On a recent visit to Iowa my husband Jim found the gravestone of Russell William Volckmann  that I have written about several times in this blog.  MacArthur Left But Volckmann Remained

The headstone is located in Springdale Cemetery, Clinton, Iowa (FindAGrave location).  There are several Volckmanns buried in the same general area around the General’s headstone.

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Through sheer luck and a lot of networking, I’ve been able to obtain quite a few tombstone pictures for our family history. Two of them are for a father and son, David and William Livingston Holmes and they are my subjects for Tombstone Tuesday.

David Holmes

Information on the father, David Holmes is a little sparse and not all documented, but it’s most likely he was born in Virginia circa 1777.  He was an older brother to my fourth Great Grandfather, John Holmes who was born in 1784. I am not even sure if these two men were full brothers, or half brothers, but John’s letter of 1872, which I have in my possession, claims him as a brother.  David Holmes died 15 September 1869 in DeKalb County, Missouri.

William Livingston Holmes

David’s oldest son and child was William Livingston Holmes who was born 30 May 1807 in Overton County, Tennsessee. William and his wife, as well as three of their children were members of the 1843 Oregon Trail wagon train that arrived in Oregon City, Oregon in November of that year. William was the first sheriff of Clackamas County, Oregon serving from 1845 to 1852.

For more information on this family please read:

iPentimento|Genealogy and History » William L. Holmes Family Files

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Capt. Thomas Poindexter 1733 – 01 Jan 1807

The photo of Capt. Thomas Poindexter’s tombstone in Louisa County, VA was sent to me by Tom Hobbs, an archeologist who has been working at the Broaddus Flats site for many years now. I had written to him to thank him for creating the website VirginiaDigs.net and was pleasantly surprised to get a very nice email from Tom, with the Poindexter tombstone photo as well as photos of St. Peter’s and Slash Churches.

My membership in the DAR is through Capt. Poindexter for his service in the NC Militia, List F–No. 2, dated Jan. 1777, # 2044.  Thomas’ second wife was Elizabeth Pledge and I descend through their son Archibald Pledge Poindexter and his wife Rebecca Flynn.

I’m participating in Tombstone Tuesday for 29 Dec 2009. If you would like to know more about this weekly theme please visit Geneabloggers or Gene@pedia here.

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Headstones of Joshua, George and Amanda Wilkerson

Back in 1995, Jim and I thought we hit the jackpot when we found this cemetery at Pleasant Grove, Iowa.  It’s located at Shinar Cumberland Presbyterian Church not far from the now deserted town of Pleasant Grove where so many of Jim’s Wilkerson, Whitmore, DeSpain and other allied families settled in the 1840′s.  These three headstones are in what they call the ‘old’ section of the cemetery which runs alongside the road to the church.  Further along that road was the old town.

The reason we thought we hit the jackpot was that we were looking for Jim’s GG-Grf Joshua Wilkerson and we didn’t know it at the time, but the George Wilkerson was ‘our’ Joshua’s younger brother, and the headstones for Amanda and Joshua are for George’s children.

Using Census Records To Trace Family Migration

Joshua Wilkerson (Sr.) was born in Delaware in 1812. We don’t know when he married, but he left DE with his brother George b. 1814 and George’s wife Margaret (Lamar) (both also born in DE) most likely in the mid to late 1830′s and settled for a time in Indiana.  We know this because later Iowa census records show some of George’s children having been born in Indiana.  Checking census records is a good way to trace a family’s migration patterns.

Joshua Goes To California To Look For Gold

George and family settled in Washington Township in Des Moines County and stayed there for the rest of their lives.  Not so with the elder Joshua Wilkerson! Looking in the 1850 census for Iowa in the Pleasant Grove township there was no trace of Joshua.  It looked like he had perhaps helped George and family move to Iowa when the state opened up for settlement and then he was called by the lure of Gold.

Our family story is that Joshua, as a single man, went off to California to find his fortune.  His descendants that still live in that part of Iowa tell of Joshua coming back with thousands of dollars, but that over time he made bad loans and ended up with a chest full of IOU”s.  We know there was a ‘fortune’ because his daughter’s sued for a portion of it.

In looking at some old Hawkeye newspapers for that time frame I found that two of the DeSpain family also were on a train to the gold fields.  In 1856 Iowa had a special census and I was able to find Joshua again, this time living with the Bedwell family who also happen to have been born in Delaware and two of their older children were also born in Indiana.  The really surprising thing in that census record was that Joshua was listed as a widower, age 44.

I’ve not established yet whether or not Joshua and the wife of Samuel Bedwell, Mary, were related, or just someone Joshua might have known in Indiana.  Either way, he was single with no children and we were just shy of the beginning of the Civil War.  I don’t think that Joshua served in the war, and he married his second wife Sarah Jane True 22 March 1860.  Their first child, Elizabeth was born eleven months later in 1861. Eight more children were born to Joshua and Sarah Jane, the last in 1875.

That day in the cemetery we searched in vain for headstones for Joshua and Sarah Jane.  Knowing we were wrong to think the others mentioned at the beginning of this story, it wasn’t until we got to know a descendant that lived there, Jim’s cousin Anita, did we find out they had no headstone.  Soon after, we began asking Jim’s family to chip in to buy one and the result is the stone you see above.

If you would like more information on this family, please visit Ancestry and search for Wilkerson and Allied Families or try this link to the tree.  Visiting trees on Ancestry is FREE.

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For this Tombstone Tuesday, I think it’s only fitting that I should acknowledge the death of James Barnard Morrison so close to the date that he died, June 12, 1864.  Yes, it was during the time of the Civil War and yet, part of me feels bad that he had to die so far from home, at Finn’s Point National Cemetery in New Jersey. (I have the roster of those who died there if anyone needs a lookup).

James was the son of John and Molly (Deatherage) Morrison who, at the time the Civil War began,  resided in Roane County, Tennessee. John’s mother was Mary Barnard, hence the middle name. James was my 3rd Great granduncle. His wife, Anna Holmes was a sister to my GGG-Grandmother, Deborah Holmes who married Miles Yates. Deborah later divorced Miles and married James B. Morrison’s brother William Deatherage Morrison.

The children of Debby Holmes and Wm. D. Morrison

James B. Morrison was a Private in Co. B, 5th TN Cavalry (CSA)(McKenzie’s). James’ widow, Anna,  left Tennessee in 1885 with her nephew, Gideon J. Pillar Morrison (pictured far left in the above photo) and his family. They all moved to Howell County, Missouri to homestead.

The Gideon Morrison Family

The Gideon Morrison family were also accompanied by James W. M. Yates and his sister Myra.  James and Myra were the half neice and nephew of Gideon. No doubt they were brought along for many reasons. Our family story has it that Jim and Myra Yates didn’t like their step-mother so they might have seen it as a way to escape that household.  Gideon and his wife Martha Jane (Edgemon) might have agreed to have them along since they had five small children to look after. Jim would have been around 21 years of age, and Myra just two years younger.

* Just a side note about Finn’s Point Nat. Cemetery: At the time I was just getting information about the cemetery (1997) and buying the roster of names it was when Andrew Cunanan committed one of his murders, killing William Reese and stealing his truck.

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