fall apart if you turn them.

I found a couple notes he made in them. The 1947 book has a note on an AD for "Black Drought" a laxative for the whole family! He wrote "M.F. Keep - Laxative."

On the cover of the 1973 Almanac he had three notes; highlighting page 33 which listed the predicted Dog Days of summer, page 24 which had the best days for planting crops and page 19 which just says "Sex."

It was an AD for the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Sex. Not bad for a 93 year old man!