Reynolds in Maine!

I am exceedingly excited at present because a guy in Maine went to the Green Ridge cemetery for me near Caribou, ME to check out what Reynoldses might be there. He reported that the cemetery might as well be called "Reynolds Cemetery" for the amount of people there with that name. Unfortunately his camera had a serious malfunction so he had to return again at a later time.

Anyway, he was just able to send me the pictures and they are very great indeed. Included in the cemetery are my ancestors Elisha T. Reynolds and wife Adeliza Fuller. Included are most of Elisha's siblings and I think an obelisk for his parents.

But most interestingly enough are three particular stones.

The first says "Everett E. Reynolds" and the symbol of rings "F L T" with the birthdate of 3 Aug 1847 but no death date...

The next stone over is Everett's first wife Grace Melissa Harris Reynolds, saying "Mother" with the dates "1851-1876"

The next stone is their son, Herbert Ellery Reynolds with dates 1870-1886.

Now, this is interesting for many reasons. First, there were no other Reynoldeses in the Caribou/Green Ridge area except my family, so the Everett E. Reynolds in the article my grandma gave me almost certainly must be the same man who is my ancestor. But his stone in this cemetery has no death date-- did someone just not have money for the date, or was he buried elsewhere---- or did he truly disappear completely? The stone of his first wife, though, is part of the evidence I was looking for.

Also interesting is the death year for his son Herbert-- I have in my notes from a Reynolds family book that he died in 1880, but just a week or so ago I had been fiddling with censuses and I found an 1880 census with a boy of that age living with, I think, Everett's parents. No evidence of Verna Luella though (try as I might), who was the only child of Everett's first marriage to make it to adulthood.

Anyways, back from my tangent--- if Herbert was still alive until 1886, why did Everett not take him with when-if he went to Wisconsin? And about Everett's second marriage---- His third child in that marriage, Grace V., was born in 1886. After this time Everett disappears from Wisconsin and might or might not be the man of the newspaper article I have.

I need to find someone in Caribou, Maine who knows about this family, or at the very least about what Green Ridge was, and also if anyone has records for that cemetery. I need to find out if Everett was ever buried there or if he was buried someplace else.

I'm excited because this opens the door to new knowledge while also seeming to prove a couple of theories I had going based on information but I have to be careful to not be too hasty. I only hope that I can somehow find out more information.

Also, I've been working again on the McConnell front since the other day Bob Speckman sent me a link to a site which listed some Jefferson area newspapers in which a "Mrs. McConnel" was listed as dying sometime in November, 1892. I'm on the hunt for this article and it seems there might be someone who may finally be able to tell me definitively about some records for the Hake Cemetery in Jefferson. I'm hoping very much that that pans out since every source I get sends me in a circle back on info I already have and I really just need to find new information!!

Additionally, I spent the past few days up north in Shawano because the lady who currently owns a house my ancestor Collin Mayville lived in with his family, invited me to come help them restore the house. We spent the past couple days pulling old, old wood siding off of the house complete with old square peg handmade nails. That was really neat but also quite a lot of work and quite a lot remains to be done.

In addition, I have been curious about the "F L T" which was on Everett E. Reynolds's grave as well as, I noticed today, on the Mayville family stone up north in Shawano. I just googled to see if I could finally find it (because I think I have some sort of pendant or something that was said to be Collin's which has the F L T on it also) and I found this site: http://www.graveaddiction.com/symbol.html

It explains that F L T is: "A symbol of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a fraternal organization. Stands for Friendship, Love, and Truth."


Another interesting tidbit about Everett E. Reynolds. If he was a member of this society...... ???

Vital Recs visit (Hurley, Christofferson) and McConnell letters

I meant to write since Thursday when I took a tirp to the Vital Recs office but I've been a bit busy, Thursday afterwards being spent with plugging new names into the genealogy and working over all of my usual sources to see if I could find new information.

I didn't research any of my ancestors this time but instead those of my cousin Steph and my uncle Eric. Since Eric's is shorter and disappointing I will tell what I found (or didn't find) on his family-

I looked up Eva Latus/Latue Skolaski to see what I could find of her parents, etc. It provided a father's name of John Latus but no mother. Eva died in 1932 of diabetes.

Next, I finally found George Young's death record. I had started at the beginning of the years and gone through each one to try to find the right George Young, which was challenging because it is English and a common name. In either event, I finally found that he died 22 Mar 1960 of prostrate cancer. In a turn of bad luck, it did not list his parents' names for some reason. I just thought of that I ought to look for an obituary in the Wisconsin State Journal sinc ehe died in the 60s and in Madison he should have an obit... although, probably, if the informant for the death record didn't have his parents' names, the person who put in the obit might not know also. I will have to check.

Another spot of unfortunate luck came when I located August V. Skolaski Sr.'s death record. He died in 1936 and I had been hoping to find the names of his parents. I was unlucky on that respect.

Lastly on Eric's side I looked up Herman Christofferson because I still hadn't found much on that line (isn't it funny on the most important names- the male line dominated lines in my families, its harder to find info? the Mayvilles, Diebolds, everybody-- doesn't go as far as the other more obscure and hidden names). From Herman's death record I found that his parents were Carl Christofferson and Tena Hanson. I tried locating more information about them but was generally unable to. It might take a thorough search of the vital recs office, again, to find anything on these two.


So, now I move on to my cousin Steph's genealogy, of which I found quite a bit to confirm what I had tried to find prior to my visits, and also enough to jog Steph's memory on her family since she remembered very little.

I looked at a bunch of the Hurley family first, starting with Steph's great-grandparents John S. Hurley and Katherine Byrnes. She had provided years of birth and death for them so I was able to find exact dates now. I confirmed a slight guess I'd had that John's parents were Thomas Hurley and Isabel Dockery. In the next week or so I will go to the historical society and check out that couple's death records which I found in the pre-1907 index. This will hopefully provide me more to look for when I try checking into Irish records-- and will hopefully be easier since its not such a common name as my Irish folks (Walsh, Hurst).

I of course found most of these Hurleys then in Wisconsin census and filled out the siblings of Steph's ancestors.

On Katherine Byrnes's death rec I found her parents to be Patrick Byrnes and Bridgett Keenan. Wasn't able to find much of them in the census mostly because of the amount of name variations on Byrnes/Byrns/Burns, but I will keep looking.

Next I checked out Steph's ancestor Paul T. Drescher. It didn't have his wife's name listed to that didn't help much in the way of trying to locate her but apparently she had pre-deceased him. Either way I found his parents to be Gottlieb Drescher and Minnie Kuhnau (although the record was hard to read that last name).

I looked at Steph's grandpa William Ignatius Hurley just to confirm his parents and dates I had. He is buried at Roselawn in Monona.

Lastly I found LaVetta A. Drescher Hurley's death record and found her mother's maiden name to be Marie Brilliott (father Paul Drescher, aforementioned). This is a really pretty surname (Brilliott) of French origin although the family came from Switzerland directly. I'm sure it will trace back to more direct French origins. Because of this unique surname, I found that they were the only family in the United States with that name at all in the census years currently available. They all lived in Sauk Co. Marie's parents were John Brilliott and Caroline Kaufmann. John's parents were the Swiss immigrants, Russ and Mary Agnes Brilliott. I have charted out most of their children as available from census and then online pre-1907 index. Caroline Kaufmann's parents were John and Josephine Kaufmann and I haven't found so very much about them. There are several people researching various Brilliotts (or at least, having one or two familiar characters in their genealogies, so I have been looking into that.



Finally, yesterday I received a letter from somewhere in Perry County, Pennsylvania regarding a letter I had sent quite over a month ago regarding records on Alexander McConnell being born there, in the hopes of tracking down his parents' names.

Well, as I should know by now it is impossible to find anything on this family, and this instance is not any different. The researcher was unable to find his family but there is a family record in their files from when Donald Schwennesen tried to reach them. I hadn't known they had tried to do any research, but it included Donald's letter which had in it much of the information I have already been able to confirm about the family. Unfortunately his letter was from 1979 and he died five years ago. I don't know his children's names or whereabouts otherwise I would write them regarding his researches... although I can't imagine they would be much more fruitful than my own.

In any event the researcher also included a chunk of photocopies out of the "History of York County Pennsylvania," which details the origins of the Hoeck/Hake family-- From their arrival in about 1748/9 to various endeavors throughout the country including, and it mentions this specifically- the group that came to Jefferson Co., WI. The document is rather dense and so will take a couple lookings-at to see if any of the information is viable for further pursuance.

RAOGK; Skolaski, Hurley, etc.

In preparation for my next visit to Vital Recs on Thursday (which was precipitated by my necessity of finding info about the Hurleys for Steph), I have been digging around to see what else I could spend time looking for while there.

Because of this I discovered that I had not yet found information on Frank Skolaski Sr.'s parents (Uncle Eric's family) besides that they were August Skolaski and Eva Latue. So I decided to look through the census and try to find the family in 1900, which I had been unable to do. I was able to find them with a very bad misspelling of the surname and found the approximate birth month & year for his parents. Then I was able to find them in other census years also with ridiculous misspellings and hidden in the households of their children and narrowed down that they lived past 1920. I did a google search on the name "August Skolaski" and since it is a unique name it came back with several hits which had to do exactly with this family. One was an article about August Skolaski's grandson also named August Skolaski who had something to do with the creation of a church somewhere around Madison. There were several other links including one to a genealogy for August & Eva's son John from someone on his wife's side. This gave approximate years of death for August and Eva so I will make sure to start with those years. I will hopefully be able to find the names of their parents, so that will be exciting.

The other day I did a little digging on the Steffen part of my family. Not much, just dealing with Emma Steffen and her husband Robert Posselt and their children.

I also am now a volunteer for Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness (RAOGK) (http://www.raogk.org/). This is mostly because for the past year and now for the next few years I have/will live in close proximity to the Historical Society and therefore will be able to constantly access things that people might not be able to if they live a considerable distance away, so I decided I should finally become a volunteer to put my abilities to some use.

Another reason is because I have used the same site twice.. I haven't gotten responses yet, really, except for the guy who I asked to go to Green Ridge Cemetery for me in Caribou, ME. He should be getting back to me soon with what, if anything, he found there.. and I'm pretty anxious about that-- but actually, very glad I was able to find someone who could go there at all! Of course I very much wish I was able to go there myself and check it out but thats not exactly possible with the current state of finances, etc. so I will have to make do with this.

I got my first request the other day and already fulfilled it. It is interesting being part of other people's genealogy and helping them find information important to their research. That's why most of the time I wish this could be a full time job rather than going to college for random stuff, and who knows if I'll actually end up doing that? But oh well, I suppose.

A little update

I have been digging around on my Uncle Eric Christofferson's side of the family again. Apparently I was previously unable to find the family of Frank Grain in the 1900 census but I finally tracked them down today by searching the first name of "Frank" and narrowing in on Seneca, Wood Co., where I believed they lived at the time. I was successful in finding them with a poor misspelling of their last name ("Gren"), and therefore I found more specific dates for their children including Frances Grain.

I also looked into Frances's sister Mary's husband Henry Tidmarsh, who immigrated from England in 1904. I checked the Ellis Island records and found him very quickly. He immigrated on the Carpathia and I thought this was really interesting, because he came only a year after her maiden voyage, and less than ten years later the Carpathia was involved in scooping Titanic survivors out of the Atlantic. Then, of course, it was sunk in 1918. So there's a cool little bit of history on a distantly related man.

Cousin's Genealogy; slight Reynolds update

Just a quick note to say I've begun slight work on my cousin Steph Diebold's genealogy for her mom's side of the family. So far I haven't had much luck beyond guesswork with some censuses because she didn't have much info to start with. It looks like I will have to make a trip to the Vital Recs office before I can really make any definite progress. There are weird age gaps in the genealogy and then a bunch of them were recent immigrants who seems to have died not long after arriving, so tracing definite familial connections just in the census is not the best plan. In addition, none of them seem to have registered any births, marriages or deaths in the pre-1907 indices, so that is also not very helpful. But, so far she's got some Germans and some Irish. We'll see where it goes.

A small update on my Reynolds paper: I haven't yet heard from the person I wrote a letter to a couple weeks ago, so I tried to think of other ways I might get the information I need from such an obscure area of the country. I remembered that I had seen a site once called Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness and I decided to look up volunteers in Aroostook County. I found a man who is going to check on Green Ridge Cemetery for me. I still hope that I can find a way to get the better copy of that article my grandmother gave me but for right now chances seem slim. I will have to do some more digging around to see what other places I might be able to write to in order to find this article. Hopefully someplace will have it.

Everett Reynolds- The great mystery

I haven't found much lately mostly because for the past two weeks I was away on vacation. In any event, while visiting my paternal grandparents in Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina, my grandmother showed me a terrible photocopy of a newspaper clipping she had gotten at some point which is about a man named Everett E. Reynolds who matches the man who is supposed to be my 3greats-grandfather: but she does not remember from whence it came. This is unfortunate, and so is the state of the of the photocopy itself as someone had patched the original with tape that mostly blocked out in the photocopy what the article said, and a chunk is completely missing from the bottom. I decided to type up a transcript of the article for better analysis, and where there are parts missing it is indicated by blanks. Its quite interesting and comes with a photo of the man, who does, when compared with a picture of my great-great grandfather Alex Reynolds, look to be exclusively related. Here is the transcript and perhaps I can scan the document at some point and toggle with it to find out what else it says.



Caribou, July 1

“Many times visitors at Green Ridge Grange hall have asked, What’s that? When the first saw the old plow resting quietly on its sh-- in the grange room. Perhaps it is not to be wondered at, as it surely does not resemble a modern plow to any great extent, but it was a plow, nevertheless, more than a century and a half ago.
“A study of its lines and construction, makes one realize how far we have come in our advance from the primitive state of winning a living from the soil of the advanced science of agriculture of today. Sometimes as I stand before the old plow lost in thoughts of the past, I see the generations that have gone, before me, and I listen to the story the old plow tells me of yhat [sic] it has seen since first it came on the stage of life.
“Some of its history is known only to the old plow itself and this it silently keeps, safely locked away from all our curiosity. The latter part of its history is known to us and while there may be other plows that have as strange a history, surely no other plow ever made such a journey as this.
“Some 30 years ago it was the privilege of the writer to see the old plow that was owned by Israel Putnam and which he left in the field hooked to his oxen when the messenger brought the news that the British soldiers had fired on the American farmers at Lexington. The general appearance of the Green Ridge plow is very much the same as the Putnam plow except it is of lighter construction. It must have been made about the same time, possibly a decade _______ later. It is evident that it ___ ____ used to any great extent, _______ that a better or more substantial plow must have come into use soon after it was made. It would appear, and this fact is borne out by what knowledge we have that the plow is about 150 years old.
“It was discovered in 1887 [1881?] in the barn loft of a farmer ___ _orge, Mass., by Everett Reynolds who had taken refuge in the ____from a heavy shower w--e ______hing trip.
“Mr. Reynolds came ________ old Yankee family of Pilgrim stock, and was interested _________iat had American histor__ b----red the farmer for the plow and it passed into his possession. [might say something else?]. Mr. Reynolds was a shoemaker by trade and was at the time located in Bl----- Mass., but with his parents -- a young man had gone into Aroostook county Maine as pioneers. The parents remained at Green Ridge where they settled, in company with a number of families of that --me and their bodies rest in Green Ridge Cemetery.
“After a time Everett returned to Massachusetts to work at his trade. It was during this time that he discovered the old plow _______ conceived the idea of mounting the plow on a wheelbarrow and in this way making a journey to Aroostook county Maine to visit his parents and other relatives.
“He had a wheelbarrow specially constructed for this purpose ______ compartment in the body for a change of clothes and a few th___ necessary for the _________ made him _____________ the purp__________ condition________

[a huge chunk is missing and skips up to the next column:]
“yourself but Mr. Reynolds remarked that he was glad to pay for the _____ and that he belonged to a party that preserved the Union and freed the slaves.” He started on leaving the old man glutting after him.
“He reached Bangor on August 28 and remained for the Fair and on the 31st left for Aroostook, and reached Ho--ton [Houlton? This is apparently near Green Ridge Grange] at 5 p.m., September 6, and at Presque Isle in time for dinner Sunday, September 9, stopping at Gus Whitney’s Hotel. Although it was Sunday, Mr. Reynolds was anxious to complete his journey and after dinner he started the plow again reaching the home of his parents at Green Ridge near the site of Grange Hall at 5:30 [a.?] m., 3- days after the start was made. He visited relatives at places along the way and of course could _________d rainy weather.
“The shoes worn on the trip are still in Mr. Reynold’s possession, a treasured ________ of the trip.
“Mr. Reynolds was born at Bridgewater, Mass., August 3 [or 8?], 1847, and is thus near ____ years of age. He still works daily in his shop. He is descended from Robert Reynolds who landed at Boston in 1632 and on the mother’s side of Dr. Samuel Fuller who arrived in the Mayflower in 1620.
“In spite of ____ _____t Mr. Reynolds started his strange journey, on ____dey, his birthday was attended by no adverse handicaps. He now resides in Canton, Maine, and is a well preserved man for his years, both physically and mentally as a recent photograph __________.
“The old plow was presented to Green Ridge Grange by Mr. Reynolds, a quarter of a century ago, and as soon as the new hall is completed will occupy a place of honor again, in the _____. Then a ________ to the good _______that hath for all the na----s [nations?] gone. And glory -- now to the good old plow, when a thousand years have flown.”





Conclusions (notes I wrote when I first looked through this):

-Birthdate matches
-Parents and family all around Caribou & Fort Fairfield. Ancestry of parents matches.
-Shoemaker
-Canton, 1920 has Everett E. Reynolds living, widowed… article does not mention any wife.


So, article is from Maine.. Possibly Caribou with date of “July 1” while he was living in Canton (so after 1910).

Green Ridge Grange appears to be some sort of building or club?
Definition of a Grange is:
1. A farm, with its farmhouse and nearby buildings
2. Chiefly British, a country house with its various farm buildings, usually constituting the dwelling of a yeoman or gentleman farmer.



Route he took: Bangor NE to Houlton took 6 days, North to Presque Isle in 3 days, then in 12 hours was able to make it to his parent’s house, at Green Ridge Grange.




Further notes:

In the mean time I have written to a place in Caribou, ME asking if there is any way to track down an original copy of the newspaper article, as well as to see if anyone has records for the cemetery these people are supposedly buried in. If I can tie this Everett to the parents I have are his in our family tree, as well as if his first wife Melissa is there or any of his children from his first wife, this would be amazing and I will have finally solved this!! I am very excited and hope I can find someone out in Maine who can help me!

Small update

I've been doing a lot of random little things lately jsut finding out some info from my grandma to put in about the Walsh side of the family and the Ryan connection, trying to track down more relatives on that branch to get a more complete picture and hopefully find out a little more about the ones we don't know much about.

Yesterday I spent some time looking up churches online.. the Ryans belonged to a St. Patrick's in Lodi and I emailed them to try to find out more info about Mary Ann Walsh's sister Ann Nancy Walsh who married Thomas Ryan. I found her death date from an online cemetery record but I was hoping that they might have more info. I also emailed St. Mary of the Lake which is where the Walshes belonged in Westport, and where John and Bridget Walsh are buried, in the hopes that they might have more detailed records,especially pertaining to John Walsh. There is another church, St. Martin's, which is where Mary Ann Walsh and James Hurst were supposedly married, I am going to send them a letter asking them if they have any records, either.

In other parts of the family I received some info from, apparently, someone at the Dodge/Jefferson Counties Genealogical Society.. She emailed me rather out of the blue saying she was responding to my query (and I'm not sure which one?) about the McConnells and Reynoldses in Rock River Cemetery. Either way she had told me she had obits for people I was looking for as well as proof that the McConnells were buried at Hake cemetery, and that she would mail this info to me.

This sounded slightly too good to be true so I guess I wasn't surprised by what exactly I received. I got some transcripts of the cemetery, not records pertaining to who is buried there, and miscellaneous obits for people named McConnell who have no apparent relation. The one gem, I think, it Everett Garfield Reynolds's obituary which I didn't know existed and it provides some interesting info. Here's a transcript:

"Everett Garfield Reynolds was born may 22, 1882, and passed away July 5, 1949 at London Wis. He was the son of Everett Sr. and his wife, Kate (McConnel) Reynolds.
"He attended the London school and as a young man he was employed as a farm hand, but worked the greater part of his life as a painter. Many residents of London and surrounding territory came to know him as their house painter and home decorator.
"As a citizen and neighbor he was always accommodating, pleasant, honest, and gentle. Very quietly he lived a peaceful life, minding his own addairs. He was never married.
"Genereally speaking, his health was always fair, until Monday, June 17, when he suffered a troke. Dr. K. K. Amundson, who attended him, advised removal to a hospital and this was done at once. However, in spite of excellent care, there was no hope of his recovery. He passed away on Friday, July 5th.
"Preceeded in death by his parents and one brother, there are still suviving him two sisters and one brother, who are Mrs. Lu Noel of Yonkers, New York, Mrs. Otto Schwennesen, Chicago, and Alexander of Madison, Wis. There are also three nieces and four nephews.
"The departed attained the age of 58 years, one month, and 13 days. He had been a member of the Moravian church and the funeral services were conducted by the Rev. D. C. Heinrich on July 7 grom the Prescott funeral home at Cambridge. Internment was in Rock river cemetery."