The Armstrongs and Nugents: Through the Mists of Time

I have now introduced my husband's great-grandfather, Baker White Armstrong, Sr., who left Virginia for Texas in the 1880s, his wife, Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong (Sr.), and the four children. We are going to leave those Armstrongs in the early 1900s for a while and wander through the misty past, to where these ancestors first stepped foot onto the shores of America. At the left of this post is a photo of a man identified as Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr. So many of the family photographs have no identifying marks beyond the photographer and the city in which the photograph was taken. In the few months before her untimely death, caused by cancer, my husband's mother, Mary Nugent Robb Greene, directed her daughter and me in identifying some of the people in the photographs. The handwriting on the back of this photograph is in a script I recognize from the family letters of the late-1800s, someone who would know best how to identify this particular person.

And so we have here at the upper left, I am rather sure, Baker's father,  Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr.. At the upper right is Perry Nugent, the father of Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong and father-in-law of Baker White Armstrong. Anchor these two men here, in the Old South--before Baker left for Texas. They were men whose fathers had arrived from another country, and who, within a generation, found themselves firmly woven into the fabric of their new home. Edward McCarty Armstrong's father, William Armstrong, came with his family from Ireland when he was a boy of about ten years old, around 1790. [More in another post on father and son] Perry Nugent's father, John Pratt Nugent, emigrated from Ireland in 1792. Both the Nugents and the Armstrongs prospered (though Perry suffered financial setbacks late in life), and the families became united in the marriage of their son and daughter, Baker White Armstrong (Sr.) and Mary Ophelia Nugent. I will turn my attention to the Nugents later. For a while we will walk with the Armstrongs.

Here is an obituary for Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr.. Click on the image to read the print.

Additional Note added 22 October 2009: Edward McCarty Armstrong is mentioned several times on a West Virginia Genealogy page. Although undocumented information on the Internet should be treated with extreme caution, the information contained there matches with what I have read in the letters that Edward McCarty Armstrong and his wife Louisa wrote to their sons Baker and Robert Armstrong during the 1880s. Edward Armstrong was looking for someone to buy his farm near Salem, Virginia, and evidently the boys weren't thrilled with the idea. But in a letter dated December 10, 1885, Louisa cautions her son Baker not to complain to his father about the possibility:

You urge your Father not to sell his farm. Do not urge him too much, for if you could see things as Robt [Robert] did last winter; you might think differently. I believe the health of my girls will all be broken down, if they have to live here much longer. It is true God can take or give health & life anywhere but looking from a human standpoint I fear it. Then your Father never can make money here, but I fear sinks it. Do not tell him I say this--he thinks differently. But we trust God will do what is best for us every way. It does not look much like it; but I try to do so & leave it with Him. But after my Katie (who was thought so strong & well) was taken so suddenly, my fears are always on the alert.

According to the West Virginia Genealogy page:

Col. Edward McCarty ARMSTRONG was the largest land owner & most prominent businessman at New Creek Station in 1858. He was elected delegate from Hampshire Co to the VA convention held at Richmond 2-12-1861, which was to consider Va's secession from the Union. Mr. Armstrong voted against the Ordinance of Secession; however, his first loyalty was to his state, he therefore wholeheartedly supported the Confederacy. He joined the Confederate army & went into eastern VA. His store was taken over by Col. James H. DAYTON, who became postmaster here on 4-28-1862.

When Edward M. Armstrong (Sr.) returned after the war, he sold his land and moved to Salem, Virginia:

As for Edward MCCARTY, he went from New Creek to Salem VA. He expected the Norfolk & Western RR to install yards, shops and a roundhouse there. Relying on this, he bought much land there in Salem. The RR did not build at Salem. The colonel spent the rest of his life in "genteel poverty" in Salem.

Indeed, as I will share from some of the family letters later, there is much talk of money. Edward McCarty Armstrong's sons, Baker and Robert were later to go to Texas, where they prospered. Before their prosperity, however, and while they were still single, they were able to send money back home to Virginia in response to the needs of their family. In fact, much later family letters indicate that Baker continued to support various members of his family in times of trouble. I have come across letters from the sisters who never married thanking Baker for his generosity.  But that's for later. Now, we're still in the 1800s--walking with the Armstrongs.