Sleuthing

Here we continue our investigation of  Tillman Andrew (See The Mysterious Tillman).

Tillman Andrew, and John Cozart’s 1895 application to the Bureau of Pensions for Tillman Andrew’s minor children kicked off an extensive investigation. The Bureau requested documentation that Tillman and Lucinda had legally married, that the children were theirs, that Cozart was the children’s guardian, that the children’s birthdates were correct, that Tillman was dead, that Lucinda's other marriages really occurred, and that Tillman Andrew and William W. Downs were the same person. Here, our primary interest is the last—evidence showing Tillman and William to be one and the same. Of course at least one bureaucrat had already made that conclusion since Lucinda received William’s arrears of Army pay as his widow on 25 Oct 1895, before the minor’s pension investigation had even begun.

On 12 Nov 1895 John Cozart, Lucinda’s third husband, received Franklin County court letters of guardianship for the two youngest of Tillman’s children, Nora and Anna Andrews. Within days, on 25 Nov 1895, Cozart filed for minor’s pensions for the two girls based on Tillman’s Civil War service. Nora and Anna Mae were the only two of Tillman and Lucinda’s six children eligible. The others were too old. The Pension Act of 14 July 1862 made Civil War pensions available to widows, children under 16 years of age, and disabled veterans. Widows who remarried, as Lucinda had, were no longer eligible. Evidence that Tillman served under the name “William Downs/Downes” (both names are seen) was provided by affidavits of four men: George T. Russell, B. F. Russell, John B. Flanigan, and A. U. Whiffin. All four claimed that they had personally known Tillman Andrews and that he told them that he had served during the Civil War in Co. A of the 3rd Massachusetts Cavalry under the name William Downs.

One witness, George Russell, claimed that in 1886 or 1887 he saw Tillman apply for bounty, stating that his military name was William Downes and that he had served in Company A, Massachusetts 3rd Cavalry. Of course, being illiterate, George could not have possibly read what was in Tillman’s application. Moreover, a bounty request makes no sense. Bounty lands were not awarded to Civil War veterans and William had already received his enlistment bounty. But even if misconstrued, an application like that would show that authorities knew of Tillman’s alias well before his death in 1892.

There are some suspicions about the affidavits of the four men. First, three of the witnesses were related to Lucinda, Tillman’s widow. Two were her brothers Benjamin Franklin Russell and George Thomas Russell and one was the husband of her first cousin Julia A. Russell. A daughter of both a Russell and a Funkhouser, Julia was Lucinda’s cousin by two different paths. And the family was obviously looking out for Lucinda. George Russell stated that his sister “owns 80 acres . . all very thin poor land” and that she had debts including an $85 mortgage on her property.

George and Benjamin, questionable                                            A clean bill for John B.         

Of course, one would expect information about a person to best come from relatives. And British-born Whiffin had no known connection with Lucinda. But one must also be concerned about the characters of the witnesses. George was said to be “not verry good” and his brother B. F., only “some better.” On the other hand, John Flanigan was said to be “of good standing” and truthful.

Another concern is that the depositions of the four witnesses are too consistent. What are the odds that any of them would have remembered the exact name of the unit in which Tillman served from conversations at least ten years earlier? The consistency indicates that the witnesses had exchanged information before giving depositions. But that might be expected even if all was factual.

Eventually, probably in 1897, the claim was abandoned. The pursuit, which was complicated, time-consuming, and expensive, may have ended with Lucinda’s death and thus Cozart’s loss of interest. Besides, pensions would end when the girls reached sixteen. Nevertheless, despite some bothersome points, one must conclude from the investigation that

Tillman Andrews and William W. Downs were indeed the same person.

But who was that person? Our next blog will (hopefully) conclude with that. And don't hesitate to comment. Someday all of this will go into a book.

Destination Missouri

 We know that James Jordan Summers’s first-born children William and Mary Elizabeth went to live with their Aunt and Uncle Amanda and Squire Mooney in Kentucky after the deaths of their parents (The Orphans), but where did James’s son John William Summers and John’s half-siblings, the Andrews, end up?

Stoddard and Butler Counties in 
Missouri became Andrews residences.

We last saw John Summers and the younger orphaned Andrews children (Lawrence, Nora, and Anna Mae) living with Lewis Robert Andrews and his wife, Nancy, in Northern Twp, Franklin Co, Illinois. Between 1906, when their son Coy was born in Illinois, and 1908, when their son Millard was born in Stoddard Co, Missouri, Lewis and Nancy moved to Stoddard Co, where they were living in Duck Creek Twp in 1910.

Lewis Robert Andrews had 162 acres of farmland in Duck Creek Twp, just south of the small, unincorporated village of Asherville (Plat book of Stoddard County, Missouri, Hixson and Company, 1930).

Accompanying Lewis and Nancy on their trip to Missouri were two of their 1900 “tenants”—Anna Mae Andrews, who married Edward Metcalf in Stoddard Co 24 Jun 1908, and John William Summers, who was living in Puxico, Stoddard Co, Missouri in 1910.

William Andrews, the oldest of Tillman’s children, also headed to Missouri. There, he and his wife, Hester, settled in St. Francis Twp, Butler Co, just across the St. Francis River from Duck Creek Twp, where his brother was living.

In 1930 William Andrews and his son George were living in St. Francis Twp, Butler Co, just west of the St. Francis River (Plat book of Butler County, Missouri, Hixson and Company, 1930).

The Andrews and John Summers ended up in Duck Creek and
St. Francis Townships.

Lewis’s brother Lawrence, who had also lived with Lewis and Nancy after the death of his parents, took a detour to Arkansas. There, he married Martha E. Waller, before traveling to Stoddard Co, where he was living in Duck Creek Twp in 1920. But Lawrence did not stick it out. He went back to Illinois, to Union Co. And he was eventually joined there by brother Lewis and most of Lewis’s kids.

Two of the Andrews siblings never made it to Missouri. Nora Andrews, who married Joseph E. Young in Hamilton Co in 1904, died between 1906, when her daughter Dorothy Lee Young was born in Illinois, and 1908, when a contract was made by Nora’s husband, Joseph, for Nora’s sister Anna Mae to care for Dorothy. Dorothy ended up in Stoddard Co with her Aunt Anna.

And Thomas B. Andrews and his wife, Marjorie, were living in Black Twp, Posey Co., Indiana, in 1900. Thomas may have died there, for his presumed widow married William Lewis Copeland in Franklin Co, Illinois in Jan 1910.

What drew the Andrews family to Southeast Missouri? The area, which contained large tracts of swampy, forested bottomlands, was once a vast wilderness of cypress, tupelo, and water. Indeed, some have claimed that it was the northern part of the Mississippi River delta, “a howling wilderness of swamps and marshes and lakes.” The Federal Swamp Act of 1850 sought to solve the problem by selling swamp land to the states, which in turn sold it to counties for final sale to individuals. Stoddard Co land prices became incredibly low, and that may have attracted the brothers William, Lewis Robert, and Lawrence Andrews. The swamps were finally drained in the 1920s and 1930s.

Mingo Swamp, just north of Puxico in Duck Creek Twp, is typical of the overflow lands that once covered
much of Stoddard and Butler counties (USFWS).

And they may have felt at home in Stoddard Co, whose society and politics resembled those of Franklin and Hamilton counties in Illinois, where their Andrews family originated. Many of the inhabitants in the Bootheel area of Missouri were from southern states with states' rights leanings and conservative views. During the Civil War, 623 Stoddard residents had joined the Confederate military, while only a little over 200 had joined Union units.

Unattractive was that the region was rather low income. That there was a tendency towards lawlessness. And that there had been significant Klan activity following the war (and again in the 1920s). Missouri had been a slave state before the war, and racial intolerance continued. A 1910 edition of the Dexter Statesman newspaper wrote favorably that Stoddard had “no saloons, no negroes.” "No saloons" is a stretch. Besides, moonshining and bootlegging were common in the Bootheel.

Despite providing little cultural, economic, or societal improvement over "Little Egypt," Southeastern Missouri turned out to be highly rewarding for John William Summers. Stoddard Co was where John began his lifelong career with the Frisco Railway and where he met his future wife, Verne Cumi Crabtree. More on that in our next episode.

Stoddard County History, A Local History Digital Archive, http://www.stoddardcountyhistory.com/

Draining and Leveeing Missouri Low Land, The Bureau of Labor Statistic of Missouri, Jefferson City, Missouri, 1910.

Cletis R. Ellinghouse, Mingo, Southeast Missouri’s Ancient Swamp and the Countryside Surrounding It, Exlibris, Philadelphia, 2008.