Hazel Lou, Lee, and Eleanor

This is an old photo from the family albums that my sister brought me. When I volunteered to take them, I was thinking it was just a few albums, but it turned out to be two boxes of albums, photos and books. I plan to examine them gradually.

This is a photo of my mother as a child on vacation in Colorado, visiting her cousin’s family. My mom is the child on the right. She’s on a lower step which makes her look much shorter than her cousin, who was only three years older.

On the back of the photo is a description.

“Lee, Eleanor and Hazel Lou in the doorway of Summit-Lake shelter house. I left my coat in the car, so Lee gave me his when I needed one!”

Lee is Hazel Lou’s father and his full name was Lucius Edwin Humphrey. He was a newspaper editor in Denver. He married my mother’s aunt in 1916.

 

I looked up Summit Lake and found that it is the only Denver Mountain Park in the alpine zone and is a great place to see mountain goats.

Grata Hemingway Morton

This photograph of Grata Morton was among the items my Aunt Clarice gave me some years ago. Grata was my dad's grandmother on his mother's side.

Genealogy information on the internet gives her birthdate as 21-February-1857. Although this photo looks like it could be fairly modern, it is from before my time, for she died in 1944.

Grata's maiden name was Hemingway and sources say she was descended from Ralph Hemenway who came to Massachusetts from England in or before 1633. He apparently came as an indentured servant and later did well and became a landowner. (Spelling was rather optional in those days but in our branch of the family, the name became Hemingway.)

Among the numerous other descendants of Ralph Hemenway are Presidents Taft and Nixon and famed writer Ernest Hemingway.

I can't be sure my internet sources will remain standing so I'm putting these notes here. The Ralph Hemenway genealogy is available as a book.

P.S. This is blog post #6,400! I've been blogging since June of 2005.

Sharing with Tuesday Treasures.

Christian Newcomer Church

Toms Brook, Virginia

Architecture is interesting to me, and I keep an eye out for buildings to photograph for this blog. While driving home yesterday I saw this church in Toms Brook. When I pulled over to take a picture, I was shocked to see that this church was named for Christian Newcomer, a very distant relative of mine! I've passed this church many times without reading the sign!

Christian Newcomer was a brother of my gggg-grandfather Henry Newcomer. I posted a picture of Christian Newcomer's grave in December 2013 along with a summary of his life. He was the third Bishop of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ. You can read about him on Wikipedia or GAMEO.

Although a sign on the church identifies it as a Methodist church, a plaque tells us that is was originally Evangelical United Brethren and was first built in 1879 and rebuilt in 1915.

Sharing with InSpired Sunday

Christ Church, Shepherdstown

This church on East German Street was founded in 1747 but the brick building we see here does not date back that far. According the church's website, the original church was a log building.  The oldest part of the present structure is the stone tower that supports the steeple. It faces the cemetery instead of the street. 

A plaque on the cemetery wall names "Revolutionary War Soldiers and Patriots" who were buried here. Their surnames (for those who are searching for their West Virginia ancestors) are Cookus, Haines, Haynes, Hensel, Hoffman, Schell, Seever, Staley, Walforth and Yeasley.

Across the street is another cemetery. A sign tells us it is the Lutheran Graveyard dating as far back as 1774. 

The Lutheran Cemetery also has a plaque listing "Revolutionary War Soldiers and Patriots" as named by the NSDAR. Surnames are Estler, Foulks, Link, Ronemous, and Sheetz. 

Angels, Rose Hill Cemetery

We visited this cemetery in Hagerstown some time ago. I was looking for the grave of my ancestor George Hammer but learned that his grave is unmarked. He died in 1853 and was originally buried in a church cemetery. Later the church expanded and moved many graves to Rose Hill, including those of George and his wife Catharine. For some reason, their markers were buried. The cemetery office has a record of the approximate location. We wandered that area and found some markers for members of the Newcomer family, who are distantly related.

I posted his portrait in 2013.

Sharing with Tuesday Treasures.

Five Randoms for Friday, March 11

For Willy Nilly Friday and More

1. Tomorrow is Genealogy Day so I scanned in two really old photos from a falling-apart old album that belonged to my grandparents. Here we see my mother's mother, perhaps in the 1930's.  The next picture shows my grandfather in a swimming outfit.

My grandparents separated during World War II, first as a necessity because my grandfather served in the Navy, and afterwards for their personal reasons. They never divorced but many years later my grandfather remarried after her death.

2. There have been a number of residents in our area reporting their credit card numbers have been stolen, even though they still have the cards. It is likely that they are victims of "skimming" at a payment machine, although it is also possible that someone read their number remotely with an electronic device. I just moved my credit cards to an RFID-shielded wallet in hopes that this will add some protection.

3. Here's a snapshot I took in Strasburg at dusk. I was waiting in the car while Frank was in a store.

4.  Mersad challenges us to post a photo from "Inside My Favorite Place" for the My Town Shootout linkup. My favorite places are outdoors, so I'm bending the rules. Here I am in Shenandoah National Park, definitely one of my favorite places. Frank took this picture.

5. Photo Friday's theme this week is Wilderness. I'm using Shenandoah National Park for that one too.  Skyline Drive runs the length of the park, but once you walk a few hundred yards from the road, you find yourself in wilderness.

View from an Overlook in October

On the Appalachian Trail

Skyline Drive in the Clouds

From Great-Grandmother's Scrapbook: A Hero of Andersonville

Great-grandmother Hammer kept detailed scrapbooks and recently my sister gave me one. I glanced through it and found a newspaper clipping that relates to Memorial Day because the holiday has origins in events that honored soldiers who died in the American Civil War.

I don't know why my great-grandmother put this clipping from 1910 in her scrapbook. I do know that she remembered the Civil War because she had mentioned it in her diaries, and her first husband had served in the Union Army.

Hero of Andersonville Pen Dies: Made Secret Records

---

Dorance Atwater, Who Gave U.S. Government True List of Prisoners Who Died, Succumbs in the West

[Here Dorance is spelled differently than it is in Wikipedia, which spells it Dorence.]

Excerpt:
"Mr. Atwater was taken prisoner in February, 1864, and sent to Andersonville prison, where he was detailed as clerk to make a record for the prison of the deaths among the federal prisoners. Mr. Atwater made a duplicate of the list given the prison authorities, keeping it from their knowledge. His list contained 13,000 names."

I looked up Atwater's story on Wikipedia and it is fascinating. He not only smuggled his list out of Andersonville, he later spirited it out of Washington in order to work with Clara Barton to mark graves at Andersonville.

More Scenes In the Brethren Cemetery

Beaver Creek, Maryland

Here we see the marker for John Witmer (Sr.), father of Elizabeth (Eliza) Witmer who married John Hammer. Elizabeth and John moved from Maryland to Illinois. One of their sons was D. H. Hammer, Senior, whose son was my grandfather.

John Witmer lived from December 1773 to August 1858. He died at age 84, which seems oddly common in my family.

In the second photo, Witmer's grave is on the far right. According to notes I inherited from my grandfather, John Witmer served in the War of 1812.

The final tombstone in this series is of John Funk, who was not one of my ancestors, although he married a Newcomer so I suppose he was a distant relative.  He is said to have built the large mill on Beaver Creek between 1811 and 1821 to replace a wood gristmill that had collapsed. Later he sold it to the Doub brothers, after whom the mill is currently named.

Funk lived to be 89. I've noticed before that old tombstones show that plenty of people lived to a ripe old age.

I began this series of cemetery pictures with a photo of the fine Victorian entrance gate to the cemetery, so I'll conclude with the same gate as seen when we left. The sun was low in the sky and temperatures were dropping so I didn't even find markers for all of my ancestors who are said to be buried there. Perhaps another day...

Heinrich Neukomer

Beaver Creek Cemetery, Maryland

We found the grave of my ancestor Henry Newcomer marked with his birth name Heinrich Neukomer. During his lifetime the name was Anglicized, at least in written records at the time of the American Revolution. Sometimes the name is spelled Nuekommets or Neukommet. He lived 50 years, from December 1744 to May 1795.

I did not locate the grave of his wife Barbara Garber Newcomer, although it may well be the one next to his. The years since her death in 1818 have obscured the engraving on that marker. She was 71. Sometimes her maiden name is spelled Garver or Gerber.

Earlier Posts:

• Henry Newcomer, Tory
• Historic Beaver Creek

Link: Newcomer-Genealogy.com

Christian Newcomer, Circuit Rider

A marker in the Beaver Creek Cemetery commemorates Bishop Christian Newcomer, who lived from 1749 to 1830. He was a brother of my gggg-grandfather Henry Newcomer, born in 1744. Sons of Wolfgang Newcomer and Elizabeth Maudelin Weber, the brothers were born in Pennsylvania and moved to Maryland.

Brother Christian was the third Bishop of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ.

Christian kept a journal and in his later years he edited it for publication with the assistance of Rev. John Hildt. It's called The Life and Journal of the Rev'd Christian Newcomer, Late Bishop of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ and can be found online in several formats. (See the PDF here — it's full of names and places in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.)

Let's take a closer look at the plaque.

"Christian Newcomer, Pioneer Minister, Compiler of a biographical journal, and Bishop of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, traveled over the Allegheny Mountains 48 times by horseback organizing and administering the work of the Church.

Presented by Pennsylvania Conference, Evangelical United Brethren Church.
1955"

Link: A Bishop Who Organized His United Brethren 1749-1830

Entering Beaver Creek Cemetery

Beaver Creek, Maryland

The cemetery gate faces Beaver Creek Road next to the Brethren Church.

I took the second picture inside the cemetery. The gate would be near the right side of the picture. The warm colors of sunshine belie the fact that temperatures were falling and a cold wind was blowing.

I imagine the Witmer marker is for a distant cousin of mine because my great great grandmother Eliza Witmer was from Beaver Creek. She married John Hammer and they moved to Illinois in 1838.

Link: Skywatch Friday

Downtown Beaver Creek

A Fine Barn

"Homeplace, 1791"

Some of my ancestors lived in the small town of Beaver Creek, Maryland. It's not far from the West Virginia state line.

I love the sturdy old limestone buildings! They look strong enough to provide shelter from any storm.

See my Beaver Creek posts.

See Doub's Mill Historic District on the National Register

Return to Doub's Mill

When we visited Beaver Creek in June, I filled out a request to be notified when the mill's Open House would be held. A couple of weeks ago I received a postcard telling of the Quilt Show/ Open House scheduled for Sunday, November 24. Unfortunately my sister and my daughters could not go, but Frank and I went and I was glad we did.

Beautiful quilts and some other items by various artisans were displayed inside the mill, which has been converted to an incredible residence by the owners.

In the living room there are windows looking down into the millrace, where water still flows!

I have an interest in this property because some of my ancestors lived and worked here, not in this building which was built later (in 1812) but in earlier buildings no doubt built of similar stones. I wrote about these ancestors, the Newcomers, in earlier posts.

I would not have known about this mill if I had not found the Doub's Mill website on the internet. It's a remarkable place and less than 90 minutes from my home.

The Oldest House in Chesapeake, Ohio

Home of Jacob and Margaret Suiter 180 Years Ago

I would not have recognized this home built by my ancestors had it not been for Joann Loete of the Suiter Family Association. She had visited the house 18 years ago and had recently shared a photo of it as it appeared then. It had been altered greatly from the way it looked in 1925. Back then it did not have a stone front.

I did not have an address but I watched for the house as we drove through town on Ohio Route 7. One description I'd read mentioned that it was behind a gas station. And so it was!

We pulled into a parking lot to take a picture of the house. A young woman came out to the mailbox and I asked her if this was the Jacob Suiter house. She said yes, and after I introduced myself as a descendent she offered to show me a book about the house. It was a 3-ring binder with some articles about the home's history.

I took a snapshot of a page showing a submission to the Ohio Historic Inventory that was made in 1976. It describes the house as "Built, 1824, by Jacob Suiter with logs hewn at site. Building stands with wooden pegs."

The form shows that the house was owned by William Black, although since that time he sold it. The young woman whose parents now own the house told me that the local library has information about the house. When I checked there I found that the branch library in Ironton now has the books on Suiter family history.

It was exciting to find this house built by my father's great-great-grandfather! We also made an effort to find the Suiter Family Cemetery in Bradrick and were within walking distance of it when a rainstorm moved in. At that point we drove across the river to our hotel in Barboursville and reached our room just as thunder and lightening started. I was satisfied with having seen the house — thrilled actually!

Earlier Posts:

• Suiter Genealogy
• Lawrence County Suiters
• Jacob Suiter's House in Ohio
• More on Jacob Suiter

By the Banks of the Ohio

I mentioned some time ago that I had ancestors who lived near the Ohio River. I finally got around to going back there, so here we see the river from the West Virginia side (at McClelland Park in Huntington). My g-g-g-g-grandparents lived across the river in Ohio.

And yes, we made it over there! The third picture shows Symmes Creek in the state of Ohio, not far from where my ancestors lived. It flows into the Ohio River not far from this point, which was a boat landing in Chesapeake. As you can see, the creek looked muddy.

Looking for Suiter

My maiden name is Suiter. It's not a common name, so when I accidentally found myself near the town of Suiter, I just had to take some pictures.

The accidental part was finding ourselves on a detour. I had seen the town on a map but decided we did not have time to seek it out because we were already behind schedule. We were heading north on I-77, hours from home and with a couple more hours to go to reach our destination, Breaks Interstate Park. Wanting to reach the park before darkness fell, I did not think it prudent to detour off the interstate and take a winding road over the mountain instead of going through Big Walker Tunnel.

Fate intervened. Frank needed a break from driving and took the first available exit so I could take the wheel. But after I started the car up I saw a sign: Detour to I-77 North. I followed the arrows and soon realized we would not get back on the interstate until after crossing Big Walker Mountain!

Well, okay. Maybe I'd see Suiter after all. My map book showed two towns with similar names in that area. Suitor (with an "O") was shown on the way up the mountain, but we never saw it. I don't think it exists anymore and my map is pretty old. Suiter (with an "E") is on the other side of the mountain, and sure enough we found a sign to it before rejoining the interstate.

Strangely, the town name on the directional sign uses the "O" spelling but the road name uses the "E" spelling. We drove down the road as far as a crossroads but did not have time to continue deep into the forest where the map shows "Suiter" to be. Some folks on a genealogy site say the town is just a couple of houses anyway.

A Community on Suiter Road

The following day I found a book in the park store called Southwest Virginia Crossroads: An Almanac of Place Names and Places to See by Joe Tennis. He gave this history of Suiter:

In 1836, Alex Suiter (Suitor) acquired 1,100 acres of land in the Suiter vicinity along Hunting Camp Creek. Western: VA- 615 at VA-618.

Another source gives the date as 1844 and states that the land grant was for 100 acres. Perhaps that was an addition to his earlier holdings — I don't know.

View from Big Walker Mountain in the direction of Suiter