LOCAL OBITUARIES

LOCAL OBITUARIES 

LOCAL OBITUARIES

Local obituaries

            Most of you know how to find older obituaries from the Hartford newspaper(s) using online searches and I suspect that many of you know that the Daviess County Library (DCPL) has an online database of obituaries starting with deaths in 1842.  You can do your own searches fairly easy on the DCPL site and I encourage you to do so. I’ll give you the link at the end of this post.

            Interestingly, their database is broken into three groupings: 1842-1919; 1920-1989; and 1990 to present.  The information available in each is slightly different and is described as: 1842-1919 Detailed abstracts; 1920-1989 Brief abstracts; and 1990-Present Detailed abstracts.  You will understand that better when you start digging.

            Of course the data is not just for Ohio County residents – it covers several counties in the Owensboro area. So keep that in mind when you are searching.

            I have done some digging for you in the first category (1842-1919) by limiting my search for all data from Ohio County (not using any surname) and I got about 30 hits.  I will post all of these for you.

          The following is an example of one of those hits and in the example below I have circled (1) the name of the deceased, (2) the date of death, (3) cause of death, and (4) date & source of the info – which happens to be the Hartford News.  So, although we would prefer more info, this is a lot here and it might help anyone searching the Cummins' line.  One way to read the actual obit would be to go to the Ohio County library and read the actual newspaper (probably on micro-film, but I’m not positive of that).  Note that some of these “abstracts” have less information than my example because some came from very brief mentions of a death instead of a more formal obit, and some have a bit more info – it’s just hit or miss, but if you haven’t searched this site you should. 

EXAMPLE:

Here is a portion of what I found (various names; only filtered by "Ohio County") – too many for one post:

And here is a link to the site:  http://obits.dcplibrary.org/

Improvements to Blog

      You might have noticed that there are three new "features" now showing on my blog. One is simply a counter that shows the number of times people have actually looked at a blog page (amazingly they call this "pageviews").  The number represents the total for all-time. It doesn't have much meaning but it is somewhat interesting.  If I were selling advertising it might be important but I have no interest in advertising.

      The second feature is a search engine and it is located right underneath the Pageview counter.  As far as I know this will search for keywords on the blog (at  least that is my intention).  I suggest you just keep it simple and try your family names one at a time or other key words.  The search engine is provided by Google and should work fine but I have not experimented with it.  Let me know if you encounter any problems.

      The third feature is called "Labels" and is also a search function of sorts.  The purpose of this feature is to help you find a subject, family, or person on the blog.  I am in the process of "tagging" each of my 800+ posts with a Label; 99% of the time it is just one word, but a few times I have used two or even three words.  The Labels are shown on the right side of the main page underneath "Links" with a number next to them; the number represents the number of different posts that contains that particular keyword or Label.  Be mindful that I am still in the process of attaching Labels to my posts and it will take a week or two to complete that task.  I am working backwards and right now I am only about 20% complete.  It is slow work.  

      Other than that everything is the same.  I might warn you that I will turn 81 next month so at some point I will have to stop doing this.  I'm hoping there will be someone willing to step up and take over when that time comes.  I am now in my eight year of posting and it has been fun.  I've learned as much as you and met some very nice people along the way.  Maybe the good Lord will let me do this another eight years but don't count on it.

Charles

FEED-SACK CLOTHING

Feed-sack clothing   

            Recently I was struck with a case of nostalgia, which is not a bad thing.  So I’ll tell you what I’ve been thinking about at night when I can't sleep.

            Although my father’s family was from Ohio County my mother’s family was from neighboring Grayson County.  My maternal grandfather owned a mill, the Clarkson Milling Company, that sold flour, cornmeal, and various feeds for domestic animals.  The flour and cornmeal came in 10 lb. and 25 lb. paper bags but the domestic animal feed came in 100 pound cotton bags. My grandfather purchased the cotton bags from a company in Nashville, TN, called the Werthan Bag Company, and sadly their manufacturing plant has now been turned into condo’s and a restaurant.

            Here is a photo of the Werthan plant from the 1970’s or 1980’s:

            This building was shown in the 1990’s Best Picture “Driving Miss Daisy.” The family name in the movie was Werthan and the owner of the business was played by Dan Aykroyd, who was the son of the Jessica Tandy star, the little old lady, and the other star was her chauffeur, played by Morgan Freeman.  It was a great movie and if you haven’t seen it, put it on your list.

            I also found a photo of a Werthan delivery wagon but I don't know the date of this photo:

            I was born in 1939 and worked at my grandfather’s mill on and off (part-time) until I was in mid high school, probably 1949-1954.  During this time period the cotton bags we used were printed in various colors with various designs and were used by farm families for female clothing, dresses primarily, and also curtains and such.  This was a big deal for the farmer’s wife because she could get some nice cotton cloth for no additional cost.  All the women knew how to sew.  I can recall farmers coming to the mill in their wagons and old trucks and telling us exactly which bag his wife wanted, and at times the wife would 

accompany the husband to make sure he got it right.  It was my job to find the correct bag and wheel it to the customer for loading onto his wagon or truck.

            I found a few photos of “feed-sack clothing” on the internet:

Note that this photo shows the actual 100 lb. cotton bags, just as I remember.

            I feel certain that your Ohio County female ancestors (if they were farmers) wore “feed-sack clothing” and I think that this bit of history started during the depression and picked up steam during WWII.  I don’t know when it stopped – and maybe it didn’t – but the Werthan Bag Company has either gone out of business or is doing something else.  Some think that Chinese cotton bags came on the market in the 1970's and 1980's and forced Werthan and other bag companies to close.

            My grandfather’s mill was located across the street from where we lived in a small community named Clarkson, which is about 5 mile east of Leitchfield.  Back then Clarkson had a population of about 200 people.  My grandfather’s products were sold all over the county but mostly to farmers located within five miles of the mill.  At some point the big companies, like General Mills, started selling flour and cornmeal nationally and forced the small mills to close.  But before that there were mills everywhere and most of them were powered by running water from small rivers or big creeks.  During my lifetime granddad’s mill was powered by electricity and before electricity it was powered by steam.  The Illinois Central Railroad track was behind the mill so my grandfather could purchase wheat and corn that was delivered by rail.  The mill building was built in 1900 and is now the site of an ugly gas station.  Here is a photo of the mill that was made after my grandfather’s death in November 1959:

          My grandfather was born in Duff, Grayson County, which is near Rough River State Park and while he was a child his family lived near Duff, Short Creek and Caneyville, all of which are near the Ohio County/Grayson County border.

         Here is a photo of my grandfather, Charlie Purcell, with my older brother, Sam, and me on the right. I am very proud to have been named after me grandfather. I guess this photo was made about 1947.

        

            This post also has ties to Ohio County.  While browsing online I found that the Beaver Dam Milling Company sold “Snow Girl’ and “Purity” flour and “Eureka” corn meal in paper bags manufactured by the Werthan Bag Company.  Here is an undated photo of the Beaver Dam Milling Company and three of their paper bags:

         And the Barnes Milling Company of Beaver Dam also sold bags of “Jolly Host “ flour in paper bags manufactured by Werthan Bag Company.

         The images of the bags from Ohio County were found in the Western Kentucky University "online collections."  

        If you have any deeper interest in this subject you might glance at the following sites:  

http://www.rickrack.com/wordpress/?paged=10

http://oldphotoarchive.com/stories/great-depression-flour-feed-sack-dresses

https://flashbak.com/feed-sack-fashions-and-patterns-of-depression-era-america-374786/

1907 Tobacco Insurance Company Report

     This posting is a follow-up to the previous posting about the Night Riders.  It may be a little technical but it adds a little information about what was happening in the so-called Green River District (which I think is a term used within the insurance industry). The Insurance Field is a book published by the insurance industry containing various reports and articles filed in Chicago, Louisville and Atlanta intended for those companies selling insurance.  This book contained a report about the status of insuring tobacco in Kentucky in 1907, the height of the Night Rider era.  The report was submitted by the President of the Kentucky Board of Underwriters, Mr. B. F. Weitzel.  The report is too long to include all of it so I have just included the section that has to do with the area that includes Ohio County.

NIGHT RIDERS

NIGHT RIDERS

Tobacco has been a major cash crop in Kentucky since the mid 1800s.  In 1890 Kentucky was the leading tobacco producing state in the USA with prices in the range of 8 – 12 cents per pound for both light and dark tobacco.

Western Kentucky and Northwest Tennessee became famous for producing “dark tobacco” and this area was called the Black Patch; it was made up of Robertson and Montgomery Counties, TN; Cobb, Trigg, Caldwell, Logan, Christian, Lyon and about 14 other counties in Kentucky, including Ohio County.

Here is a map from 1910:

and here is a cut-out from the above map of the SW Kentucky area:

When the tobacco was cut it was hung upside down in the barn - this was called "housing" the tobacco.  Then it was smoked until it cured.  Here is a glimpse of the process from a book titled "Working the Black Patch" by Suzanne M. Hall:

A company based in Durham, NC, owned by the Duke family, purchased tobacco and manufactured chewing tobacco, pipe tobacco, snuff, cigars and cigarettes.  Duke began to buy their competitors and by 1900 they had consolidated all of these businesses into a Trust called the American Tobacco Company which dominated the market.  The “Duke Trust” had become an international giant.

In 1904 the tobacco buyers employed by the Duke Trust began cutting prices, with the per pound price dropping as low as 3 cents, which was below the break-even price for farmers (in 1904 the tobacco yield was about 700 pounds per acre, so break-even was about 6 cents per pound).  Farmers began to have trouble paying their mortgage and other debts and some lost their farms. Retail businesses where the farmers traded began to suffer.  The Duke Trust was ruining all of them.

To fight the Duke Trust the Dark Tobacco Planters’ Protection Association came into being in the summer of 1904.  It took about a year to convince about 70% of the area tobacco farmers to join the new Association.  But the problem was with the 30% of non-joiners as the Trust awarded them by paying 8 to 12 cents per pound to those that had not joined.  Thus, neighbors that had been friends for years became enemies.  This led to the Association members threatening the non-joiners and eventually forming groups of men that went beyond threats – thus, the “Night Riders” were born, eventually growing into an estimated 10,000 men.  Membership in the Association grew to about 25,000, which included merchants and other non-farmers. By the spring of 1906 the Night Riders were destroying tobacco beds of of non-joiners and burning barns.  In November 1906 about 250 Night Riders burned two tobacco warehouses in Princeton, Kentucky that stored 400,000 pounds of tobacco already purchased by the Duke Trust.  Men (and a few women) were tied to trees and whipped; shots were fired; and people feared for their life. Some sold their farms and moved away.  Reports of trouble from the Night Riders spread as far as Jefferson County and Shelbyville. Eventually the Kentucky Governor called in the National Guard (then called the State Militia).  The largest raid by the Night Riders was Hopkinsville in December 1907 when they burned the People’s Tobacco Warehouse.  In 1908 Russellville, Kentucky was raided.  In Tennessee men were shot and hung.  In 1908 an article in the Harford Herald reported three Kentuckians had been killed, four wounded, and more than forty “whipped or beaten,” but none of those listed lived in Ohio County. Indictments were handed out and civil suits were filed against the Night Riders. Finally, in the summer of 1910, the troubles came to an end as tobacco prices had climbed back to a profitable level.

Here is map of the area where the Night Rider activity took place.

In Ohio County the Night Rider activity was reported in the newspaper and usually on the first page of the Hartford Herald. It was big news from 1906 thru 1910.  The earliest report of Night Rider activities I could find in the Herald was 22 November 1905.  There were also reports of local men that served in the National Guard (State Militia) that were assigned to serve in other counties during the height of the problems.

The Hartford City Council pass an ordinance in Sept 1907 establishing an 8 P.M. curfew for boys under age 16.

While the Hartford Herald always maintained that no one from Ohio participated as a Night Rider it was reported in June 1907 that two farmers in the Clear Run community of Ohio County, J. L. Hoover and Louis Trogden, had their tobacco beds destroyed or badly damaged. Here is the report from the Hartford Republican about the same event:

In the 26 Feb 1908 edition of the Herald there is this news item:

The Hartford Republican newspaper had an article dated 20 Dec 1907 about Night Rider activity in Fordsville, Ohio County, quoting a man who said he was threatened by Night Riders.

In the 21 Feb 1908 the Hartford Republican had the following article:

This was a major event in SW Kentucky and NW Tennessee and was reported in the national news. It was discussed during the Presidential campaign and was a thorn to the Governors of Kentucky and Tennessee.  It resulted in many criminal prosecutions and many civil lawsuits.  

There are several books about this subject.  The one that I read is called “On Bended Knees” by Bill Cunningham.

Hartford Water Mill

I have found bits and pieces of information about the Hartford Water Mill.  As most of you know, there is a street in Hartford named Mill Street and I think this refers to the old "Water Mill" that operated there on the river.

A. WENGER , Daniel ROGAN and I.A. TAYLOR built the Hartford Water Mill in 1873. Mr. ROGAN died in 1874 and other two carried on. Isaac A. TAYLOR came in 1871. He was born in Garber County, Tennessee.

Water-Powered Weaving Machine – Rough Creek

3 Nov 1875, Hartford Herald:  Col. O. P. Johnson, one of our most enterprising citizens, has erected one of the finest weaving machines in the Green River country. . . . .

Col Johnson was the Collector of Taxes for the Second Kentucky District, for the Internal Revenue Service, based in Owensboro.  4 Apr 1877.

The Jan 17, 1877 Hartford Herald says Col. O. P. Johnson and family moved to Owensboro this week. 

12 Jun 1878 – “Wool Wanted.  In exchange for Jeans, Yarns, Lindseys & etc, at Hartford Water Mills.  O. P. Johnson, Proprietor”

17 Jul 1878 – “Stocking of Yarns of every variety, at the Hartford Woolen Mills. O. P. Johnson, Proprietor”

17 Jul 1878 – “Highest Prices paid for wheat and corn, at the Hartford Woolen Mills. O. P. Johnson, Proprietor”

11 Dec 1878 - ”Mr. Dan Wise has rented the water mills of Col. O. P. Johnson.”

Aug 18, 1880 Apr 4, 1883 the Hartford Water Mills are owned by John R. & William Phipps.  Thru Mar 1886.

Phipps sold to J. W. Ford 10 Oct 1900. Ford moved the Mill to the foot of Market Street In May 1904.  

In July 1914 Jake Oller of Grayson County rented the Hartford Water Mill. 

The last reference I see to the Hartford Water Mill was in 1921.

Typhoid Fever - 1893

Arthur E. Leach was born 22 Dec 1875 in Ohio County, the son of Stephen L. Leach and Rebecca M. Park.  Arthur had one brother, Edgar Johnson, and one sister, Nancy Carrie.

Arthur died at age 18, Nancy died at age 24, and Edgar died at age 41.

Here is Arthur’s obituary:

Laura Parks is mentioned in Author's obituary. Here is her obituary:

Other deaths from typhoid fever in Ohio County during Feb, Mar & Apr 1893:

Mr. G. P. Miller

Mr. Alvy Cook

Miss Willie Pate

Charles W. Massie

     Charles W. Massie  was born about 1844; he married Martha S. Ford 20 Oct 1864 in Ohio County; they had four children:  Zenober (female) born 3 Jan 1874; Nancy E. (female) born 1869 ; Nora M. (female) born 14 Jul 1868 – 23 Apr 1931; and Elesha S. (male) born 1865.

     The following story ran in early November, 1875, about the family.

     About a week later, on 17 November 1875, we have "the rest of the story."

Aunt Frankie

             Although this remarkable lady lived most of her life in the vicinity of Logansport, which is not in Ohio County, her farm was only about four miles from Cromwell and she came to Beaver Dam & Hartford for business.  According to the second article below she moved to Cromwell as she became older.  In any regard, she is too interesting for us to disregard.

           Frances N. Fuguson was born 2 Apr 1807 in Butler County and married Mark H. G. Flowers in 1831.  From reading the Hartford Herald article below you can see that, due to her husband's injuries, Aunt Frankie did all of the manual labor at their farm.  She died 27 Jul 1892, outliving her husband by about two years.  They had three children.

Hartford Herald 3 Nov 1875:

The Ohio County News 20 Jan 1886:

        I also found a long article in the Hartford Herald dated 5 Jul 1882 from Logansport describing a violent thunderstorm that badly damaged many farms in the area, including the Flowers' farm; so that might be when the family relocated to Cromwell.

     Here is the last reference I found about Aunt Frankie; sorry but I cannot identify the source (I found it on Findagrave):

And here is her grave marker, also from Findagrave: