Left for Texas

Anne Lavinia Lewis Nugent: "tired of trotting around..."

2010-08-06T23:20:00.000-07:00

In the previous post I introduced John Pratt Nugent, my husband's great-great-great grandfather who came to America from Rathdowney, Ireland, and who eventually settled in Louisiana. After the death of his first wife, he met Anne Lavinia Lewis, daughter of Seth Lewis, "chief justice of Mississippi Territory and later a notable judge" in Louisiana. In going through the family papers (an enterprise not anywhere near completed; I have hundreds of letters yet to read), I have discovered thus far one letter from Anne Lewis Nugent to her son Perry, my husband's great-great grandfather. Of John's and Anne's nine children, Perry became a wealthy businessman in New Orleans and served at one time as the president of the New Orleans Cotton Exchange. William Lewis Nugent became a well-respected lawyer in Mississippi; Thomas Lewis Nugent moved to Texas, where he practiced law and eventually ran for governor as a populist candidate of the People's Party in 1894. But the successes (and, for Perry, devastating setbacks, as well) of these three of her sons were still in the future when Anne wrote the following letter to Perry (I have regularized some of the punctuation. Click on each image for a larger version.):

Atchafalaya, March 8, 1857

My Dear Son

Having been disappointed in a letter written to you on last Sunday reaching its destination I have concluded to try it again and perhaps better luck may attend my effort this time.

Why is it that so few letters pass between us now. I seldom get a line from my dear son and sometimes almost conclude that other ties occupy all your spare time from business. Well I suppose that it is all right and while I feel satisfied that you are happy and content I am thankful for I feel sure that your old mother still holds a place in your warm heart that is ever sacred to her alone. I sent you a box last week containing 20 dozen eggs but I suppose they all went to the bottom of the river with the boat so I will try to send you another but it will not contain quite so many eggs as I disposed of a good many before I knew that the others were lost.

Our rivers are all full and the swamp is nearly so in consequence of the great rains we have had. We have the water nearly all around us and I suppose a few inches more will bring it very near us in the back part of our enclosure but still I am quite satisfied with our home and I do not feel disposed to break up again. I conclude from your last letter that your Father had said something about selling out and moving off again. The honest truth is I am tired of trotting round and feel like setting down and staying in one place. Our little house is beginning to look comfortable and we have many comforts around us in our woods home that I would not like to give up but if we leave here I do not think I will ever consent to live on a farm again. However, this is all in the future and we will meet it as it presents itself.

After all the blustering that came from the captain of the A. W. Glaze he was finally compelled to come here and take wood and actually engaged all we had on the bank. I suppose he feared some other boat would call and take it before he returned and he would not get any below us.

I am beginning to feel the want of Amelia's company a good deal as you will readily immagine (sic) when I tell you that I have not had a lady visitor but once in two months, still I am not so selfish as to wish her to return and live as secluded as I have to do. We are all as well as usual. The children learn a little and play a great deal for in truth it is such a task to me to teach that I cannot do much of it. Give my love to Amanda and kiss the dear little babies for grandma. When will they come up to visit us. Give my respects to Mr. Cook and now my dear son may the choice blessing of our heavenly Father ever rest upon you is the prayer of your fond mother
A L Nugent

The voice of a strong-minded woman comes through in this letter, and we get further glimpses of the character of Anne Lavinia Lewis Nugent from sources outside the family. In a search on the web, I found the text of Soldiers of the Cross: Confederate Soldier-Christians and the Impact of War, by Kent T. Dollar, in which William Lewis Nugent gets a hagiographic section. His mother Anne comes in for some high praise, too:

Nugent's mother, Anne, was also a devout Methodist. Anne's public role in the local church, like that of most evangelical women of the antebellum South, probably amounted to holding women's Bible's studies, praying, and exhorting those seeking Christ, particularly during camp meetings. Her role within her own family, however, was another matter altogether. Anne devoted much time to instructing her children in religious matters. According to one of the Nugent brothers, when it came to religion, "she gave it to us all." Anne Nugent continued to instruct her children after they were grown. In 1859, after William had moved east to Greenville, Mississippi, his pious mother entreated him to remember the Lord's promises: "O what a privilege to feel that we are the children of God and can claim his blessing at any time and in any place and yet how often our faith is too weak to reach out and take the cup of blessing that is ever ready for us."

Obviously, a book with such a religious focus is going to emphasize the good mother's piety and focus on her works in the home. Another book, published much later, provides us with a slightly different complimentary picture of Anne Lewis Nugent. In Mississippi Women: Their Histories, Their Lives, edited by Martha H. Swain, Elizabeth Anne Payne, and Marjorie Julian Spruill, the focus is on the strength of a woman's intellect. In this book, William Lewis Nugent's daughter Nellie Nugent Somerville is one of those Mississippi Women who "played a major role in Mississippi history as a reformer, suffragist, and politician," and both her maternal grandmother (S. Myra Smith) and paternal grandmother (Anne Lewis Nugent) receive some credit for Nellie's success in public life:

...the Smith/Nugent family was accustomed to strong, capable women as well as men, and the women of the family received more opportunities for education than most women of the era. Both of [Nellie] Nugent's grandmothers studied at academies: Myra Smith attended Nazareth Academy in Bardston, Kentucky, the first boarding school for girls west of the Appalachian Mountains, and Anne Lavinia Lewis graduated from Elizabeth Female Academy in Washington, Mississippi, in 1827. Nellie Nugent's father, William Lewis Nugent, was influenced in favor of women's education by his mother, who was a woman of great intellectual power with a "great feeling for learning" and was often compared to Queen Victoria." (40-41)

These passages and the family letter provide us with as clear a picture--minus a photographic image--as one can hope to have of a great-great-great grandmother who was not famous but whose influence extended far beyond her own children. A great-granddaughter of Anne Lewis Nugent, Lucy Somerville Howorth, was to be admitted to the bar before the U. S. Supreme Court in 1934, and to become a member of the Mississippi state legislature in 1932-1936.

John Pratt Nugent: "Should a boat come..."

2010-08-04T21:32:00.000-07:00

One of the oldest letters I've discovered in the hundreds of my husband's family letters is one written by John Pratt Nugent, the Irish immigrant from Ireland who married Anne Lavinia Lewis, daughter of Seth Lewis, prominent judge in Opelousas, Louisiana. John Pratt Nugent is my husband's great-great-great grandfather. The children of John Pratt Nugent and Anne Lavinia Lewis Nugent were:

Aphra Nugent
Perry Nugent
William Nugent
Richard Nugent
Thomas Nugent
Amelia Nugent
John Nugent
Anne Nugent
Clarence Nugent.

The letter reproduced here in these images was written to John Pratt Nugent's son Perry, my husband's great-great grandfather. [Click on the image for a larger version.] Many of the envelopes to these family letters are missing--or the letters were separated from their envelopes by an uncle who had hoped to make money from the stamps. This is one of those free-floating letters, divorced from its envelope and stored with letters unrelated in time.

Some of the handwriting is difficult for me to read, but I have translated the handwriting as best I can below. I have regularized some of the punctuation.

Atchafalaya, October 3rd, 1856

Dear Perry,

Your letter of 20th [undecipherable] came to hand yesterday since, and as I expect to take Tom to Bayou Sara tomorrow I thought it best to drop you a few lines--I am sorry to say that your uncle William has failed to sell his place. Mr. Norwood is sick. I believe he wished to buy the place for himself & a Brother in law by the name, I think, of [Hutchens?], or some such name. The latter lives at or near Clinton, east Feliciana. Tom was sent over there by his Father but Mr. H back (sic) out by saying the place was too [small?] for the hands Mr. Norwood wished to add to his force. It will be proper for you to write to President Miller. Tom wishes to board in the college or with Miller. I have very little money to give him. I had bought some cattle from Harry Juvell last year. I had to pay him & I bought another cow out of a drove and a [undecipherable]. It all put together swept my money. The Captain of the Effort was to bring me a barrel of pork and take pay in wood but he did not return. I have heard he has gone to Red River, the Atchafalaya has risen three feet, and the snag boat is pulling out the snags--and has got up to Bayou Boeuf or higher--inform some of the officers of the Opelousas or get Dick to do it. I am on my last barrel pork. Should a boat come, send me a barrel best [undecipherable] or should no boat come send one [to] Morganza care [of] Mr. Josep Strother (or Strawther) by Bella Donna or Capitol and write by mail to me. You know I only get letters once a week, the state owes me $44--When Caldwell comes along I will get a check and sent it to you. They are going to make a new [undecipherable] Cowhead [Bayou?] on the upper side of the old one. I will not bid. The others were bought 21 cents the cubic yard--it is thought nothing will be made at those works. The earth is to be carried [undecipherable]. I deadened nearly one hundred acres over Cowhead & mean to do more this dark moon. I am gathering my corn now over the River, when that is done I will go at cutting woods--the deadening will only take a few days--Your mother will write to Richard--Say to him he must not think hard of me for not writing--best to him and all and kisses to your Lady love [undecipherable]. I find it hard to get at writing--
as ever your
affectionate
Father
John Nugent

P. S. You had better burn my scrawls of letters--J. N.

The letter is rather disjointed, as the infrequent letter-writer--by his own admission--hits the high spots of news for his son, who will understand the references to place names and steamboats. I was stumped for a while by the references to "Bella Donna and Capitol" until I thought to do a Google search on boats on the Mississippi and found in Google Books a text titled "Fifty Years on the Mississippi: or, Gould's History of River Navigation, by Emerson W. Gould. The book includes the names of steamboats and their captains. In the section titled "Steamboats on the Bayou Sara Trade," the steamer Bella Donna is listed for 1853, along with her captain, Captain I. H. Morrison. The steamer Capital is listed for 1856, and her captain, Captain Baranco. Also, I puzzled over the word "deadened" for a while until I guessed that it had something to do with killing trees in preparation for clearing land for cultivation. Another search in Google Books provided support for my guess in "Southern Cultivator, vol. 5 (p. 319), in which the editors answer a query about the best time for "deadening" timber for bringing land into cultivation. John Nugent's letter does give the reader a pretty good idea of what was most on the man's mind as he wrote his son, and I am glad that son did not follow his father's advice to burn the letters.

The Nugents: Origins

2010-08-04T14:02:00.000-07:00

For now we will leave Mary Ophelia Nugent and Baker White Armstrong in September, 1887, at which time Baker professed his love for Mary. Yes, they eventually married, and Mary followed Baker from Virginia to Texas, where one consequence of their union is the existence of my husband, Thomas Alexander Greene, born 1958. I will return to the details of the Nugent-Armstrong alliance, but I am now going to pick up threads of Mary Ophelia Nugent's family background. Mary's father was Perry Nugent, still living in 1887; Mary's mother, Amanda Maria Keep Cook Nugent had died months earlier, on January 3, 1887. I will provide details that we have of the other threads of family history (Cook, Lewis, Hardeman), but first I will concentrate on what we know about the Nugents.

Perform a Google web search on the phrase "Nugent origins," and you will find web sites devoted to the Nugent family. The "Old World" Nugents, according to those websites as well as from information copied by my husband's relatives, describe the Nugents' traveling from France to England with William the Conqueror. They assisted William of Normandy in the Battle of Hastings of 1066. According to one website, the Nugent

surname is of Norman origin, and was introduced into Britain and Ireland after the Conquest of 1066. It is a locational name from any of the several places in Northern France, such as Nogent-sur-Oise, named with the Latin "Novientum", apparently an altered form of a Gaulish name meaning "new settlement". The Anglo-Norman family of this name are descended from Fulke de Bellesme, lord of Nogent in Normandy, who was granted large estates around Winchester after the Conquest. His great-grandson was Hugh de Nugent (died 1213), who went to Ireland with Hugh de Lacy, and was granted lands in Bracklyn in Westmeath. The family formed themselves into a clan in the Irish model, of which the chief bore the hereditary title of Uinsheadun, from their original seat at Winchester. They have been Earls of Westmeath since 1621, and the name is now widespread in Ireland. The surname dates back to the early 13th Century.

This information coincides with information from other sources, so it seems to be fairly accurate. My husband's family, through Mary Ophelia Nugent, is descended from those Nugents who went to Ireland with Hugh de Lacy. Mary's grandfather, John Pratt Nugent (born 1792; died 1873), emigrated from Ireland to the United States, where he eventually married (1827) Anne Lewis (born 1807; died Aug. 23, 1873). In the papers of Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong ("Mimi"), daughter of Mary Ophelia Nugent and Baker White Armstrong, are papers about the Nugent family. Included among those papers are hand-written notes titled "Nugent Family: From notes--Mrs. Anne Nugent Edmonds." Anne was one of the children of John Pratt Nugent and Anne Lewis--and sister to Perry Nugent. Here are the words from that document:

John Pratt Nugent came of Anglo-Norman ancestry, the descendent of one of the knights who were associated with Hugo de Lacy in a grant of land made by Henry II in what is now known as Queens Co., Ireland. James Nugent, his father, was in the British Army at the time he ran away and married Aphra Pratt, who was attending boarding school in Dublin. After his marriage with Aphra Pratt, whose father seems to have been a wealthy man, he left the soldiers (sic) life and went to live on an estate in Queens County near the town of Rothdowny (sic) where all his children were born. They were members of the Church of England in which communion, John, was confirmed before coming to America. Aphra Pratt's (Nugent) brothers held office under the British government but nature of positions is not known. James Nugent's family suffered severely in the Catholic riots, during one of which the home was burned to the ground, the baby in the family having made a narrow escape with his life.

Notes from John Pratt Nugent
"I arrived from Philadelphia, Nov. 16, 1816. Sailed from Dublin. I was in the employ of Thos. P. & Sons while there. They were tobacco commission merchants. Thos. Kirkman of the house of Kirkman and Jackman, sent me to Natchez in the fall of 1818. They had a branch at Nashville and one at Natchez."

James E. Edmonds (Maj. Gen. N. G. U S.-Retired), Anne Nugent Edmond's grandson, most probably, corresponded with Mary ("Mimi") Ophelia Nugent Armstrong and provided her with a lot of information on the Nugents. In a letter dated March 25, 1957, and addressed from 29 Colonial Place, Asheville, N. C., cousin James wrote the following:

Dear Mary Nugent Armstrong
Cousin Mary
Years ago I picked up in a Washington second hand book store, a biography of one ROBERT LORD NUGENT; a brilliant, fortune-hunting, politician and place-hunter of the 18th Century. I did so, more or less to tease my straight-laced mother. I only glanced at the book, by a man named Claude Nugent.

But the other day, re-ordering my older books, I found in the volume--unread by me hitherto--an account of the Nugent tribe from the first comer from England in the long ago, down to the mid-18th century; and, a singularly interesting lot of chronic rebels, adventurers, and turbulent country gentlemen.

The names Richard, Robert, William recur and recur...

Of course, over more than 700 years there were many split-offs and there are Nugents of all sorts and kinds in Ireland and here in the United States, of other lines than ours.

But, I feel sure that the 18th Century gap between our known ancestor, James Nugent of the 19th Regiment of Foot, who married Aphra Pratt and settled down at Rathdowney in the 1770s or '80s--and the Nugents of the senior line of Westmeath, could be filled in by any competent genealogist in Dublin.

If you like, I'll send you a copy of the material in the old book

By the way: Have you any trace of any Nugent descendents (sic) of Judge Thomas H. Nugent, your-great-uncle who flourished in Texas about 60 years ago and lived (I believe) in Palestine?

Cordially, James

Cousin James Edmonds evidently followed through with his promise to send some of that material from the book by Claude Nugent, for in Mimi's papers are several typed pages of information on the Nugents. I will not reproduce all the information James Edmonds includes about the Nugents (beginning with Hugh de Lacy and his Nugent companions in Ireland). Instead, I will pick up here:

All these Nugents plainly shifted from the Royalist Catholic Nugents of Westmeath when William and Mary won the Irish wars in the 1690s and Queen Anne succeeded, and the Stuarts went into final eclipse. So;;;;: we come to:

Lieutenant JAMES NUGENT, who served in His Majesty's 19th Regiment of Foot, during the Seven Years War and was captured by the French at the fighting over some channel (Belle Isle) islands. By family legend, he persuaded schoolgirl Aphra Pratt, daughter of a well-to-do Protestant landowner of near Rathdowney, to elope with him from her boarding school in Dublin. He quit the army in 1771 after serving since 1775, and went to the family estate, in what is Queen's County. The Pratts were office-holders under the English government and Rathdowney was the site of a considerable Protestant community. By family legend, the Nugent-Pratt family suffered severely during the Catholic riots in the late 1700s; one of the homes was burned, and a baby in that family was saved by his nurse who climbed out of a window with him.

James Nugent, the ex-soldier, sired:
James Nugent, the eldest, date of birth not noted, married 1804, and "lived and died in Ireland." His emigrant younger brother long later wrote, "my last letter from him in 1852." Probably born circa 1773 or 5. (When Cynthia and I visited Rathdowney in 1936, no Nugent trace remained nor could we, on our brief visit, locate the site of the Pratt-Nugent homestead in the country)...
Robert Nugent, born 1777, "came to America when old"...
George Nugent, about whom no statistic or word...
Perry Nugent, who came to the United States, married, left a son who never married... and then...
John Pratt Nugent, youngest and son of his father's later years, born 1792, and the ancestor of the Nugents who were my maternal uncles, aunts, and cousins in my boyhood and young manhood... and some of the cousins my dearest kin into my maturity and middle and old age... He sailed from Dublin in 1816, spent seven weeks at sea, arrived in Philadelphia, November 16, 1816. Two years later he was sent, as he relates, by "Thomas Kirkman of the house of Kirkman and Jackson" to their branch at Natchez, Mississippi. There, the young Irishman seems to have prospered. He removed to the then territorial capital of Washington, married a Miss Forman, fathered a daughter, Katherine. This wife died young and soon. Eight years after his arrival... the lovely Anne Lavinia Lewis, daughter of Judge Seth Lewis of Opelousas, Louisiana, was attending the Elizabeth Academy for Young Ladies--the first chartered institution of higher learning for women in the United States!---She saw the handsome young widower riding by on his handsome horse, and he saw the lovely girl, fifteen years his junior. They met...and in 1827 they married...Later, probably with the encouragement of Judge Seth Lewis...the couple re[settled in] St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, became planters instead of merchants and reared the family there until the tragedy of the Civil War."

And so we have the history of the Nugents from whom Mary Ophelia Nugent was descended, and from her, my husband and his sister. We have in the family papers letters written by John Pratt Nugent to his sons and a few letters written by Anne Lavinia Lewis Nugent. With those, I will pick up the story of the Nugents in Louisiana.

Baker White Armstrong: "The Happiest Man in Texas"

2010-01-30T21:52:00.000-08:00

On August 20, 1887, Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong passed away. Her son Robert had returned to Virginia from Texas earlier in the summer and was at "Edgewood," the family home, those months while Louisa weakened. Her oldest son, Baker White Armstrong, returned to Virginia, also, but we do not know if he returned in time to see his mother alive, though we do have Louisa's family Bible with the inscription indicating that Louisa gave the Bible to him on the day she died. Baker's visit was short, for by September 1st, he had written his father to let him know that he and Robert had arrived safely in Bryan, Texas. But more than a funeral transpired during that visit to Virginia.

The family of Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr., had been acquainted with the Perry Nugent family at least since Perry moved his family from New Orleans to Salem, Virginia, in about 1878. Perry Nugent had made his money in New Orleans, where he reared his children before buying "Longwood" plantation in Salem. The Nugent girls were friends with the Armstrong girls. (The photo top left is of Mary Ophelia Nugent, 1879.) Armstrong letters suggest that the girls had attended school together at some time. In a letter to her brother Baker--dated Sept. 6, 1883--Janie had written:

Mr. & Mrs. Nugent, Mary & Paul were out to see us yesterday for the first time this summer. I had seen Mary only once & then only to speak to her, since Commencement and was glad to see her. Since brother Jimmie's death we have not felt like visiting anybody or going any place & that is why we have not been to see her. None of us girls being dressed in mourning it makes us feel so badly to go any place to see any body, that we just feel like staying home.... Mary Nugent is very anxious to go to Hollins this next session to take music but I believe her mother has not yet decided what she will do. They will remain here all winter and Paul will go to Mr. Dabney's school, at Mr. David Shank's old place....

Mary Nugent was also best friends with Katie Dosh, a cousin of the Armstrongs, a friendship that was to last a lifetime. [Katie Dosh was the daughter of Thomas W. Dosh and Kate Baker Brown.] The Nugent girls are mentioned again and again over the years: in a letter dated July 8, 1885, Edward wrote his son Baker that "Katie Dosh and Miss Mary out to see & help the girls on Monday & will I suppose stay several days yet." And Robert described some of the great parties at Longwood over which Mary and her sisters presided. (The photo above right is of Mary Ophelia Nugent, c. 1883-1884.)

But also mentioned over the years are the beaus that Mary Nugent had, particularly John Chalmers. The impression that all these descriptions give is that the Nugents were very stylish, social, well-educated, and talented. (Mary was known for her singing and playing.)

Some time, however, between the parties and the months away at Augusta Female Seminary (Mary) or Texas (Baker), Mary Ophelia Nugent and Baker White Armstrong fell in love. But the feelings between the two were a secret for a while, for Janie wrote her brother Baker on October 20, 1887, practically begging him to tell the family the details so that they could be open with Mary: "By the by we all are waiting very patiently for the answer to my question & when are you going to write. Mary seems so very bright & happy & knowing as much as we do of course it does us good to see her so. We are much crazy for you to answer our question & for her to know you have done it so she will know we know all & we all can talk together." And after a few details about the family, Janie ended the letter: "Of course if you do not want to tell us what we want to know we do not want to beg too much but it would certainly make us all happy to hear it all from your lips."

What Janie could not know was that Mary probably carried in her pocket Baker's declaration, a little folded packet marked "B. W. A. Strictly Private," with the date 9/9/87. These words indicate some of Baker's emotional state as he dealt with his mother's death and with the love he revealed to Mary Nugent:

My mind has been in such a state of anxiety--then sorrow, that I was unprepared for any extensive exhibition of emotional love, but, down in the deepest recesses of my heart was a love for you that sprang up those 4 years ago and had grown as the years went by, notwithstanding reports of attentions paid you by an other ~~party~~ and report after report of your coming marriage-- I was uncertain of the truth of these reports until I got a denial from your own lips and then I was overwhelmed with joy at the thought that there was still a chance to make you mine or a chance to try at least--Not knowing whether you cared one straw for me, I was rather rash in communicating myself, but twas the last time I knew [I] would see you for a year or so, so perhaps in my pleading I may be excused for seeming rashly importunate. --Well, I am such a nature that I do not like suspense--I remember reading a long time ago in one of Irving's works a definition of love which was as follows; "Love is the misery of one, the felicity of two, and the enmity & strife of three." Well, as long as I did not ascertain whether you loved me ~~or not~~, I am, so far as I know in ~~the loneliness of misery~~ an unfortunate "state of misery"--Now to come to the point--I want to know ~~whether~~ if you love or if not now, do you think there are elements in my "make up" of character that could ever win your love? If you can answer the first in the affirmative, you have made me the happiest man in Texas by thus satisfying the most earnest yearnings of my heart--If negative I can but accept the situation with the consolation afforded by the fact that you dealt honestly with me; for I do not believe in this one sided business in love, and if you cannot give me your heart--your whole heart--do not want you to entrust me with a part--In other words I do not want to be the only one to do the loving--A heart for a heart is my motto to be observed in love affairs--and I would never want a woman to marry me if she could not give me her heart's best affections--Not that I imagine for an instant that you would do that way, for I regard you as the truest girl I ever saw and all I want is one word and I shall forever trust you.

While somewhere in these family letters there may be a written reply from Mary, I haven't found it yet. However, the fact that Thomas Alexander Greene and his sister Linda Katharine Greene Bolano are alive on this green earth, in 2010, is evidence enough that Mary Ophelia Nugent gave Baker White Armstrong that one word to make him "the happiest man in Texas."

Down the Rabbit Hole of Genealogy: The Earl of Surrey?

2010-01-30T13:30:00.000-08:00

This week I have been focusing on identifying the antecedents of Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong, my husband's great-great grandmother. In that search, I discovered handwritten documents and information about the family, particularly the Whites. Then I found myself pursuing information about other family connections, the Bakers and the Woods. Every family history is a warren. If I attempt to follow every passage in that warren, I will lose sight of the reason I began this blog: to organize the letters, photos, and other ephemera now in our keeping that my husband's ancestors collected and saved. Occasionally, I must pursue a question that these documents raise, but if I'm ever to get these hundreds of letters read and organized, I must remain true to my original plan. Then I can wander deeper into the warren.

However, I will record what I discovered about connections between the Whites, Bakers, and Howards, going back to Judith Howard Wood, of Howard Hall, England. The family history recorded by Susan C. Armstrong has some discrepancies that I cannot reconcile now, while many of the details are corroborated in published documents. As the pages of Susan's record at the end of this post indicate, the branch of Whites from which my husband is descended traces its antecedents back to Lady Judith Howard of Howard Hall, daughter-in-law of the Duke of Norfolk. This connection may well make the Whites (and my husband) a descendant of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517-1547); Susan White Armstrong was certainly claiming that connection, and more academic documents show that the family was descended from the Howards--but what Howard? A younger son, as Susan Armstrong's record suggests? Really? Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey? Many families have stories of famous relatives in the distant past. That's a subject for another investigation.

An article in The William and Mary Quarterly(vol. 6, No. 2, Oct. 1897, pp. 94-97), provides information about the White connection to the Howard and Wood families. [The entire text can be accessed more freely here: http://files.usgwarchives.net/va/schools/wmmary/family01.txt.] Here is an excerpt:

William Howard, who lived about the time of the battle of Culloden, married Judith------, and had several children born in England. Henry Howard, the youngest, was born February, 1745. Susannah Howard an elder sister, married Peter Wood, of Maryland, and had issue, four daughters, one of whom, Judith, married John Baker, of Devonshire, England, who settled in Jefferson county Va.--Abstracted from an old letter, 1838, of Judge L. P. Thompson, quoting the family Bible.

John Baker and Judith, his wife, had issue: 1, Margaret, who married William Lisle, of Staunton, Va., and left issue: 2, Anna, who married Zachary Waters, of Montgomery county, Md., and left two sons, Baker and Tilghman, and one daughter, Courtenay; 3, Susannah who married, first, James Wood, of Betetourt county, Va., and had issue, James, Stanhope, and Fonrose. She married, second, James Tapscott, the immigrant, of English descent, and had Baker Tapscott, who married Ellen Morrow Baker, his cousin, of whom hereafter; 3, Arabella, who married Judge Robert White, of Winchester, Va., and had two sons, John Baker and Robert Baker White. Judge White was born in 1759 and died in 1831, a soldier at Boston from Virginia in 1775, wounded at Princeton, lawyer in 1783, and judge of the General Court from 1793 to 1826;.....

James Tapscott and Susanna [Baker] Wood [first husband, James Wood], his wife, had issue; Newton Tapscott, married Louisa, daughter of Ferdinando Fairfax, second son of Bryan, eighth Lord Fairfax; Chichester, married a daughter of William Naylor, Esq., of Romney, Va.; Baker, of whom hereafter [in a following paragraph that I do not reproduce here]; Susan Caroline, first wife of Judge Lucas P. Thompson, of Staunton, Va.; Louisa married John Baker White, of Romney, and had three daughters, one of whom was second wife of Judge Lucas P. Thompson, her uncle-in-law. --Abstracted from statement of John B. Tapscott, Esq.

Oh, what a tangled web this excerpt brings to light. John Baker White, father of Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong (my husband's great-great grandmother), first married his first cousin, Louisa Tapscott; this union produced Susan C. White, who married William Armstrong, brother of Edward McCarty Armstrong. John Baker White married a second time to Frances Streit; this union produced Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong. Louisa and Susan were half-sisters--and sisters-in-law. And the last part of that excerpt indicates that one of the daughters of John Baker White and Louisa (first wife) married her uncle by marriage after he was widowed.

And now, the handwritten family version of these antecedents, as recorded by Susan C. White Armstrong. As is often the case with family documents in which people recall details that have been told to them, the information needs to be corroborated with other documents. There are claims here that don't absolutely match up with information I've read elsewhere, and the multiplicity of common names makes accuracy more difficult.

I have loaded below images of a number of pages of this handwritten document. Click on each image for a readable view.

John Baker White: "After You Send Hitler to Hell"

2010-01-29T19:17:00.000-08:00

Going through the boxes of family letters my husband's ancestors left behind is like going through a box of puzzle pieces in which ten different puzzles are jumbled together. I will find a puzzle piece that looks as if may fit one puzzle and then discover that it fits another altogether. A close fit is not a perfect fit.

So far I have been concentrating on the Armstrong family, the family of Tom's great-grandfather, Baker White Armstrong, Sr. Baker's mother was a White, so I pulled out the White puzzle in the last post, trying to find a fit for the antecedents of that mother, Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong. As I mentioned in the last post, putting the puzzles together is all the more difficult because so many of these relatives, some even in the same generation, share the same names. Which Robert White is this text referring to--Robert White, the British surgeon who came to America or his son Robert White who fought in the Revolutionary War or Robert White who fought for the Confederacy? The list of John Baker Whites is just as confusing.

But every once in a while I will discover two or three puzzle pieces that fit, and that's what I think I have here. I ended the last post with a copy of a photo of a man with the name John Baker White written beneath the photo. While I am not quite sure where this John Baker White fits in the family tree of my husband's great-grandmother, Louisa, I am sure that he is a relative (most likely one of Louisa's nephews). This John Baker White must be the same John Baker White who wrote a letter to my husband's great-uncle, Baker White Armstrong, Jr., in 1943. Baker White Armstrong, Jr., was, of course, a grandson of Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong and Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr., and the only son of Baker White Armstrong, Sr. In 1943, Baker White Armstrong, Jr., was serving his country in World War II. While I will be writing much more about this Baker in later posts [I previously introduced him in this early post], here I will jump ahead from 1887, the year Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong died, to 1943, in order to bring to you two small pieces of a puzzle: a letter and a photograph.

Here, again, is the photograph:

And here is the letter. Click on the image for a readable view.

This photograph is most likely that of a John Baker White from the generation following that of Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong's generation; this is surely one of her nephews.

I transcribe the letter here as best I can (including a paragraph break for easier reading):

U. S. Veterans Hospital--Huntington, WV. Nov. 16--1943

Lt. Baker White Armstrong
2300 So Arlington Ridge Road
Arlington, Virginia

My Dear Lieutenant:

I have just received a letter from Lt. Stanley C. Dadisman saying you room across the hall from him. I am awfully glad to get track of you as I had almost lost contact with the family since your esteemed father died. Lt. Dadisman mentioned you would be interested in knowing your connection with the family. Well, if I were at home & able to get any papers I could give you a lot of family history, but I have been a patient in this hospital for 3 months suffering from a heart breakdown, but I will endeavor to give you a short line on our genealogy & you can do doubt fill in some of the missing links. My great grandfather Robert White was a Capt. & Brevet Major in the Continental Army & was seriously wounded in the battle of Monmouth, N. J. & invalided home & "limped" to his grave in 1833 (See Kercheval's History of the Valley & Foote's Sketches of Va [Anita's note: Foote's text is in Google Books online] both in the Congressional Library. Robert White was one of the original members of the Society of the Cincinnati in Virginia. I hold membership in that Order by reason of being his eldest living male descendant in the male line. I also belong to the Sons of the Revolution, to which you are elligible (sic) by reason of being a descendant of Capt. Robert White. Capt. White was Judge of the General Court of Virginia from 179-- to 1833 & was quite a distinguished jurist.

I married at 70 a Miss Mary Ann Williamson she is 51 & a professor of English at Marshall College here in Huntington, she is good looking, brilliant & good to me & a fine character, we are very happy, would like to have you meet her sometime.

I wish for you my dear cousin an honorable & distinguishable career & a safe return to your family after you send Hitler to Hell.

Sincerely yours
John Baker White

In this letter, John Baker White included a handwritten family tree, with much missing and some inaccurate information. For instance, he lists Edward McCarty Armstrong as marrying Susan Armstrong--but Edward McCarty Armstrong, as we well know after going through all these letters and posting them on this blog--was married to Louisa Tapscott White (daughter of John Baker White and Frances Streit). But for the record, here are images of that handwritten yet incomplete family tree. Click on each image for a readable view.

Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong--Antecedents

2010-01-28T22:57:00.000-08:00

Among the boxes of family letters are clues that Tom's mother, Mary Nugent Robb Greene, and his great-aunt, Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong (Mimi), at various times tried to fill out the genealogical records of several of their family lines. I have discovered letters to Mimi (and to her brother, Baker White Armstrong, Jr.) from several distant cousins whom Mimi had contacted, and we have files of disorganized hand-written notes. I am sure I will discover more letters and more information as I go through the piles of family letters. However, here, while we're still pondering the death of Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong, I will record what I know about Louisa's family. Some of the information I've discovered online, some comes from those disorganized notes, some from memorials and obituaries, and others from letters.

Note: The same names appear over and over again, sometimes twice over or three times over in one generation, so it's a little difficult to keep people straight. I've done the best I can here and will make changes if I discover I've made some mistake in identifying the correct Robert or John as antecedents to Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong.

Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong (b. 1836) was one of the daughters of John Baker White and Frances A. Streit. However, John Baker White was first married to Louisa Tapscott, who, according to several records, died fairly young. John Baker White and Louisa Tapscott had three daughters:

Susan J. White, who married William J. Armstrong of Hampshire County, VA;
Juliet Opie White, who married Noble Tabb, of Berkely County; and
Arabella White, who married Judge Lucas P. Thompson, of Augusta County.

John Baker White's second wife, Frances Streit, bore him nine or twelve children, according to two different records. Of those nine or twelve children, I have encountered the names of some of the sons, who evidently achieved some distinction in their part of the country: Col. Robert White (b. 1833), John Baker White (b. 1837--became a law partner of James D. Armstrong, most likely the brother of Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr.), Christian Streit White (b. 1840), Alexander White, (b. 1841) and Henry White (the youngest). These were Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong's brothers. What seems a little strange is that Louisa was named after her father's FIRST wife, Louisa Tapscott, but she's the daughter of her father's SECOND wife.

The picture at the top of this post is that of Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong's brother, Col. Robert White (February 7, 1833-December 12, 1915).

And now, from various sources, information about Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong's antecedents and relations:

The following History of the White family is quoted from History of Hampshire County, West Virginia: from its earliest settlement to the present by Hu Maxwell and H. L. Swisher, p. 739-743 [Google Books Online] [I have corrected some of the typos.]

The White Family have for many years connected with the history of Hampshire County, especially since the year 1815, when John Baker White [Louisa Tapscott White's father] took up his residence at Romney. They are of Scotch and English origin, coming of an old Covenanter family, and united by the ties of blood on the Scotch side of the martyr Patrick Hamilton and Captain Robert White, who assisted in the defence of Derry in 1688-449, and on the English side with Major Henry Baker, who so largely conducted the fammis (sic) defence of Derry. The family have since the days of Knox been Presbyterians. Their ancestral home was near Edinburgh, Scotland, and is said to be still standing. The first of the family to reside in America was Robert White [Louisa Tapscott White's great-grandfather], who was a surgeon with the rank of captain in the British navy. Visiting his relative, John William Hoge (who was the ancestor of Dr. Moses Hoge, of Richmond, Judge John Blair Hoge, of Martinsburg, and the Hoges of Wheeling), who resided in Delaware, [Robert White] married [Hoge's] daughter, Margaret Hoge. For a while he resided near York, Pennsylvania, where he erected a home and called it, after his Scottish home, White Hall. He then removed with his kinfolk and clientage to Virginia, and built [a home near?] North Mountain, a little west of Winchester, which he also called White Hall. There he died in the year 1752, in the sixty-fourth year of his age, and was buried in the old Opequon graveyard, near Winchester. He had three sons who survived him, Robert, Alexander, and John, all of whom did service in the French and Indian War, and bore commissions under the colonial government. Robert inherited a large part of the estate with the residence of his father, and it descended to his grandchild. Robert was the grandfather of Francis White, who was sheriff of Hampshire County. Alexander became a lawyer of eminence. John was a member of the first bench of magistrates of Frederick County, Virginia, and was the father of Judge Robert White.

"The Earliest Record we have of the White Family in this country" (handwritten records from family archives)--I do not know who hand-copied the six pages of history (front and back), but the two pages typed below are also reproduced in images below the text. These six pages were found loose in a folder of miscellaneous material on family.

Dr. Robt. White was born in Scotland in 1688 and came to this country 1720. He graduated in Edinburgh and was surgeon in the British Navy for awhile. He came to America, married Miss Margaret Hoge, daughter of William Hoge, then living in Delaware but the ancestor of the Hoge Family of Va. He died in 1752, leaving three sons, John, Robt., & Aleck. Robt. lived and died at the home place in Frederick County, Virginia. Aleck was educated in Edinburgh, was a member of the First Congress of the U.S. 1789-93 and of the Convention of Virginia. In 1796, he married a sister of Hon. James Wood, governor. John was a man of influence and distinction. His son, Robert, was the most distinguished of the family and became of judge of the general court of Va. He was educated in Penn, enlisted as a private in 1775 in company commanded by Capt. Hugh Stephenson. He fought at Germantown in 1777 as lieutenant under Major Wm. Drake. After the war, he practised law in Winchester, Va. and became Judge White. He is described as an able lawyer, clear and cogent in argument and for ten years held an eminent position at the bar during which period he was frequently elected to represent Frederick county in Legislature and enjoyed a high reputation among some of the most prominent men of the Common Wealth with whom he was associated. He continued in his high career of usefulness until the spring of 1825 when he was paralyzed and died in 1827. He married Arabella Baker, daughter of John Baker, a prominent man in his day who lived near Shepherdstown, Jefferson County, near West Va. Mrs. Judge White had one brother, John Baker, who was a member of the U. S. Congress in 1811-13 and father of Ann Gilmer, wife of Thomas Gilmer, member of U. S. Congress, governor of Va. in 1840 and secretary of navy in U. S. 1843, whose family resided in Charlottesville, Va. Mrs. Ann Baker, wife of John Baker, was on board first boat propelled by steam by James Ramsey of Shepherdstown on Potomac River 1787. Judge White had several sisters who married respectively a Tapscott, Walters, Hite, and Lyle from whom large families have sprung. Judge White had three children.

Click on the images below for a better view of these handwritten documents.

Alexander White, son of Robert White (surgeon in the British Navy who was the first of the line to settle in America), quoted from History of Hampshire County by Hu Maxwell and H.L. Swisher (full text in Google Books)

Alexander White...was a very distinguished patriot and statesman, and an uncle of Judge Robert White [and thus, a great-uncle of Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong]. There is a volume of Virginia Historical Reports which contains four hundred and seventy-nine pages about Alexander White. He was a member of the [House] of Burgesses of Virginia with Patrick Henry, and it is said in the book referred to that Patrick Henry never voted until after he had consulted with Mr. White. Alexander White was an eloquent speaker, and being of old Scotch Presbyterian stock, he was much opposed to the support in colonial days of the church by the State, and it is said that he was the first man in this country to offer a resolution in a public body upon the subject of religious freedom, and this long before George Mason had his celebrated resolutions inserted in the Virginia bill of rights. Mr. White was a member of the Virginia convention which ratified the Constitution of the United States. He was also a member of the first Congress of the United States, and some of his speeches are found reported in the debates of that Congress. It is stated in the histories of that time that he was the most eloquent man in that Congress.... (from pages 739-743)

Judge Robert White [grandfather of Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong; son of Robert White, the surgeon in the British Navy]--quoted from "History of Wheeling City and Ohio County, West Virginia and Representative Citizens," by Hon. Gibson Lamb Cranmer, 1902, pages 341-344; Linda Fluharty: See The Wheeling Area Genealogical Society and Ohio County WVGen Web

Judge Robert White
was a resident of Winchester, Virginia, and at the early age of seventeen years became an officer in the Colonial army during the American Revolution. He was seriously injured in the battle of Monmouth-- a gunshot breaking one of his thigh bones. He also received a blow on the head from the musket in the hands of a Hessian soldier, the scar of which he carried through life. He was taken from the battlefield to his home at Winchester, where he was confined to his bed for two years, and during this time he took up the study of law. He was admitted to the bar and soon after was made judge of his district, and then judge of the General Court of Appeals in Virginia, a position he held until his death, at Winchester, in 1830. He married Arabella Baker, a daughter of John Baker, Sr., of Berkeley county, Virginia; her mother, Mrs. Judith (Wood) Baker was a daughter of Peter and Susanna (Howard) Wood, and a granddaughter of Henry Howard, of Howard Hall, England, of the House of Norfolk. A brother of Robert White, Alexander White, was an eminent statesman of the Revolutionary period.....

John Baker White [father of Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong and son of Judge Robert White, described above]--from "History of Wheeling City and Ohio County, West Virginia and Representative Citizens," by Hon. Gibson Lamb Cranmer, 1902, pages 341-344; typed by Linda Fluharty (similar information can be found in Maxwell and Swisher's book, a copy which is in Google books)

John B. White... was a clerk of both the circuit and county courts of Hampshire county, then in Virginia (from which county Mineral county, West Virginia, was formed), from the time he reached his majority until his death at Richmond in October, 1862. He was a man of unimpeachable character, and of high standing in the section in which he lived. He married Frances A. Streit, a daughter of Christian Streit, a Lutheran minister and a friend and companion of General Muhlenberg of the Colonial Army. Rev. Mr. Streit was pastor of a church in Winchester from the close of the Revolutionary War until 1830, in which year he died. Mrs. White died in 1867, having given birth to 12 children, among them Christian, who was a captain in the Confederate service, and since the war, clerk of the county court of Hampshire county, West Virginia; Alexander, who was a lieutenant in the Confederate Army and died in 1884; and Henry, the youngest of the sons, who is living at Romney, West Virginia.

More on John Baker White, father of Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong, quoted from WVHAMPSH-L Archives on RootsWeb, posted by "singhals," copied from History of Hampshire County by Maxwell and Swisher:

John Baker White was born near Winchester, Virginia, August 4, 1794. He enlisted as a soldier in the War of 1812, and was made an ensign. He was appointed clerk of the circuit and superior court of Hampshire County in 1814, and on March 20, 1815, he qualified as clerk, and he continued to fill both these offices by successive appointments and elections up to the time of his death....Few men have been more beloved and honored than he was among his own people. Possessed of means in his younger days, his house was the seat of true Old Virginia hospitality, and it open its doors not only to friends, relations, and to those of worth and high position, young and old who crowded its rooms, but also to every passing soul who needed food or shelter. The house first built by him in his early life was a large brick mansion. It was destroyed by fire in the year 1857, and upon its site was then erected the smaller brick house in which he resided until driven from it during the war between the States in 1861....Among the persons who to a large degree received their training under his care in his office and as inmates of his home and who afterwards became useful and honorable men were Newton Tapscott, a brilliant lawyer, who died at an early age; Henry M. Bedinger, member of Congress and Minister to Denmark; Alfred P. White and Philip B. Streit, who were in their time perhaps the foremost lawyers at the Romney bar; Judge James D. Armstrong, of the Hampshire judicial circuit, and Dr. Robert White, Presbyterian minister, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. John Baker White up to 1861 was a Union man. He supported Bell and Everett for president and vice-president in 1860, and voted for the Union candidates for the convention which passed the ordinance of secession, one of who was Col. E. M. Armstrong, afterwards of Salem, Virginia, who was Mr. White's son-in-law (my emphasis). But when President Lincoln issued his call for troops to invade and coerce the seceded States, Mr. White at once ranged himself with this State in defence of the rights of the States and the Constitution of the United States as Virginia and her people had always held them...With three sons out of four (the only ones old enough) in the Confederate Army, himself active and effective in his county in bringing the people of this border county, almost in a solid mass to the support of the cause in which his State had unsheathed her sword, he inevitably aroused the enmity of the Federals, and was compelled to leave his home to escape arrest. He went with his wife and young children to Richmond, and was given a position in the treasury department of the Confederate government. He died there on October 9, 1862. His death was no doubt hastened by the loss of his property and the anxieties oppressing him. He was buried by the Masonic fraternity in Hollywood Cemetery, at Richmond.....

Home of John Baker White, father of Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong

Colonel Robert White (brother of Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong)--quoted from "History of Wheeling City and Ohio County, West Virginia and Representative Citizens," by Hon. Gibson Lamb Cranmer, 1902. Pages 341-344. Typed and loaded online by Linda Fluharty (www.lindapages.com).

Col. Robert White, one of the most brilliant lawyers ever produced by the state of West Virginia...was born at Romney, West Virginia, February 7, 1833, and comes of a distinguished line of ancestors....Col. Robert White obtained his early education in the common schools of Virginia. He then served in the county clerk's office with his father about six years, after which he entered upon the study of law in the school conducted by Judge Brockenbrough, at Lexington, Virginia. He was admitted to the bar in 1854, and began practice at Romney. About one year before the beginning of the Civil War he became captain of a Virginia uniformed volunteer military company, and at the opening of the memorable conflict was ordered by the governor of Virginia to report to "Stonewall" Jackson at Harper's Ferry. He remained in the service until May 14, 1865, saw much hard service, and was in many of the most bloody combats that took place on Virginia soil. After the war he returned to Romney and owing to his father's death and the fact that he was the eldest of the family, virtually became its head, and at once entered actively on the practice of his profession. He was associated in practice with John J. Jacob until the latter was elected governor. He devoted his greatest efforts toward developing the beautiful South Branch Valley, which had been so desolated by the war. He prepared and secured the passage through the legistlature of an act establishing the Institution for the Deaf, Dumb and Blind, of West Virginia, and through his earnest efforts this institution was located in his native town. He served as one of its directors for many years. [much more information to be found here: Colonel Robert White]

I do not know, as of yet, just which John Baker White (and there are several) appears in the photograph below.

Louisa--What Her Bible Reveals

2010-01-27T12:37:00.000-08:00

When I began this blog, I knew nothing about Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong, my husband's great-great grandmother whose Bible sits in one of our bookcases. After locating and reading many letters she had written her sons Baker and Robert Armstrong, I know a great deal more. She was a woman with strong prejudices: she thought more of Southerners than Northerners, she thought (much) less of Texas than of Virginia, she thought her sons should marry Presbyterian girls, she hated liquor and the intemperate consequences of one's imbibing, a prejudice strengthened by the deterioration of one of her step-sons while in the grip of alcoholism. [From a letter to her son Baker, Dec. 10, 1885: "Xmas is coming. Watch & pray my dear boy that you are not led into temptation. Do not taste one drop of anything which intoxicates. It is used so much now. Oh my boy, never, never even taste."] She also was a woman of great affection who feared that her much older husband had too many worries in his old age and that his daily duties contributed to those worries, such as the difficult work of running a farm that seemed to take the family deeper and deeper into debt. Her letters to her sons reveal her love for them as well as her concern for their well-being, both "spiritually and temporally," to use one of her own phrases. Separated from her adult sons by great distance, she encouraged those young men to write her all the details about their lives, and in doing so, she nurtured in them care for others as well as an openness that one does not often encounter in letters written by young men. (I have yet to come across copies of Baker's letters to his mother--though we do have letters he later wrote to his wife, daughters, and son--but Robert's letters to his brother Baker are full of entertaining details and careful observations.)

Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong was also a woman of faith. She seems to have read the Bible through three times in the last three years of her life, for on one of the first pages of her Bible she wrote: "Began reading April 2, 1885; Began reading April 1st, 1886; Began reading April 1st, 1887." Of course, she might also have begun reading each time, without completing the exercise. But as one goes through the Bible, one will notice pencil marks around verses that seemed to have spoken especially to her:

Genesis 18:14--"Is any thing too hard for the Lord?...." (The Lord speaking to Abraham)
II Samuel 22:31--"As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the Lord is tried: he is a buckler to all them that trust in him."
Proverbs 23:26-32--"My son, give me thine heart, and let thine eyes observe my ways. For a whore is a deep ditch; and a strange woman is a narrow pit. She also lieth in wait as for a prey, and increaseth the transgressors among men. Who hath wo? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of eyes? They that tarry long at the wine; they that go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his colour in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder."
Isaiah 55:6-7--"Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon."
Zephaniah 2:15--"Wo unto him that giveth his neighbour drink, that puttest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also, that thou mayest look on their nakedness! [a bit of a pattern here--]
Zephaniah 3:19--"The Lord is my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds feet, and he will make me to walk upon mine high places..."
Matthew 11:28-29--"Come unto me, all ye that labour, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me: for I am meek and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls."

Not only did Louisa turn to the Bible for comfort, she used her Bible as a physical repository of her sorrows and her hopes. The photo at the top of this post is of items that I found loose within the pages of Louisa's Bible. Also within those pages was a poem evidently kept to comfort her at the death of her daughter Katie. The last pages of the Bible contain handwritten records of deaths in the family, and of her son Charles' profession of faith in the Presbyterian church. Tucked into the remains of a tattered, handmade cover, is a postal from Baker, written from Baltimore, in 1881, probably on the occasion of Baker's and Robert's first venture together away from their home in Virginia.

And only a few minutes ago, as I was looking closely at the Bible again, did I realize that Louisa passed on to Baker her Bible the day she herself passed on to what she hoped to be her heavenly reward. Inscribed on an inside page, probably in Baker's hand: "For Baker W. Armstrong from His Mother, Aug 20, 1887."

Click on any of the images on this page to enlarge those images.

In a letter to Robert from his sister Janie, dated November 10, 1887: "You have no idea how helpless lonely & sad we all feel now without our dear Mother & sometimes we feel as if we just could not live without her."

Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong: "Dashed into Eternity"

2010-01-26T21:15:00.000-08:00

Born on July 7, 1836, in Romney, Hampshire County, West Virginia, Louisa Tapscott White married, in 1856, at the age of twenty, Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr., a widower twenty years her senior. On September 3, 1837, when Louisa was one year old, her future husband had married his first wife, Hannah Pancake, who bore him eight children, seven of whom survived her death in 1854. My husband, Thomas Alexander Greene, and his sister, Linda Katharine Greene Bolano, are descendants of Louisa Tapscott White and Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr., whose marriage produced seven more Armstrong children. Edward was to outlive his second, much younger wife, at least two sons from his first marriage, and a daughter from his second marriage.

With the first post on this blog, I included a copy of the inner cover of Louisa's Bible, a Bible that Louisa gave to her son, Baker White Armstrong, who moved to Texas in the 1880s, where he settled, eventually purchasing a large home in Houston, on Main Street, and a second home in Boulder, Colorado (701 9th Street, an address my husband can still easily recall. Baker's son, Baker White Armstrong, Jr., moved to the family home in Boulder after World War II and lived there the rest of his life.)

That Bible reveals a lot about Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong. Inside its covers she had glued a copy of the obituary of her daughter Katie and a penciled record of her oldest sons' travels, including those propitious trips to Texas. Family and religion seem to have been two sides of one coin for Louisa; she wished to be no farther, physically, from her children than she was, spiritually, from her God. To her great sorrow, three of her children journeyed beyond her reach, one dying at a young age and the other two going to that God-forsaken state of Texas. After Baker found employment in Bryan, Texas, Louisa hoped that she would not lose another son to Texas. In a letter to Baker, dated April 22, 1885, she wrote:

Robert wrote to his Father about the situation you wrote him about in Bryan. While it would do my heart good to have you together, still I feel as if I can not say, "go." You, nor no one else, knows what a trial it is to me, to have you so far from me & especially in my feeble state of health & I cannot see my other boy go there too. I feel as if I could not consent again to your going; but I know I ought not to take such a selfish view. I do want you to be where it is best for you spiritually as well as temporally. If the warm weather does not suit you do not pretend to stay there. Robert writes as if he thought he ought to [be] doing something to help the family. While I am thankful to have two such boys whose hearts prompt them to help us, still I feel that I want them to lay up something for themselves.

At the end of 1885, Mother Louisa wrote Baker on December 3rd that she "never wanted [Baker] to settle in Texas.... There is too little godliness there." Despite her wishes, however, Robert did go to Texas, though before he settled there permanently, he would return home to Virginia to help with the family and was there in the summer of 1887, as his mother's illness took its toll. I have not yet discovered from the letters--if I ever will--what caused Louisa's death, but she had health issues for a long time. Occasionally in her letters, she would lament that she was not able to help her daughters with physical work around the house. The family occasionally had a couple of women to help, but that help was not permanent. Cooks were always coming and going. Louisa also seemed to suffer from the hot weather.

In Louisa's last letters to her sons, her handwriting became looser, more sprawling, the letters written a little more largely, but she determinedly provided all the details of home and family. She ended her letter of June 8, 1887, with concerns about Baker's health and with a solemn tone that reveals how much Louisa feared that more permanent earthly separation of loved ones: "Take care of yourself this summer. Beware of yellow fever. I see it has broken out at Key West, Fla. May God bless and guide you both & grant we may all see each other again."

By July 22, 1887, Robert had returned to Virginia, for he wrote a hastily-written letter to his brother Baker, telling him of their mother's condition:

I sent you a card yesterday, stating that Mother was not so well. She was in such a feeble condition yesterday that we all were very uneasy about her--so uneasy that Father was about sending you a Telegram [announcing?] the fact that she was [proving?] weaker so that if anything [more?] serious should happen you would be partially prepared for it. Dr. Bruffey came out twice yesterday & changed her treatment a little. One new thing he gave her was the whites of eggs--raw, which seems to have been a good thing for her. She slept well last night & is feeling stronger & better this morning than for several days. Dr. Bruffey has been out this morning & says that her tongue looks better & that the last action from her bowels (which are the principal source of her weakness) is the best & most favorable one she has had during her sickness.

So you see, we have good reason to feel encouraged this morning. She has been getting a little better & then going back to her old condition so often that we have all become despondent. But, I cannot but hope that the decided improvement which marks her condition this morning is an indication that Providence is going to answer our prayers for her recovery. She often expresses the wish that you could be here; but, she knows that Norrell is away & that consequently you can't come. If Norrell should be at home by the time this reaches you or should come very soon after, it might be a good idea for you to come on & spend several weeks if you can--that is if you do not hear in the meantime of a permanent & decided change having taken place for the better. Understand me--from her improved condition this morning, I hope there is no danger of her passing away; but her condition is critical and I would not feel easy did I not state the fact to you. You can judge better, about the advisability of coming home, from the next few cards you receive.

It would certainly be refreshing to her to see you & might act as a kind of tonic to her. Will keep you posted as to her condition &, should this change for the better not be permanent & the information still be unfavorable, I think that when Norrell gets back, you had better come home for a couple of weeks anyhow. Mother seems to think she might hear from you every two or 3 days; so, besides your usual weekly letter, suppose you write about two Postals a week, while her sickness continues. Don't fail to let Mr. Cole know of her critical condition, so that he won't write for me yet. I don't think it would be right for me to leave her now. I don't write this to alarm you unnecessarily but simply to give you a true idea of her condition. Dr. B. seems to think that if her strength will only hold out, she will get up again; but, he seems to be uneasy lest her strength should fail her. Be careful what you write in your letters, as they all have to be read to her.

Yr Aff Bro,
RA

After Baker sent a telegram asking whether or not he should leave Bryan, Texas, for Salem, Virginia, Edward counseled him in a letter dated July 30, 1887, that Louisa's condition had improved. That improvement was not to last, however, and Louisa died on August 20, 1887. Whether or not Baker reached his mother's side before her passing, I do not know. Perhaps another letter, yet to be located in the family boxes of letters, will reveal whether Baker's return to Virginia came in time. Bereft of his second wife, Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr., wrote Baker on Sept. 5, 1887, after Louisa's funeral and Baker's and Robert's return to Bryan. The tone of the letter is anxious, yet also thankful: "

My Dear Baker,
Your letter of the 1st came to hand today, informing us of the safe arrival at your City, of my precious boys, which announcement caused great rejoicing on the part of us all. You must not wonder at our being uneasy, such a distance & liable at any moment to be disabled, or dashed into Eternity. O my sons, we could not help being uneasy, and we, I trust, are all thankfull and gratefull, for the protecting mercy of our God, in permitting no calamity to befall you by the way. [Edward then provides details of the family's plan to rent a house in Salem.].... Fannie & the girls have just shown me a collection of Roses & etc. which go down in the morning, to be placed on your mother's grave. 4 of those roses are from the bush you gave her, they are all beautiful and mostly fragrant. Our house is awfully desolate, but we are trying to bear with fortitude and resignation the great trial that is upon us."

Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong, daughter of John Baker White and Frances A. Streit; wife to Edward McCarty Armstrong; mother to Baker White Armstrong, Sr.

Giving Thanks: "What Kind & Loving Hearts"

2010-01-24T15:02:00.000-08:00

In previous posts, I have described how brothers Robert and Baker Armstrong felt obligated to help their parents and siblings who remained in Virginia. Over the family's letter-writing history, from the 1880s to the death of Baker in 1937, family members wrote notes of thanks to their benefactors. Among those early thank-yous is that of Fannie Armstrong's of October 16, 1886. That year, Robert and Baker evidently paid for sisters Fannie and Janie to take a trip to Lynchburg as well as to supply corrective lenses for Fannie's poor eyesight. ("Lynchburg's Centennial celebration was held October 12 - 15, 1886, in conjunction with the Agricultural Fair.") Fannie's letter follows:

My Dear Brothers,
Mother is writing to one of you and will give you the particulars of Janie's and my trip to Lynchburg but I want to write a few lines myself to thank you again for putting it in my power to take this trip.

We both enjoyed the trip & what we saw of the fair, but above all I was so very thankful to have something done for my eyes. I think I have hardly waked up yet to the fact that I have really had them examined and have [unreadable] to hope for their improvement.

Dr. Baker says he thinks these glasses will relieve me much but can't say that I will be entirely relieved because I have so much neuralgia. Says I must wear them constantly at least for some time. Won't I be interesting looking?

He was very pleasant & kind and only charged me $5.00 for glasses & all that seemed marvelously cheap to me and I thought perhaps for your sake he did not charge me quite as much as he would others but I do not know. He met us at the depot & had us driven to Mrs. Maree's in a nice carriage, paying expenses--would not hear to our doing it. I can hardly write at all with this ink but Mother has been using the other & I did not know either that it was much better--Would write over but for my eyes. Mother told you that Janie went with me & we came back with a little over six dollars. Don't you think that was doing well? I am going to put away $5.00 for fear that I may need more for my eyes--may find the glasses do not quite suit & may have to write to Dr. Baker about them again. Mrs. Maree was very kind, too--so that we got along very well--

I must not write more but hope before long to be able to write you oftener & better letters--The Dr. says the glasses will try my eyes at first--& I had better not use them for teaching for a while. One of the girls will teach Charles. I must not write more--hope you can read. With much love for you both and many thanks again,
Yours lovingly
Fan

With this letter, we can probably conclude that in the photo above of Fannie and Nettie Armstrong, the two Armstrong sisters who never married, the one on the left, wearing glasses, is Fannie.

On September 18th, a month previous to Fannie's letter above, Mother (Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong) wrote a letter to Robert including extended thanks for Robert's and Baker's support of their father.:

Suppose before you receive this you will have received your Father's letter. It grieves me that he has to call on you boys for so much money, but what can he do when he is so pressed? ....It is his hands that most of his bill have been made for, not his family except for groceries-- $25 would pay off Enoch, John, Miranda, & Adeline every month & I proposed he would get you to advance him that much so he would not have to make bills--but now this trouble comes on & you cannot do that. If he could only sell his fruit well, he might make a little. He is more & more anxious to sell. Old Nell's neck had to be lanced on the other side, a week or so ago & he cannot use her for a long time. He has had Gibson's horse here for several weeks, but I do not know what he can do about keeping him. Poor old man. I do feel for him that he should be so worried in his old days. But we both have so much cause for thankfulness that we have such sons who are so willing to aid & comfort. May God indeed bless and keep you both.

Months later, in a letter dated April 26, 1887, Father Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr., again thanks his sons in a letter to Baker:

Dear Baker, Your letter enclosing P.O. [unreadable] for $55 came to hand on Sunday the 24th. [F]or your prompt response to my request, you will both accept my thanks, $45 of this I have placed to your credit, $8 for photo & $2 for Charles own use to be expended by him as he pleases.

I and the family thank you for the present of dear Katie's Photo, we have not yet received it, but suppose it will come in due time. I will heed your instructions as to the [unreadable] before taking it from [the] Express Office, will reject the Picture if not satisfactory when it comes.

You dear boys, what kind & loving hearts you have, and how much you do contribute to our happiness & support. I do not know what I would have done for the last two years, but for the assistance you have [rendered?] us all. We bless the Lord for all you are, to us all.

These examples of thanks are the few of many expressed to Robert and Baker Armstrong over the years. As I have been going through the family letters, so many of which remain to be read and organized, I have encountered many such letters of thanks. One of the most moving is one written from Salem, Virginia, in 1941, by Baker's nephew, Gordon Armstrong,four years after his uncle Baker's death. (Gordon was one of the sons of Baker's half-brother William Dillon Armstrong and Margaret Glasgow Armstrong.) The letter is addressed to Baker's widow, Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong.

Dear Aunt Mary,
I am enclosing you check for $60.00 which is the amount of my debt to Uncle Baker. I borrowed this amount from him about nine or ten years ago.

I should not have done this, as I had no reasonable prospect of repaying him at that time; and I have regretted so much that I was unable to make payment during his lifetime.

But I am now able to make this repayment, and it gives me a great deal of pleasure to pay you. It gives me real satisfaction to do this, as I have felt badly about this matter for a long time, and wish I could have done it earlier.

I trust you have been well, and that the blessings of Providence may be yours in abundant measure.

With much love to you and your loved ones,
Affectionately,
Gordon Armstrong

Click on image for a larger view.

"Oh! I Must Make Some Money!"

2009-12-26T17:18:00.000-08:00

Throughout the 1880s, in the letters written by the Armstrong men, there is an undercurrent of anxiety as the young men in the family try to find positions that will not only support themselves but that will provide extra money necessary for the comfort of their extended families. Robert and Baker Armstrong, sons of Edward McCarty Armstrong Senior's second family, go from their half-brothers' grocery and drugstore in Salem, Virginia, to various posts in Baltimore and Texas--looking for the best financial deal. In one letter in 1886, Baker evidently writes his father for advice about a partnership a man in Texas is offering him. At the time, Baker is working as a druggist in the drugstore owned by George W. Norrell, Bryan, Texas. In a letter dated January 12, 1886, Edward M. Armstrong writes his oldest son [I have regularized the punctuation.]:

In reply, are you at liberty to accept the 2nd proposition of Mr. Stuarts? When Mr. Norrell agreed to meet your demands for $1000 a year, did you not place yourself under obligation to continue with him? I merely ask the question, for I do not know all that passed between you. I want you to be very careful that in advancing your own interests that you do no injustice to others.

Father Edward advises his son to look closely into the character of the man offering Baker a partnership in his business. (The type of business is not identified though the word choice suggests some kind of mercantile business--maybe another drugstore.)

Are you to have any control in the business & who buys the goods? Will your name be in the business and will you become responsible for debts? Is Mr. Stuart a Christian? Is he strictly moral? Does he drink, or gamble? Is he a high flyer or extravagant?

In a later letter, dated January 26, 1886, Mother Louisa adds her advice:

My idea is that you had "set in" for the year with Mr. N. at $1000. I feel somehow that he is a safer man than the other; that he is rather close & the other a "fast liver." Of course I do not pretend to know; but judge so from your letters. Riches take to themselves wings and fly away sometimes.

The young Armstrong men's looking out not only for their own interests but for the comfort of their relatives was to be a characteristic of their behavior throughout their adult lives. Both Robert and Baker sent money home to help their mother purchase a medicine she deemed necessary for her health and to purchase clothing for their siblings. In 1886, Baker and Robert evidently helped pay for their sister Nettie's travels to visit various family members in Virginia, a trip that Mother Louisa writes about and that Nettie herself describes in a letter to her brothers, dated Jan. 6, 1886: "You can't know how much pleasure you are giving me, in this nice trip, and I certainly am grateful to you for it." I get the feeling, from reading several of the letters, that the trip was a way of getting Nettie away from the farm, with its sad reminders of sister Katie, who had died in January of 1885.

The boys were always looking out for those members of the family who needed their help, and letters first from their older half-brother William Dillon Armstrong and another from their nephew David Gibson Armstrong, Jr., illustrate how other relatives relied on Baker and Robert. By this time, William had sold his store house and was casting about for another business. He had spent quite some time in 1885 in quest of a place to open another business, but in January, 1886, he seems to be a little desperate:

Not being able to fall upon a suitable location for business during the Summer & Autumn & tired of running around & separation from my family, I concluded to replace them under the old roof for the Winter, hoping something would develop for me by the time Winter breaks......[Later in the letter, William's desperation comes through more clearly.] I am glad to hear you & Robt are both succeeding so well, in your adopted home & trust an ever faithful and kind Providence may be over you, to bless & protect--A dark & mysterious Providence has certainly been the portion of our family during the past five years & at times I am so humiliated, I feel desperate,--But I will not write about disagreeable things--

William continues the letter by asking his brothers to inquire about the whereabouts of certain Texas boys who had attended Roanoke College and who had neglected to pay their bills at his store in Salem: "...as I am at a dead outlay just now--everything going out and nothing coming in--every dollar collected helps very much--" William's list of Texas college boys who did not pay their bills goes back to 1878.

William ends his letter by telling his younger half-brothers that he does not want to burden them with these matters, but that he thought that since they were in Bryan, they might be able to succeed in collecting some of the money and that although he was entitled to interest, he would settle for just the principal of whatever they could get.

Baker receives another desperate letter later in the year from his nephew David Armstrong, son of David Gibson ("Bro. Gib") and Hannah Armstrong. Brother Gib's drinking has wreaked havoc in the family. William's own troubles may have been connected to Gib's problems because the two might have been in business together in Salem. In February, Baker's sister Jane alludes to William's and Gibson's difficulties: "Brother Will expected to go last week or this to Kentucky & N. C. looking for a home and some-thing to do, but we have not heard of his going out. Last week we were at Sister Hannah's [wife of David Gibson Armstrong, Sr.]. She and Hannah both look badly, Little Hannah especially and I suppose it is owing to her Father's behavior. I suppose he has been doing all right for the last week or two--have heard nothing to the contrary."

By May, William has bought a store house in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and has begun buying goods to stock the store. Mother Louisia writes Baker that William "will get a boy & train in the business. It was hard for me to part with him, I tell you."

However, Brother Gibson's family is not doing so well, for Baker receives a letter from his nephew David, dated August 12, 1886, unfolding a sad tale of missed opportunities. Evidently, Baker's friend Gus Finley wrote a letter in David's behalf, to help secure David a position at a high school. Finley had written a letter to the principal and to David but got the letters mixed up. By the time the mix-up was rectified, the position had already been filled. Then David takes up another offer from a gentleman offering him a position at his college. However, David then discovers that the college has been in some difficulties and that "it would be next to a miracle" if he "received any pay at all," for "the college is just being re-opened after 3 yrs. suspension, & the prospects are that it will again prove a failure." David, however, feels obligated to follow through with his acceptance of the position: "Having given my word to labor there, I feel in duty bound to fulfill the engagement." However, in anticipation of being without a job soon, David adds:

So Bake, if you can get that $75.00 position for me, oh, do so, by all means.... My aim is now to make money! If I ever go to the Seminary, it will be obliged to be on the fruit of my own labor. Oh! I must make some money! After consultation with a trustworthy lawyer in town, I find that, if my mother & Bros. & sisters have a roof over them by the first of Jan., they might be exceedingly thankful. My father is still drinking--getting lower into the slough of infamy & disgrace, & what I do now, must be done quickly. Anything that pays is the only question I ask in connection with a position. So far as my personal comfort & ease is concerned, I care for them not at all. Crucify the flesh is now my shibboleth--so do not hesitate to write me about a position because it may be disagreeable or contrary to the mode of life which I have been brought up. So keep your eyes open for me, Bake, & do the best you can.

And that's what Baker and Robert did--the best they could for their extended family. As letters into the twentieth century indicate, they felt this obligation all of their lives, as they became very successful in Texas. But for now, in 1886, their meager earnings are multiplied, it seems, like the miracle of the loaves and fishes.

Note on the photograph above: The young man is not identified, but the photographer is one that took photos of many of the Armstrong family. It is in the style of other photos taken during the 1880s. And there is enough family resemblance for me to conclude, very tentatively, however, that this might be a photo of one of the Armstrongs, perhaps David Gibson Armstrong's son David, Jr. The look has that same sad, contemplative look of Brother Gibson's son Edward, whom I identify in this post: "Too Many Edwards, Too Many Unidentified Faces." But no one is now alive who really knows.

Enough of War: The Death of A Young Confederate Soldier

2009-12-13T08:03:00.000-08:00

In one of her letters to her son Baker, Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong described her uneasiness at Baker's joining a rifle company in Texas in 1885. "I have had enough of war," she wrote. The war to which she had the most intimate knowledge would have been, of course, the Civil War. Louisa had married Edward McCarty Armstrong shortly before the Civil War, in 1856; in that marriage she also became the stepmother of Edward's children by Hannah Pancake, who had died two years previously. The oldest boys of that first marriage were young adults when the Civil War began in 1861. By that time, Louisa would have mothered those step-sons for five years.

At this point, I do not know how many of Edward McCarty Armstrong's sons fought in the Civil War, but I do know which of them died in that war. I found, tucked in the chaos of the family papers, a hand-written copy of Isaac's obituary. The description is written in fine, old, script; I have placed images of the handwritten notice at the bottom of this post.

A Young Christian Soldier.

Among the sad fruits of this horrible war, another excellent Christian youth has just been gathered in the grave.

Isaac P. Armstrong was born in Hampshire County the 6th day of April 1842. He was the son of Col. Edward M. Armstrong, recently a member of the Virginia Convention and now a refugee, with his large family, from his home at New Creek Station, in Hampshire.

This young man enlisted in the service of his country, and the defence of his desolated county, at an early period of the war; was in the battle of Manassas--and in Ewell's division, engaged in the series of hard marches and bravely contested fields, which have shed on that division since placed under Jackson, such imperishable glory. On Friday evening the 27th of June, he received a fatal wound in his knee in the battle of Gaines Mill. He was taken first to a hospital in Richmond, and then in a few days to the residence of Rev. B. M. Smith at Union Theol. Seminary, where he had spent his years of college life. Here he lingered, a great sufferer for seven weeks. All that the most eminent surgical skill could suggest, and Christian kindness could administer, was done for his healing and comfort, but the nature of his wound baffled every effort, and in the morning of the 22nd, he calmly rested from his labours and sufferings.

During his college and Military life his walk was that of one, who had sought and found the Saviour, and been led by the Spirit, as a son to the God of all grace. He bore his great sufferings with Christian firmness and patience, and resigned himself with childlike confidence and peace, to the will of his Father in Heaven. His Christian faith had been the basis of his courage as a soldier, and he met death relying on Him, from his love in Christ , he felt assured, that "neither death, nor life, nor principalities, nor powers nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature" should be able to separate him. Though far from his Mother's side by which he would have wished his body laid, he rests till the Resurrection morning, among honoured dead--and in the midst of a Christian community, who testified their regard for the young Soldier, while on his bed of pain, by ennumerable acts of kindness, and will cherish his memory, as that of one whom, God blessed them, in sending to die and be buried among them.

Click on each image to enlarge.

"Think Texas is the Place for Me"

2009-11-23T19:14:00.000-08:00

At the end of 1884, Baker White Armstrong was in Texas, having left the employment of George Seals, Druggist, in Baltimore, Maryland for employment in Bryan, Texas, in the drugstore owned by George W. Norrell. There are hints in the letters from family that there were contacts in Bryan before Baker moved there. A letter from his sister Nettie suggests those connections: "I suppose you make a pet of Mrs. Cavitt's little girl. I saw her when she was in Salem and she was certainly an attractive child then. I am very glad you have met Miss Finley, Janie & Fannie seemed to like her very much. Is Clara Cavitt at home now? If you see her give her my love." I found online one early connection between the Armstrongs in Virginia and the Cavitts in Texas: Clara Cavitt had attended Hollins Institute, which all the Armstrong girls except Katie attended. (One of the Cavitt brothers attended Roanoke College, as had the Armstrong boys.) Robert Armstrong was to marry Clara's sister Cora Cavitt, but in 1884-1885, that marriage was in the future, Robert was still in Virginia, and Baker was making himself at home in Bryan, Texas, where he roomed with Gus Finley.

The photograph at top, left, is of Baker Armstrong (seated) and Gus Finley (standing), taken in 1886. Evidently, not long after moving to Bryan, Baker enlisted in a local rifle company. Baker's father Edward mentions the rifle company in a letter dated July 8, 1885: "Your delightful letter to us all, giving us description of your Military trip to Lampasas, was duly received and now that you are safely returned to Bryan, we are all glad you had the recreation and that you enjoyed it so much."

What rifle company was this? The letters do not reveal any specifics, but a quick search on the Internet offers clues. Various rifle companies or military batteries formed in cities or regions of Texas, and were rather loosely associated with one another and known more famously later as the Texas Rangers (See Texas Archival Resources Online.) In May 1885, there was a State encampment in Lampasas where these military units met and competed (Google search: Year Book for Texas by C. W. Raines, 1903, p. 119). This was surely the "military trip"--or one similar--to which Edward M. Armstrong refers. These military units were called out to administer frontier law and order, breaking railroad strikes and quelling riots, and, previously, fighting Apaches. There were several such military units associated with Bryan, Texas, including, during the years 1880-1886, the Bryan Rifles.

Mother Louisa was less sanguine about Baker's association with the rifle company. On July 1, 1885, a week earlier than her husband's writing, she had written Baker about her anxiety:

Received your postal from Lampassas and am anxiously awaiting a letter telling me of your trip and your safe arrival in Bryan. I felt quite anxious about you last week--thought much of you and prayed for you. Snakes--tarantulas, sickness & evils of different kinds presented themselves to my mind--but I do hope that you escaped all & by this time are safely at your place again. By the by, if there is the least danger of your being ordered off or have to engage in any fight of any kind, get out of that company. I have had enough of war in my day. I saw by the papers that companies from San Antonio had been ordered off to fight 'the Apaches.' Now be sure to keep out of such things.

Baker was still associated with the rifle company at the end of 1885, for in another letter, dated December 3, 1885, Louisa reveals her misgivings to her son again:

I hope you enjoyed your hunt Thanksgiving day. That rifle company bothers me. I am afraid something might happen that you would be ordered out. You must not get into any trouble of that kind. Resign first, if it does look cowardly. Your life is too precious. You are no Texan & not bound to protect Texas. I never want you to settle in Texas. Lay up your money and when you have enough, come back to Va & invest. There it too little godliness there.

But the "Left-for-Texas" bug had already bitten both Baker and Robert. Though Baker was to return to Virginia to visit and to get a wife, he was never to live there again. Robert was to go back and forth from Virginia to Texas for a few years before finally settling in Bryan and marrying a Texas girl. In a letter dated August 1, 1885, Robert tells his brother that he has abandoned law and had "already written to Uncle James to that effect." (However, he takes up law again and ends up practicing law in Texas.) "I must get a position somewhere," he tells his brother. "I think all my friends except Mother think Texas the place for me.

"Her Spirit Took Its Flight"

2009-11-19T03:21:00.000-08:00

Photo of Katie White Armstrong
The new year of 1885 began as usual at Edgewood, the Edward McCarty Armstrong farm near Salem, Virginia. The year had ended with the usual flurry of activities. In his last letter of 1884, Edward had written his son Baker, who was now in Texas, that he, Fanny, Nettie, Kate, and Charles had enjoyed a Christmas dinner in town with "Bro. Gibson," David Gibson Armstrong, Edward's oldest son of his first marriage. Mother Louisa describes a Christmas day spent as usual: "presents distributed among ourselves. Sallie, Janie & I remained at home while all the others went to dine at Gibson's." And both parents thank Baker for the money which he had sent them, along with his instructions to purchase oysters and crackers for their Christmas meal.

By January 10th, Mother was complaining to Baker that they had not received a letter from him since Christmas day--the post cards he had sent didn't count, as Mother wished for all the details of Baker's new life in Texas. In a letter posted January 21, 1885, Louisa writes her son again, a letter filled with family news. Edward, the girls, and Charles had been attending extended church services: "Mr. Gordon has had services nearly every day twice a day since last Sunday week in his church....Mr. Gaines has been preaching such earnest sermons." Edward was also filling his ice house ("We began to fear our season for ice had passed"), and various grandchildren were sick or recovering from illness. And, of course, Louisa included her motherly advice: "Do not fall in love just yet and mind when you do, it must be with a good Christian Presbyterian girl."

And there, toward the end of the letter, is an offhand remark about the health of folks at Edgewood: "All well as usual at home, but Katie who has been very bilious."

Imagine, then, Baker Armstrong's horror when he receives this telegram shortly after his mother's letter, on January 27, 1885 [Click on the image for a magnified view]:

And then the heart-breaking letter from Edward, dated January 27th, arrives [I have regularized most of the punctuation]:

My Dear Baker
O my dear Son, as the Telegraph has informed you, your dear Sister Katie has gone. Her spirit took its flight last night at 9 O'clock & 20 min.

We are crushed by this terrible blow, but thanks be to our ever blessed Saviour, we are enabled to trust Him even in this crushing affliction, she was God's Child given to him by her parents and then ratified by her in giving herself to Him years ago, and he has taken his own to his blessed arms to be in his presence forever more. He has called her to blessed work for Him in Heaven, whilst it is hard for us to give up entirely the blessed darling of our Household but the Master calls and we must obey. She was a dear child to us, so loving, so kind, so obedient, so helpful, about the House and every where, so conscientious, such sterling principles, so much character, so dear in every sense, but, God has taken her to himself and our duty is to cultivate assignation to His Divine & Holy Will.

You will no doubt want to know all about the event which called her away. Mr. Gordon was holding a protracted meeting in Salem & she & Janie went down to attend it on Tuesday the 13th day of the month & was to return on Thursday to let Fannie & Nettie go down, but the sleet prevented, & they did not go down, or got home, until Friday. Katie complained much of her headache & backache when she started to Town but was so anxious to attend the meetings, that she went. She attended all the meetings but two, and came home much complaining on Friday. William [William Dillon Armstrong, Katie's and Baker's older half-brother] saw her & gave her some med. & thought she would be well in a day or two, but she did not get better & William sent her more med, and came out to see her on Tuesday the 20th. He treated her but did not think her case serious. That night he got a Telegram calling him to see Mrs. Robert Glasgow, who was critically ill. He went, supposing Katie would be all right when he returned, but for fear he might be mistaken, he saw Dr. Bruffy, before leaving, and Dr. Bruffy came up in his stead (when we sent for William next day). William returned Thursday night & he & Bruffy were with her every day, but nothing they could do seemed to arrest the disease. Delirium came on, and blood poisoning commenced and continued to the end and no remedy seemed to prove efficacious and she quietly & peacefully passed away last night at the time before mentioned. Her dissolution was very rapid. At dark I had no idea she would pass away during the night, but her strength gave way, and she breathed her last, O so peacefully & calmly, her life seemed to ebb away, just like the going out of a candle. Her delirium continued to the end. She knew us up to yesterday mid day, but imagined all the time she was away from Home. She called for her Mother the day before yesterday morning & looked at her with such a look & said, O Mother why don't you take me home. Last night when she declined to take the stimulant from William, I said, Katie, take it for Father, and she immediately opened her mouth and took it.

O my Son the dear girl has gone, and we can hardly believe our eyes when we see her laid out in the Parlor. She looks just as if she was sleeping, but cold in death, so sudden, so overwhelming we can hardly realize it.

She called so often for you, her mind seemed to be that you were home & she called often for you, also for Robert.

Maggie came up & remained with us & is still here and will stay with your Mother until after the funeral tomorrow. Margie came up just now. William will return and spend the night here. The funeral will take place from the House tomorrow at 11 O'clock and from the Church at 1 O'clock.

Pall bearers are Joe & Jimmie Hannah, Robert Logan, and John Chalmers. Mr. Gordon will have a short service at the House, and then the main service at the Church. Your Ma wishes the Children to put on mourning, and her wishes will be complied with and you will wear a mourning badge on your hat or person as may be usual where you are. And now dear Son I cannot write more. O how we all will miss the dear dear Child, but God's will be done. The Lord gave & the Lord hath taken [a]way, blessed be the name of the Lord.

Your Ma is greatly crushed by this blow, but the Lord is with her, & He will I hope give her strength & help from the Sanctuary and support her even in this great trial and affliction.

My Son, take up God's work here, engage in it with your heart and mind. Life is but short for any of us, and we know not the day nor the hour when He will take us too, to give account to Him of our stewardship on Earth.

May we both, and all of us, be as ready to heed the summons as dear little Katie was. So goodbye my dear Son, and may the Lord comfort you.
Yours Affectionately
EM Armstrong Sr.

[At the end of the letter is a note from Baker's mother, written in pencil]
My Dear Boy
My heart feels for you knowing what a blow this is to you as to all of us. May God make it the means of drawing you nearer to Him. Oh live and labor for him & God grant we may be an undivided family with Jesus. Pray for us.
your loving
Mother

Baker was far from family in Texas when Katie died, but in an earlier letter, Louisa mentions Gus Finley, with whom Baker seems to be rooming in Bryan, Texas. Gus might have been a friend from Virginia who accompanied him to Texas. [Later note: Another letter from Baker's mother this year indicates that Louisa had not met Gus Finley, so perhaps Finley was an acquaintance Baker made after he had moved to Bryan, Texas, near the end of 1884.]

A few weeks after Katie's death, Louisa has gathered enough strength to write Baker of her loss, in a letter dated February 18, 1885:

My Dear Baker,
I must write a few lines to you this morning. Your Postal just received. Your letter to Robert came in due time and we all thank you for the $15. Your Father had no money to buy the girls nice dresses & Robert advanced him the money and he got Gibson to order them from Balt [Baltimore]. The $15 we just paid back to Robert. He has so little money left--is making nothing now but is preparing we hope to make some in the future. He is still here; but talks of leaving next week, says he cannot study as well here. [Robert was studying law at the time] We will miss him so much. He has been, oh! such a comfort to us. What would we have done without him in our loneliness.

Oh my boy--you do not know how we miss our loved one--every where and in everything. Our pleasures all have a drawback when we remember she is not here to share them. In the dining room & at the table in my room, all the preserves & catsup & everything in housekeeping; even to making a cup of tea--everything reminds us of the precious child and she is gone, never more to come in among us. It is hard indeed to give her up. It was so sudden and such a shock. When I go on the porch and see the chickens my heart aches. She took such interest in them, doctoring the sick ones & attending to all. We would laugh at her concern for them sometime (even crying once in her concern) & she would say, "Well I ought to put my whole heart in what I do." & she did. She was so conscientious in every thing.

My dear child, I feel sometimes if she could only come & put her head on my lap (as she used to do & I would say, "Now my baby wants to be petted"), I would hold her to my heart. But this is sinful to want her back to this world where she would have to battle with sin & sorrow & now she is free from all that. But our human hearts do yearn to see her & have her & we cannot but grieve.

Three weeks today since her body was taken from her earthly home to rest in the cold earth. When I feel like murmuring, I think I ought not to murmur; but thank my God over & over for the hope we have. Oh what would I do without that. "Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift" through whom she was redeemed. Dear child, she had given herself to him some years ago, not hurriedly but after much thought & her life proved that she was indeed his. I have always felt that if one of my dear ones should die out of Christ, it would almost run me wild.

Dear little Charles was concerned upon the subject of religion before her death and that seemed to fix his mind. He called me in the little room before he went to communion last Sunday week & said, "Mother, it seems as if Katie's death was for some good. It has made me think." I told him just to think how she was rejoicing in Heaven that day over him. May God keep my precious child & consecrate him to his service. Tell me, Baker, are you in the Sabbath School. My dear boy, "live only for eternity."

Robert has gone to town today--will be back to-morrow. Your Father was not well last week--complained of pain in his side when he took a long breath. Although he did not feel sick. We became uneasy & sent for William who came up & spent Friday night. He said it was more neuralgia or cold in the muscle & dry cupped him. He is relieved now & seems well as usual. All the rest as usual. I sent a paper containing Katie's obituary written by Mr. Gordon.

Louisa adds a final paragraph in pencil of a few details about the family before closing this heart-rending letter. These powerfully written words of sorrow seem as fresh now as I read them as they must have been when Baker Armstrong first read them almost 125 years ago. Louisa kept a talisman of her daughter's death in her Bible, the obituary she mentioned in her letter to Baker. There on the inside cover of her Bible were daily reminders of her sorrows: her youngest daughter's death and, in the record she kept on the opposite page, her oldest son's travels away from the family home.

Letter describing the death of Katie White Armstrong--
Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr., to his son Baker White Armstrong
January 27, 1885

1884: The Fun Back Home

2009-11-16T22:12:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of 1884, Baker White Armstrong (later, Sr.) is still in Baltimore, Maryland, but family papers provide hints that change is in the air. At the end of 1883, we learn that he was unable to return to Salem to be with his family for Christmas. But the family letters keep coming. Just after the New Year, Robert writes his brother a letter on January 4th (I have added paragraphs to make the letter easier to read):

Dear Old Bake,
It seems to me like a month of Sundays since I last wrote to you or heard from you. But, I have been kept very busy for the past two weeks, & really have not had time to write you. I wrote to Cousin Will a day or so ago. He sent me a copy of "Peck's Bad Boy" for Xmas & I was afraid that, if I did not write, he would think I did not appreciate it. So snatched enough time to write to him. I think the cravat you sent me is one of the prettiest I ever saw--it is such a beautiful, rich color & such handsome material-- & I assure you I appreciate it very highly. I have been wishing for a long time that I could step into some Balto house and buy a stylish cravat (since we cannot get the new styles out here) and the one you sent is just such an one as I wanted.

I believe you said you rec'd a "bid" to the "New H" entertainment on Xmas night. Well, Bake, I tell you it was a "Soxdologer"! I was there, you can rest assured & I don't think I ever enjoyed a thing of the kind more. Nearly all the young people in town were there--[unreadable] them a great many that I never saw at Longwood [the home of the Perry Nugent family] before--for instance, Pinky Broker, Mary Smead, [unreadable name] & her sister Jennie & others that I can't now think of. We staid there until nearly 3 O clock in the morning & then went home to sleep & suffer the next day for our dissipation. I certainly wish you could have been there. Don't forget--if you have not already done so--to write to Miss McN & thank her for your "bid." By the way, John C. [Chalmers] was not there, having gone on to "wait on [unreadable name] & Mrs Ferguson did something that night--which surprised me & made me feel sorry for her. You know that the whole Chalmers family seem to be helping John do his "courting." It so happened that night that I was in a good humor & got along splendidly with Miss Mary. Well, during the evening, Mrs. Ferguson called me to her & whispered to me that I "had better make time tonight"; for John is away, you know.' & proceeded to try to convince me that I was glad of it. I declined to state what I think of this remark of hers, but will say this much--if you don't think it was execrable taste on her part (considering how matters stand & what Madame Rumor says) then you differ very very widely with me.

On New Year's night they ("New H's") gave a Leap Year Reception at Longwood, & we boys had a regular picnic. The gentlemen & ladies exchanged places "for that night only"--the ladies bestowing all the attention upon us while we sat back in our chairs & languidly received them. The ladies wrote notes to the gentlemen requesting their company. Miss Annie Terrill wrote to me & I condescended (?) to grant her the pleasure (?) of escorting me there. I like her splendidly, & am glad I was so fortunate as to secure her for my escort. There was a large crowd present & you bet we boys enjoyed the novelty of having the girls "set up" to us. Bake, it would have tickled you half to death to have seen Joe Hannah & Bob Logan trying to personate modest, timid girls. I was so much amused by the expression on Bob Logan's face that I called Miss Mary N's [Mary Nugent--Baker marries her in 1892, but as of yet they are not courting] attention to it by pointing to him & asking the name of that "handsome modest young lady (we boys were all ladies that night you know) with the long tails & black coat & rather masculine voice" and as soon as she looked at him, she fairly howled. A crowd of boys came up from Roanoke to attend the party & seemed to enjoy it very much. Joe Hannah said he "couldn't be any lady--this doggoned thing was boring him nearly to death."

Well, Bake I won't attempt a description of these parties for I am writing hurriedly tonight--& am not in a descriptive mood. On last Thursday Bob Logan stopped at the store in his buggy & asked me if I didn't want to go down to Fincastle with him. I "rolled in" & we went. We came back to Salem the next evening (Friday) at about a quarter past seven O'clock. I enjoyed the trip no little. We stayed over night at Mr. Copeland's--about half a mile from Amsterdam--& were very kindly & pleasantly entertained. When we reached Amsterdam we found the whole Copeland family at a Church Fair which was in progress there and, of course, we had to stop & bestow our smiles & dimes upon them while waiting for the Copelands to go home. Bake, that Fair was one of the richest things of the kind I ever struck & Bob Logan & myself are enjoying it yet. The girls would tackle some poor fellow & show him some bit of fancy work, then ask him to buy, then insist upon his buying, then beg & entreat & finally would try to scare him into it. They resorted to every device they could think of, & generally came out successful, I believe. If one of them should tackle a fellow, he might as well take one long, lingering look at his "sinking funds" & hand them over. However, one girl there "ran against the snag," so to express it. She tackled some poor young fellow who was standing near her & commenced trying to sell him something. He endured it as long as he could and finally, when forbearance ceased to be a virtue, turned to her & told her that "if she didn't let him alone, she would make him curse directly!" She "let him alone."

The next morning Bob & myself drove over to Fincastle. Saw all the Glasgows except Will who is at Wash. & Lee University. Did I enjoy seeing Miss Bettie? For answer, I refer you to Bob Logan.

Bob & Frank are doing very well in their professions. Bob's wife presented him with a Xmas present in the way of a small daughter which was born on Xmas morning. He has now two children--a boy & a girl.

Bake, I suppose you enjoyed your trip to Martinsburg? You must have been most agreeably surprised at the sight of John A. Metcalf. He is still here though I do not know how soon he may leave. As I sit here writing of him, my thoughts are going back to the time when you, Clive & Fritz & the other boys used to have so much fun & it makes me feel "kind'er" sad to think of it.

I went into the Drug Store tonight & the same old crowd continues to loaf there. The checker board was in full blast. I think Sam Parrish & Phil Reed were playing while I was there. Wouldn't you like to tackle them again? But, I don't want to make you "homesick" so will stop this kind of talk. Hannah left here yesterday morning for Lynchburg to resume her school duties. You just bet your boots we all enjoyed her visit home. I expect I enjoyed her holiday as much as she did. I think she is one of the dearest little girls I ever saw & it would do you good to see into what a noble woman she bids fair to develop.

I am kept very busy now at the store with my January work--drawing off [accounts?]. Have been writing a great deal during the past few days & you can well imagine that I am ready to stop. Well, Bake, I don't feel as if I have said anything in this letter when I think of all I would like to tell you; but, it is getting late & I must close. The Dictionary & candy you sent home were about the most acceptable things you could have sent. Sister H. says she appreciates the Kiss you sent her more than anything else you could have selected. She is certainly a noble woman. When you can find time, write her a short letter--I know she would appreciate very highly. Well, good night.
Yr Aff Bro.
R. A.

As this letter suggests, Robert and Baker Armstrong were very close. Eventually, they would both move to Texas, but when this letter was written, Robert was evidently still in Salem, Virginia, working at the family drugstore. The other letters we have that Robert wrote his brother this year are just as familiar, descriptive, and breezy. Their mother, Louisa, realized just how close her two oldest boys were and encouraged that brotherly connection. Later that same month, on January 29th, she writes Baker that Robert visited the family often:

He is a noble boy, has such firm, decided principles, has his trials, too. I do wish so much you could be together. You must settle in life together.

She also provides news of family members: "Some of Hannah's children have the whooping cough" but William's children are well.

Your Father is well and sends his love. He sits in the dining room, by the side of his nice wood fire, during the winter weather, reading the papers (when he has them) and other things.

Baker's sister Kate writes in March that she hopes that the rock someone found on "our big hill the other day" would turn out to be iron ore. Robert had taken the rock to town to Mr. Chapman to get him to examine it. "Don't you wish our hill could prove to be full of iron ore?" Katie exclaims "and then our fortunes would be made." Kate's comment is a reminder of how iron ore mining, as well as coal mining, became big business in the South just before and after the Civil War.

In March, Robert writes that the river had been so high that he couldn't get one of Baker's letters to the family outside Salem in time for Baker's request for advice from their father. Baker evidently had a plan for a move to improve his prospects. And then Robert adds details that provide insight into the family:

Am glad you did not allow Uncle to think you wanted any of his money to operate on. He has not treated father as a brother should and I would see his money rot before I would consent to borrow one cent from him, as matters now stand. Bro. G. has not recommenced drinking, but is still leading a perfectly sober life & I sincerely trust will continue to do so. If he continues himself to attend to his business, I think probably he can manage to extricate himself from the very awkward predicament into which I think he has allowed himself to be placed. But, should he again commence his drinking & keep it up, I fear he will "go under." Now, Bake, this is Sub Rosa of course & I hope you will immediately destroy this letter that no other eyes than yours may possibly see what I have written.

Obviously, Baker did not destroy this letter, and here I am, revealing online Robert Armstrong's confidences to his brother. It does make me a little queasy even though over a hundred years have passed since the Armstrongs put pen to paper to write their beloved brother and son of all he was missing in his absence from "Edgewood," the family home, in 1884.

The day after Christmas, December 26, 1884, Edward McCarty Armstrong and his wife write Baker of the holiday activities he had missed since he was then in Bryan, Texas. "The only regret," Edward muses, "was that you could not be present with us to enjoy Xmas. This is the first Xmas that you & Robt were both absent."

Little did the family know how the next year was going to present a much more sorrowful regret than the absence of two sons from the family home during a holiday.

The second page of Edward M. Armstrong's letter to his son Baker, December 26, 1884.

Armstrong Family Resemblances

2009-11-16T17:03:00.000-08:00

The first three of these photographs have been identified as Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr., my husband's great-great grandfather. The resemblances between the photos are very strong, so strong that they seem indeed to be the same person.

Then who are these men who also seem to resemble Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr? Is the first one a younger Edward McCarty Armstrong. Sr?

I suspect this last one is that of one of Edward's oldest sons, perhaps David Gibson Armstrong or William Dillon Armstrong. However, it's impossible to tell for sure because people didn't write identifying marks on the backs of these photographs.

Too Many Edwards, Too Many Unidentified Faces

2009-11-15T12:14:00.000-08:00

There are many problems associated with trying to organize and to make narrative sense of the boxes of family photos, letters, and other ephemera that my husband and his sister inherited after Mimi (great-aunt Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong) and, shortly thereafter, Mary (mother, Mary Nugent Robb Greene) and George (father, George Nystrom Greene) died. One is that all members except one of the older generations of this family are dead, and that one, an aunt recuperating from health issues in a Texas nursing home, was less interested in family history than her younger sister, Mary. So there is really no one to turn to for supporting information. Most of the people in the photos are not identified, and when they are, there are scattered duplicate photos with just one with identification. So I have to go through all the photographs looking for that one photo where someone is identified and then to match that photo with other photos in which that person's image might appear. I also look for other clues on the photographs, such as where the photograph was taken, if those clues are present. Photos taken in Bryan, Texas, are most likely people associated with Baker and Robert Armstrong after they moved to Texas. Photos taken in New Orleans are more than likely friends or extended family of the Nugents and etc. (However, since Perry Nugent's family also lived several years in Salem, VA, there are photos of Nugent family members taken by photographers of that city, too.)

Another problem is that family names occur over and over each generation, so if a photograph has, for example, the name "Edward McCarty Armstrong" on the back of it, the question remains: Which Edward? Dates and age of the photos offer clues, but, then one generation of Armstrongs had at least two Edwards. Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr., named one of his sons Edward McCarty Armstrong (Jr). Edward, Junior, married to Margaret Moore Logan, named one of HIS sons Edward McCarty. And ANOTHER one of Edward Senior's sons, David Gibson Armstrong, named one of HIS sons Edward McCarty. So there were two Edward McCarty Armstrongs in the same generation who were first cousins to one another and who were also nephews of Baker White Armstrong, Sr.. Confusing?

Before I began reading the family letters and became more familiar with the Armstrong family tree, I came across this obituary for an Edward McCarty Armstrong. Click on all images for a larger view.

Fortunately, the obituary names the parents of THIS Edward McCarty Armstrong: David Gibson Armstrong and his wife Hannah. When Baker and Robert moved to Texas, other Armstrong relatives followed, including this Edward McCarty Armstrong, Baker's nephew. The only dates on this obituary are handwritten and identify the days, not the year, the obituaries (there are several) were published, Oct. 8 in the Houston Post and October 10 in the Press. However, I did a little online searching and found the Texas Physicians Historical Biographical Database, which listed Dr. E. M. Armstrong's birth as 1870 and his death as 1940. Baker W. Armstrong was but twelve years older than his nephew, the son of his older half-brother, David Gibson. So now there are more clues for the photographs. I can compare photographs that seem to have been taken around the same time and compare the ages of folks in one photograph with ages of folks in photographs taken about the same time and in the same place or by the same photographer. I can look at photographs accompanying obituaries and try to find the younger visage of that person in the earlier family photographs.

I look at the old face of Dr. Edward McCarty Armstrong, a physician for 45 years in Houston, Texas, and wonder, is that his face, too, in this photograph of three young men? I think so. The young man standing must be he.

Then who are the other two young men? After retrieving this photograph from the boxes of unidentified persons, I found another of the young man sitting on the right. On the back of that photograph is written these words: "Uncle Chas. Armstrong, Papa's youngest brother." This must be Charles Magill Armstrong at about ten or eleven years of age.

And does that face match the face of an older Charles Magill in this photograph with a friend? (Charles Magill is on the right. Handwriting on the back of the photograph identifies both Charles and his friend.)

And who is the third young man in the photograph of three boys?

This week, while going through Mary's old steamer trunk, I opened a small packet of photographs, on which these words were written: "Uncle Paul Nugent, Mother's brother." Inside were several small photographs of Paul Cook Nugent as a baby and as an older boy. Here is one. Does the face here not resemble the young man seated at left in the photograph of three young boys?

When I first saw the photograph of the three boys, I assumed that they must have been brothers. But the evidence suggests otherwise. And if the three boys in the photograph are, indeed, Paul Nugent; Edward McCarty Armstrong, son of David Gibson Armstrong; and Charles Magill Armstrong, son of Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr.--what was the occasion for the photograph? See how the questions continue? Answer one and another one appears.

And, finally, who is this young man? Another photograph that I found in an album created by Baker Robb, my husband's uncle, identifies him as "Edward McCarty Armstrong." Which Edward? Well, I think he must be Dr. Edward McCarty Armstrong, son of David Gibson Armstrong and Hannah Gibson Armstrong, the younger version of the old man in the obituary.

Baker W. Armstrong: "You have a desire for roaming"

2009-11-14T17:11:00.000-08:00

As brothers Baker and Robert Armstrong grew into young adulthood, they began casting about for lucrative jobs. For years they had evidently worked in the mercantile and druggist business, associated with the grocery store and pharmacy owned by their older half-brothers David Gibson Armstrong and William Dillon Armstrong. Their father's choices after the Civil War did not lead to the money-making enterprise Edward had hoped for, and the boys felt increasingly responsible for the family. Both boys had probably attended Roanoke College, for among the family papers are references to that college. (And if the amount of material here were not so overwhelming, I could put my finger on those references. I'll post more information later. ) But I am taking up the story here after Robert and Baker were finished with school and looking for employment. Various letters from druggist and mercantile businesses suggest that Baker was looking for opportunities elsewhere. The image above (click on it for a better view) is a reproduction of a note sent to William Dillon Armstrong from a wholesale druggist in Baltimore, Maryland. This was most likely a person with whom William Armstrong did some regular business, for he evidently had written Thomsen & Muth a letter of introduction for his younger half-brother, Baker.

Three months later, February 15, 1881, Baker received a letter from his Uncle James Dillon Armstrong (lawyer who served in the Virginia Senate before the Civil War and later became Judge of the Twelfth Judicial Circuit of West Virginia) which indicates that Baker had thought of pursuing medicine:

I am much pleased with your desire to be a physician but I doubt if your plan of becoming a commercial traveller for a Drug House in Baltimore is the best. You will lose time by it, and you have none to lose. Would it not be better to stay awhile longer with the Dr. and study all you can. How much will it cost for you to attend the lectures as long as you and the Dr. think necessary, and how much of that will you have. Let me know. I am anxious you should get to practicing as quick as possible. I wish you were ready to come here now. There is a fine opening.

Baker seems not to have followed his uncle's advice, according to all the clues in the family papers, for some time in 1883, he moved to Baltimore and found work there with George B. Seal, Druggist. That he continued to desire a position where he could make more money is apparent in the letters exchanged with his brother Robert. What placed Baker on the course he was to take, as a druggist and as a traveling wholesaler? We can't know for sure, but perhaps there is a clue in a letter he received from a friend whose identity may forever remain a mystery, for the letter is signed simply: "your most sincere friend, B. R. A." The letter is dated January 29, 1881, and it's written on paper with this letterhead: Office of J. C. Russell & Co., Wholesale Grocers, Agents for Laflin & Rand Powder Co. and the Celebrated Kelley Plows, Clarksville, Texas.

My Dear Friend
I have just received your letter and being at leisure just at present I will give you an example of promptitude. Words can scarcely express the pleasure your letter afforded me. If you will send me yours I will see if I can find you a photo. I perceive from your letter, you have a desire for roaming, a feeling every young man has at our age. If you should chance to ever wander this way, you must be shure (sic) to stop in our little burg. I sometimes wish you were with me, in some of my trips on horseback across the state which is I believe about 500 miles square. I have crossed it east and west on different routes four times. Going on horseback is the only way to learn the true caracter (sic) and disposition of the people and it is said they are peculiar. I have almost quit hunting. While I was travling last summer I bought a one 1/2 and 1/2 blud (sic) and red bone hound that would run horse cow or man or anything else.

Before I left the farm I cought (sic) nineteen coons and about 52 opossums and other varmints. He is the best dog I ever saw, can trail a track 24 hours old.

Jack is well and doing well & sends his kindest greetings. I am the green clerk at present but have not entirely quit the cattle business. Yet I remain as ever
your most sincere friend

The letter writer and Baker were obviously acquainted. Were they related, too? Whatever the relationship between the two, it is tempting to conclude that perhaps this letter planted the seed for Baker's leaving Virginia for Texas, for by the end of 1884, Baker White Armstrong was in Bryan, Texas.

Photo of drugstore--may be the one in which Baker worked in Bryan, Texas

Click on images for larger view

Armstrong Letters: "If only you were here now..."

2009-11-12T23:47:00.000-08:00

Baker White Armstrong, son of Edward McCarty and Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong, 1883

Search Google for "Eutaw Place, Baltimore, Maryland," and you will get responses that include information about the Victorian architecture of an historical area of the city. One website about Baltimore describes an area of the city that is "one of the most architecturally distinguished late nineteenth to early twentieth century neighborhoods in Baltimore City." In the future, I may research those streets as they appeared in 1883, when Baker White Armstrong (Sr.) lived there. He was twenty-four to twenty-five years old at the time, working for George B. Seal, Druggist, at the end of 1883, which we know because he received in December of that year a Christmas card from his niece Eliza, and that card was addressed to Baker's place of work. And we know the address of his place of abode because letters from family are addressed to Baker at 453 Eutaw Place, Baltimore, Maryland. Baker had family living there, his cousin William Armstrong (son of William and Susan White Armstrong). In previous years, Baker had worked at his half-brother's store, learning the trade of a druggist, and now, here he is, more or less on his own, working for a druggist in Baltimore, Maryland. And the family at "Edgewood" near Salem, Virginia, miss his presence. We have the letters to prove it.

Here in the bulging manila folder is a letter with the heading: St. Valentine's Day, Edgewood, Feb. 14, 1883. "My Dear Sons (BW and Robt)," the letter begins, and so we know that Robert, too, is in Baltimore. It is a family letter, with an entry from each family member remaining at Edgewood, beginning with Father, Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr.. Mother writes next, then Sallie (who must be Sarah Elizabeth Armstrong, the youngest child of Edward's first marriage to Hannah Pancake--Sallie is often a nickname for Sarah, and in later letters, "Sallie" includes S. E. A. in her signature), then Fannie, then Janie, then Biddy (which must be a nickname for Nettie, though in later letters Nettie signs her name as "Nettie), then Katie, and finally, in huge, childish, cursive letters, Charlie.

Father says:

We all miss you much, we long for your letters, which we think are few, and far between. We have been pretty much isolated since the small pox scare, and our thoughts travel to you, do write often to us. The winter has broken, & we begin to look forward to the planting, trimming, pruning, and to long for the sight of the beautiful flowers and green fields. I must stop now, & give room to others, as this is to be the family letter. Your Affectionate Father, EM Armstrong, Sr.

Here we get an initial impression of Father's voice, affectionate and focused on the changing of the seasons as those seasons affect the production of the farm. Then Mother, Louisa Tapscott Armstrong, writes:

My Dear Boys,
Kate received Robt's letter to-day & we were glad to hear from you. Think much of & wish often for you. Baker, as you have no business to attend to, you ought to write twice a week to us. Let us hear about the situation talked about with Canby, Gilpin & Co.. We are still quietly moving along at Edgewood, except the bustling about the cooking, house cleaning &c. If you were here now, we could give you nice bread, good butter & fresh eggs. The weather has been so mild and spring like, that my thoughts are beginning to turn towards my flower bed. None of us have been to town yet. No new cases of small pox in town. The Beemers have come home; but we steer clear of them. Will write again soon. Tell Sister I will write to her very soon. Take care of yourselves in every way. Your devoted Mother.

Again and again, as the years pass, Mother Louisa scolds Baker to write more often. She provides news of home as well as advice. In letters written later that year to Baker, Louisa asks Baker to gather flower seeds for her in a garden near where he lives.

Sister "Sallie," most likely Sarah Elizabeth Armstrong, the youngest child from Edward's first marriage to Hannah Pancake, writes next in the family letter. Sallie's writing has a breezy tone that shows up again in later letters, which are full of details of the household and the community. In this letter of Valentine's Day, 1883, she writes of Charles' taking her on a ride to "the top of the hill in front of the Tobacco House, from which he showed me Salem, and he entertained me far better than any of Salem's beaux (that I know)." Fannie, the oldest child of Edward and Louisa, describes the activities "going on inside the mansion today"--the ironing and butter churning, the short rides, the lessons (Charles "does not do full duty in that respect since his vaccination"), the dish-washing and bread-making.

Janie describes the dressing that she has to put on her injured arm (but no details as to how or why it is injured) and then provides a lively narrative of her and "Sister's" attempt at plucking a chicken:

Well, I must tell you about Sister's & my experience in picking & dressing a chicken & Turkey. The day after Milly left (one of the servants) Ma wanted chicken so sister & I undertook the picking of it etc & you may imagine what a new thing it was to us but it was nice when it was finished. Week before last we undertook a Turkey & I wish you could have seen it. Pa killed it & in picking it we pulled about half of the skin off & nearly pulled its legs off & tore it so badly that we had to take a needle and thread & sew it up before basting it but it tasted good too. Mrs. Goodwin was down the day we roasted it & she was very much amused when she saw it & offered to come down & help us in any way she could.

Nettie writes that she has just come from the ironing and is afraid her imagination will be heated. Then she tells this story:

Pa heard the other day that Mr. Lindsay had died of the small pox and we were all expressing our sorrow for Miss Lindsay when lo and behold! a letter came to Mr. Elliot from Mr. Lindsay himself, saying they all "had their health" mighty well--so much for small pox reports!

Katie and Charles, the two youngest, are the last to write. Katie tells Baker that he will be glad that she has been "using [his] Shakespeare" and that she has read Macbeth and will "commence Hamlet tomorrow." She also provides the first hint for us of bigger troubles in the family. In a letter to his father, James Armstrong, a son from Edward's first marriage, had described how he was not regaining his strength, that he could not stand any excitement, and that he might have to give up preaching for a while. If he doesn't get better, Katie tells Baker, James (and Agnes, his wife) will be staying with them during the summer. Later letters to Baker indicate that this is what occurred. "Jimmie" returns to Edgewood with Agnes and continues to worsen, with only a good day or two when he takes a short ride into town with brother William. By the end of that summer, he has died, leaving a pregnant widow. (His son, James, is born in October.)

Finally, the letter ends in the large handwriting of Charles, who is ten years old. (He celebrates his eleventh birthday that year on June 2nd). Charles tells Baker that he has been out riding; that after neglecting to check his traps for three or four days, he found a dead rabbit in one; that small pox is going around town; and that his "vaccination took splendidly."

This family letter serves as a template for many of the letters that follow in the year 1883--and even beyond: descriptions of "the doings" at home for the benefit of the loved one living in a distant city; the details of illnesses, diseases, and deaths that seem to occur with great regularity; the gossip about local families; the descriptions of seasons and the crops that never seem to produce as much as expected; the nagging for more letters and the worry that the absence of those letters means the loved one may be ill, perhaps seriously; the advice of parents who are very religious and fear that their sons might be tempted by "worldliness."

And so, the year 1883: Baker White Armstrong is living in Baltimore, Maryland, working for a druggist but continuing to cast about for more lucrative business. Robert is there for a while but then returns home and works in Salem or Roanoke. Charles Magill Armstrong celebrates his 11th birthday with his nephew Glasgow (son of his much older half-brother William Dillon and Margaret Glasgow Armstrong). Edward McCarty Armstrong and Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong celebrate their 27th wedding anniversary (October 23, 1883: "We have had our trials" she writes her son Baker, "but how many mercies."). Rains delay the wheat planting; drought prevents the seed from sprouting quickly. Scarlet fever rages through Salem, and "the people are much scared up about it." The family manages to get new servants: "Pokey Price, in the house, & Adeline Man a cook, milker & general maid of all work." Jimmie (James Armstrong, youngest son of Edward McCarty Armstrong and Hannah Pancake) dies.

Just before Christmas, Edward writes a letter to his son Baker strongly advising him not to drink. He asks Baker to take a pledge:

You ask me to state exactly what pledge I wish you to renew, To abstain from drinking wine or spirits or fermented Liquor for 5 years more. [Letters from years beyond 1883 reveal that David Gibson Armstrong drank too much, and the family was distressed by his subsequent troubles.]

The family is disappointed that Baker does not come home for Christmas.

"I could not help thinking of you all day": The Beginning of the Armstrong letters

2009-11-11T15:05:00.000-08:00

Here in a bulging manila folder on my desk are 95 or 96 letters written by various members of Edward McCarty Armstrong's family, from 1878-1889. Most of these letters are addressed to Baker White Armstrong, Sr., my husband's and sister-in-law's great-grandfather, although a few are addressed to Baker's brother Robert and a couple are addressed to both young men. For young men they were then. Baker was born in 1858, and his brother shortly thereafter, so these letters span their twenties and thirties when they were trying to find their way in the world. Baker and Robert were sons of Edward and his second wife Louisa Tapscott White, a marriage that produced seven children, three boys and four daughters: Fannie, Baker, Robert, Jane, Nettie, Kate, and Charles. And the letters reveal how much these family members depended upon one another as well as the great affection they all had for one another. The children from the first marriage are often mentioned as well, for when Louisa married the widowed Edward, the children of Edward and Hannah Pancake were all under twenty years of age, and the youngest daughter of that first marriage was still at home in 1878, at "Edgewood," the farm Edward had purchased after the Civil War.

One history of Romney, West Virginia, where Edward McCarty Armstrong had lived more prosperously before the Civil War, describes the life of Edward after the Civil War as one lived in "genteel poverty." The letters reveal the details of that poverty while the writers of the letters struggled to maintain the gentility of a more prosperous time. The family increasingly turned to Baker and Robert to help out monetarily. The two boys went out into the world seeking employment beyond their older half-brothers' mercantile and drug businesses, to Baltimore, Maryland; Roanoke and Salem, Virginia; and, finally, to Texas. During that time the Armstrong family was to suffer one sorrowful blow after another, all shared in letters from "Edgewood," from the "affectionate" father and the "loving" mother.

Edward generally closed his letters to his sons with Yours Affty [Affectionately], EM Armstrong, Sr, or Your Affectionate Father, EM Armstrong, Sr. Louisa always closed hers with your loving Mother. However, in the first letter Edward wrote Baker and Robert after their mother's death, Edward closed with Your loving Father, as if he had taken on something of his wife's spirit in her passing. Here, however, we will begin with two letters that Louisa wrote on July 30th and July 31st, 1878. Because the letters are separated from their mailing envelopes, I cannot tell where the letters originated, but Louisa is evidently not at home. The first letter is addressed to Baker and has what looks like "R. B. S. Springs" written at the top of the first page. It seems that Louisa is there, away from home, perhaps at a hot springs to recuperate from an illness. With her are at least two of her children, Fannie, the oldest, and Charles, the youngest.

My Dear Baker
We received your interesting letter by your Pa & were quite entertained. We look regularly every night for news from home & I find that we have used nearly all our papers & stamps. This certainly is no place for me to come for pleasure; but I feel better and stronger and I do sincerely hope I may be much more benefitted. I am so tired [of] moping about. We have made some acquaintances here; but the people you meet here are very different from those I admire. It has been raining here a good deal for several days; but I enjoy that kind of weather more than the bright hot suns (sic). We are looking for you and Jane on Thursday; but as you have to return that night, be sure to start very early. Get your Pa or the Dr. to let you off.

The letter continues with instructions about what clothes Jane is to wear on the trip and about what Louisa wants her son to bring with him for Fanny. In addition, she relays messages that Charles wants to give to his older brother. At the end of the letter she mentions that the ride takes three hours, so perhaps someone who wanted to do the geographical research could make some educated guesses as to where Louisa was staying at the time. The letter also suggests that Baker was working at the time for "the Dr.," probably a druggist at his older, half- brother's store.

The letter that Louisa writes her husband the next day is a bit more worried, as these excerpts reveal:

My Dear Husband
I hope you reached home safely on yesterday and did not get wet. We missed you so, and especially after supper; we did not have you to chat with us, as we sat on the porch. I could not help thinking of you all day and troubled to see you so much depressed. It seems to me you are more so, than when I left home. Do throw off of your mind as much as possible those worrying matters and cheer up.

That there was something troubling the family is suggested in the following lines, where Louisa refers to "Jimmie," that is, James Armstrong, one of Edward's older sons by his first wife, Hannah:

I feel about as usual today. I think I will write to Jimmie this week. I am afraid I might say something I ought not.

Later we will learn much more about the sorrows and joys of the family of Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr., and Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong, who are represented in the photographs at the top of this post. Handwriting that is most likely their granddaughter's, that of Baker's oldest daughter, Katharine Armstrong, appears on the back of these photographs, identifying the images as "Grandfather Armstrong" and "Grandmother Armstrong." A stamp and handwriting on Edward's photo indicates that it was taken on April 13, 1866. For a better view, click on the photos.

Armstrong Grocery, Salem, VA

2009-11-06T13:47:00.000-08:00

This past week I've been trying to organize letters that have been stored in plastic bags for years, letters that are not arranged in any order that I can understand, letters from the early-twentieth century in the same bags as letters from the 1880s and 1890s. But in organizing and quickly reading the letters, I discover patterns emerging, relationships coelescing in my mind. In one photograph album I came across a photo of an old store with this inscription beneath it: "Armstrong Grocery, Salem, Va." Edward McCarty Armstrong had a store in Romney, in what is now West Virginia. But Edward sold his property after the Civil War and moved to Salem, Virginia. Did he open another store there? In none of the letters (from the 1880s) I have read so far, does Edward mention a store, just the headaches and heartaches of trying to get his farm to produce. However, it may have been that Edward opened a store in Salem after selling his businesses in Romney and New Castle, West Virginia. His obituary indicates that he purchased the farm some years after moving to Salem: "Moving to Salem, Va, March 1866, he began business with his accustomed energy, and only laid it aside in 1882 in order to cultivate a farm, which he bought near Salem. After farming for five years, he rented his place and came back to Salem to live." Then, today, looking through a file of letters I had arranged by date, I came across a letter from Robert Armstrong to his brother Baker, dated November 30, 1882, and written from Baltimore, where Robert evidently was living. In the letter, Robert mentions "Cousin Will" and "Aunt Susan"--I suspect that "Aunt Susan" would be the wife of William Armstrong, the brother of Edward McCarty Armstrong.

It must be that, by 1882, one or two of the older sons of Edward McCarty Armstrong owned or managed the store in Roanoke or Salem that the father had, perhaps, started when he moved to Salem in 1866. Edward McCarty Armstrong had two families: one by his first wife, Hannah Pancake, and the other by his second wife, Louisa Tapscott White. Baker and Robert are sons of the second marriage. And evidently, Robert and Baker felt that they had not been served well by their older half-brothers, William Dillon Armstrong and David Gibson Armstrong. Robert writes that he's thankful that he has "some relations here who do seem to appreciate me more than any at home except you all at Edgewood." Edgewood was the family home of Edward McCarty Armstrong and his second wife Louisa Tapscott White Armstrong, and the name appears as a heading to many of the letters that mother Louisa wrote her sons Robert and Baker in later years.

Later in the letter Robert writes:

Neither of us has been treated properly at home--the Dr., as you well know, acted in any but a [unreadable] manner toward you; and Bro. G. [that would be "G" for "Gibson," for David Gibson Armstrong was called "Gib" or "Gibson" by his family]--well, if he had done the square thing by me, he would have offered me a share in the profits and thus made me a partner in the store. He does enough business to afford it and, besides that, I think I had worked long enough with him to entitle me to something better than I was getting. But, sometimes a "man's foes are they of his own household." Therefore, I think it better for us both to have left since neither of us were appreciated or ever received the slightest encouragement from our brothers, whom we served. But, if you will come here, we will "make it or bust."

The "Dr." in the letter may have been Dr. Perry, whose signature appears in one of the images below and who probably worked as a druggist for the grocery store. I suspect that Baker was learning his trade from the good doc. At the end of the letter, Robert adds a postscript, with a request that Baker evidently did not honor because this letter still exists!

Destroy this letter, please, when you have read it for I don't wish anyone else to see what I have written in ref. to W. D. & D. G. A. [William Dillon and David Gibson Armstrong]. They are kind in other respects, but as regards the matter mentioned, they did not do the square thing. R.

Also among the family items is a pharmacy or grocery notebook filled with printed advertisements and blank, lined pages for notes. The pages have headings such as: Yankee Notions, White Goods, Dress Goods, Groceries, Paper Hangings, etc. On some of these pages are written pharmacy recipes for ointments and cures. The final page has a calendar for the year 1873. Tucked in the pages are newspaper clippings of humorous stories and pages from a pharmacy tablet from Geo. W. Norrell, Pharmacist, Bryan, TX. Baker White Armstrong, who eventually went to Texas and worked for a while as a druggist for Geo. W. Norrell, clearly owned this notebook. On the outside is stamped "David G. Armstrong & Co., Salem, VA." And so the puzzle is nearly completed. Baker's and Robert's older half-brother David Gibson Armstrong owned a grocery store in Salem, Virginia. Both Baker and Robert worked for their brother. Below are images from the old pharmacy notebook. Note, 22 November 2009: Later letters reveal that William Dillon Armstrong owned a Drug Store in Salem, and David Gibson Armstrong owned a store, as well. It could be that the brothers were in business together, but by 1885 or 1886, Baker Armstrong and his brother Robert were exchanging letters about the possibility of Baker's buying out William's Drugstore. In the end, Baker did not do this, and William began business in another town. Brother Gibson also sold his storeroom.

The Armstrongs and The Civil War

2009-10-27T13:43:00.000-07:00

Buried in the large number of family photos from several generations of Armstrongs, Nugents, Lewises, and Cooks are a couple of photos from the Civil War. These photos remind us of the bloody conflict that took place here on American soil, in the fertile valleys, on the streets of frontier towns, on farmland, in the yards of folks, once neighbors and kinfolks, now on opposite sides of battle. Because my first goal is to organize and communicate what information we have here in our own family records, I have not researched how the Civil War affected the Armstrongs. At the time, Edward McCarty Armstrong and his family were living in what was to become West Virginia, a strong Unionist part of Virginia. Most of the slave-owning plantations were in eastern Virginia, and there was a long history of political differences between these two parts of the state. However, just a little online research reveals that Edward McCarty Armstrong was a delegate to the Virginia Secession Convention, and as a delegate, he voted against secession. However, when the secessionists won later, he supported the Confederacy and eventually moved his family from New Creek (later to be named Keyser, West Virginia) to Salem. Edward McCarty Armstrong's home was later sold to the "Davis brothers of Piedmont" and thereafter the home was known as the Davis Mansion. The Armstrong Mansion, home of William Armstrong, Edward's father, was located on the site where Keyser High School now stands. The two photos we have of Union soldiers camped in Keyser are near those Armstrong homes. Click on each image for a better view.

This first photo is of the Union Army encamped in the area then known as New Creek and now known as Keyser, West Virginia. On the back of the photograph is stamped in ink: COYD YOST, Photographer, KEYSER, WEST VA. And in handwriting (Mimi's or Katharine's): Occupation by Union Soldiers, Civil War, Birthplace of Papa. And in my sister-in-law's handwriting: taken from the home of Louisa White and Edward M. Armstrong. Those latest notations would have been made at the direction of my mother-in-law, daughter of Katharine Nugent Armstrong Robb, in 1987.

Just this week, I found among the family papers a letter written to Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong (Mimi), from J. C. Sanders, Superintendent of Keyser Public School. The letter is dated February 27, 1929. At the beginning of the letter, Superintendent Sanders describes the picture of the home below. Then he describes what very well might be the original of the photo above:

Today a high school pupil brought to me another picture of Keyser taken in 1865. This is the picture I mentioned in my other letter. This shows all the land now occupied by the city of Keyser to be occupied by tents of soldiers and the old army fort on the hill now occupied by the Potomac State College. In the back-ground of this picture is shown in a very prominent way the old Davis mansion and almost hidden by a tree may be seen to the left the slave quarters. A photographer here tells me that he is under the impression that he has a negative of this picture and if so a copy from it would cost but a dollar or two. He is looking it up. This picture is an heir-loom and cannot be secured. It bears the inscription: "Photographed in 1865 by G. W. Parsons, 22' Penn. Reg. & Mulligan's Battery. I will be glad to have these copied for you if you desire.

In the same letter dated February 27, 1929, Superintendent Sanders writes:

Since writing you the other day Mrs. W. E. Woolfe (sic), the niece of Col. T. B. Davis, has sent me a photograph of the old Armstrong or Davis Mansion house taken in 1863. On the back of the picture is the name of her father Mr. Buxton with the note that it was taken during the late war 1863. It is a 5 X 8 picture that shows beside the house the barricks (sic) of the soldiers in the west end of the town. It was evidently taken while the house was occupied by the Union soldiers because in the yard at the side of the house is shown in the picture two officers (sic) tents. While I have not looked up the records, I am told that Col. Armstrong was a southern sympathizer and this property was taken from him and used by the Union Army and was occupied by an Ohio regiment known and (sic) the Ohio bucktails, named such because they wore squirrel tails on their soldier caps. When the house was torn down several years ago I saw the names of many soldiers from all parts of the West written and carved in the old cupola. Mrs. Wolfe will not part with this picture but will loan it for copies and I have consulted a photographer and he will charge $2.75 to make a negative and about $1 apiece for pictures taken from it. If you would like a picture copied I will be glad to have him do this for you.

From the Nugent-Cook side of the family, we have Civil War discharge papers, among others, for Edwin Oscar Cook, Sr., but I have not found any such papers (yet) for the Armstrong side of the family.

Finally, although the following picture is not directly related to the Civil War, I include it here because it seems to belong to this post that describes homes of ancestors. On the back of this old photo are inscriptions in two hands, and here I can probably finally decide that the large print handwriting on many of these photographs is that of Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong rather than that of her sister, Katharine Armstrong Robb. First, there is this faded note written with pencil, in cursive: Given to Mary Nugent Armstrong, Mother's Home in Romney, W. Va., N. T. A. My guess is that "N. T. A." is Nettie Tapscott Armstrong. Then, in Mimi's large, round, print: Grandfather White's home, Romney, W. Va.--Our grandmother, Louisa White, Papa's mother's home. (Papa's and Baker's name) Baker White Armstrong. And one small addition, in what might be my husband's print: Louisa White is Baker White Armstrong, Sr's Mother.

Edward McCarty Armstrong's Children

2009-10-26T21:57:00.000-07:00

Two years after his first wife died, leaving him with seven young children, Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr., married again, to Louisa Tapscott White. This second marriage produced seven children, among whom was Baker White Armstrong, Sr., my husband's great-grandfather. Somewhere among the family photos there must be a photograph of Louisa Tapscott White, but if there is, either I haven't located it yet or the photo is one of the many with unidentified people [Note: I later found among the boxes of family photographs a photo which is likely that of Louisa.]. We do have, however, letters "Mother" wrote her sons Baker and Robert as the two young men traveled and then moved permanently to Texas. Here, however, I will introduce the children, many of whom will appear in later posts with more information about their lives, as revealed through their letters. My mother-in-law identified the two boys at the left as Baker White Armstrong (Sr.) and his brother Robert, and I don't have any reason to believe the two are other than as identified. The photo was a precious one, for it is framed in a wooden frame with a gold metal border. Baker and Robert were very close; they moved to Texas together, one settling in Bryan and the other in Houston, two cities within 100 miles of each other. The letters that Robert wrote Baker reflect the affection of one for the other.

The three girls in the photo in the upper right-hand corner are identified as "Nettie, Janie, and Katie A." There were four Armstrong girls: Fannie, Jane ("Janie"), Nettie, and Kate ("Katie"); Janie was the only one to marry. Katie died young, at the age of 19.

Charles Magill Armstrong was the youngest. I have posted a photo already of Charles with his two older brothers, Baker and Robert, here. In addition, here is one of an older Charlie, looking quite debonair, with his friend Charles Coons. Charles M. Armstrong is the one standing on the right. The two older brothers, Baker and Robert, exchanged anxious letters about Charlie, who seemed to suffer financial setbacks. I will include some of those letters in a later post.

Next is a photo of Janie. The handwriting on the back of the photo is either Mimi's or her sister Katharine's: "Aunt Janie, Papa's sister."

And, finally, there are two more photographs of Fannie and Nettie, older women and unmarried, and photos of Baker and Robert as young men.

Fannie and Nettie

Baker White Armstrong (Sr.), after he had traveled to Texas in the 1880s

Robert Armstrong, after he had traveled to Texas in the 1880s

More photos of the brothers will be included in later posts.

Hannah Angeline Armstrong: A Few Words Tell a Tale

2009-10-26T14:43:00.000-07:00

Among the Armstrong family papers is a 16-page memorial to Mrs. Hannah A. (Pancake) Armstrong, first wife of Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr.. The memorial includes songs sung at the funeral as well as a long sermon, with just one page and another paragraph devoted to the woman herself. The husband's obituary informs us that the two married in Cumberland, Maryland, on September 3, 1837. The Armstrong family tree indicates that Hannah and Edward had seven children, but this funeral publication mentions eight children, "seven of whom survived her." At first, I thought that there must be some mistake in the printing. Then I located online a list of grave markers for Indian Mound Cemetery in Romney, West Virginia. Among the list were numerous Armstrongs related to the family in which Hannah married:

Baker W. Armstrong: born Feb 4, 1842; died Aug 25, 1861-- "at Winchester, VA" "Aged 19 yrs 6 mos" "Our young soldier sleeps well".
Chichester Tapscott Armstrong: born mar 12, 1846; died Sep 1, 1850; "Son of Wm. J. & Susan C. Armstrong".
Elenor Baxter Armstrong: died Sep 15, 1826; "Wife of David Armstrong".
David A. Armstrong: died Apr 29, 1838.
Elizabeth Armstrong: died Jul 4, 1843; "Sacred to the memory of Mrs. Elizabeth Armstrong who departed this life on the evening of 4th of July 1843, aged 57 years. The deceased was for many years of the Presbyterian Church & a Christian o f the purest & noblest character. Her death bed scene was one which can never be forgotten; so solemn, so careful, so sublime; it seemed as if the Chamber of her death was none other than the gate of Heaven; as a wife, a mother, a member of the Church of Christ, a neighbor & Friend she had no superior. This monument is erected to her memory by those who morn her & know how to appreciate her Virtues".
Fannie Jane Armstrong: born Mar 22, 1848; died Sep 30, 1857; "Dau. of Wm. J. & Susan C. Armstrong".
Hannah Angeline Armstrong: bor Feb 26, 1819; died Aug 3, 1854 "in the faith of the gospel".
infant Armstrong: died Jul 21, 1854; "Daughter of E.M. & H.A. Armstrong".
Louisa Tapscott Armstrong: born Feb 2, 1837; died Jul 7, 1841; "Dau. of Wm. J. & Susan C. Armstrong"
Sarah Elizabeth Armstrong: born Oct 24, 1851 "in Romney": died May 13, 1932 "in Danville, VA" "Daughter of Edward McCarty Armstrong & Hannah Angeline Pancake".
William Armstrong: born Dec 22, 1782 "in Lisburn, Ireland"; died May 10, 1865 "in Hampshire County, West Virginia".
William James Armstrong: born Jun 28, 1813; died Jun 19, 1847; "Aged 33 yrs 11 mos 22 days" "Son of Wm. & Elizabeth Armstrong".

A quick reader will note the information from those markers close together in the Indian Mound Cemetery: Hannah Angeline Armstrong, who died on Aug. 3, 1854, and the infant daughter of Hannah and Edward, born on July 21, 1854. What do those dates tell us? That the infant was interred without being named, and thus was probably stillborn. That complications from the birth perhaps caused the death of the mother. These are guesses, but educated guesses. From these guesses, we have a tale: a family doubly bereaved. This thirty-five year old mother left behind seven living children, all of whom had to be under seventeen years of age. Two years later, Edward McCarty Armstrong was to marry Louisa Tapscott White, from whose union seven more children were produced, including Baker White Armstrong, Sr., my husband's great-grandfather.

There are other stories here; tease them out by looking at the information from the markers. But for now, we remember Hannah Angeline, dead at thirty-five years of age.

Click on the images for a readable view.

A Few Problems of the History Detective

2009-10-25T19:39:00.000-07:00

As I have been working on organizing and publishing online the history of my husband's family, I have encountered numerous problems that I am sure many amateur family historians encounter, especially those who have a plethora of unorganized material. In our case, there is the overwhelming problem of having a lot of information scattered in boxes and trunks: hundreds of letters--often removed from their envelopes and placed, willy nilly, in plastic bags with unrelated letters; photographs on which no one troubled to identify the persons and places; notes on family history located in separate folders, envelopes or files. Then, even with a family tree, it is sometimes difficult to identify people exactly because different generations of relatives have the same name. Take the name Edward McCarty Armstrong: there is Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr., son of William Armstrong who emigrated from Ireland when he was a boy of ten years old; then there is Edward McCarty Armstrong, Jr., son of Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr., and Hannah Pancake, the first wife of Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr.; then there is Edward McCarty Armstrong, son of David Gibson Armstrong and Hannah Gibson. David G. Armstrong is the brother of Edward McCarty Armstrong, Jr., and the half-brother of Baker White Armstrong, Jr. (son of Edward McCarty Armstrong, Sr., and second wife Louisa Tapscott White). Oh, and Edward McCarty Armstong, Jr., also named one of his sons Edward McCarty Armstrong--at least according to the family tree. Confused? Well, I certainly was, for among the family papers is the obituary of Dr. Edward McCarty Armstrong, a physician who died in Houston, Texas, in 1940. This is Baker White Armstrong, Senior's nephew, the son of David Gibson Armstrong and Hannah Gibson Armstrong, nephew of Edward McCarty Armstrong, Jr.. Imagine these errors multiplied. Aargh!

In addition, there is the difficulty of others having mis-identified people in photographs. At the end of her life, my husband's mother tried to identify as many people as she could in the photographs that she had inherited only a year or two before, at the death of her aunt, Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong ("Mimi"). (My mother-in-law, Mary Nugent Robb Greene, knew she had a few months to live after being diagnosed with cancer.) After my mother-in-law died, her brother, Baker Robb ("Rocky") began going through the family papers. Then, after Rocky's death, my sister-in-law rescued all the material and transferred it to us, and I began familiarizing myself with the people in the photographs. And I discovered that my mother-in-law had mis-identified a few people. Even Mimi, my husband's great-aunt, mis-identified people. How do I know this? Because I came across photographs that someone from a generation previous to my mother-in-law and her great-aunt had marked. Because these people personally knew the originals, their markings are more reliable. However, one discovers these errors only after looking at many photographs and many markings on those photographs. And even then one has to proceed with caution. And so, as I become even more familiar with the material that the Armstrongs, Nugents, Cooks, Greenes, and Robbs left behind, I will find myself, I am sure, re-appraising what I have already posted on this blog, returning to correct any errors that I may discover over time.

One uses a lot of deductive reasoning in trying to piece together the puzzles of family history. For instance, I have before me a photo of three young men. One of the young men I know to be Baker White Armstrong, Sr.. The photograph was taken by Maury Brothers of Roanoke and Salem, Virginia. Baker looks the age that he would have been when he was living in Baltimore, Maryland, or perhaps just after he went to Texas, that is, the 1880s. Who is likely to be in the photograph with him? Probably his brothers. I suspect that Baker's mother would have loved just such a picture of her sons because two of them, the oldest two, were often far away from home. I imagine the young men going into town--Roanoke or Salem-- for a photography session for mother when Robert and Baker are home on a visit. So I deduce that the other two young men are Robert Armstrong and Charles Armstrong. But no names are on the photograph. Only after much searching do I come across a photograph of a middle-aged man and his wife, and on the back of that photograph the man is identified as Charles Armstrong and his wife Mabel, taken in San Diego, California. The resemblance to that young boy is strong, as well as to another, more formal, photograph, also marked as having been taken in San Diego, California. I know, only after reading through family letters, that as an adult Charles Armstrong migrated west to the state of Washington and then on to California. So, finally, I have a pretty reliable answer: the three young men are Baker White Armstrong, Sr.; Charles M. Armstrong; Robert Armstrong. And if I'm still not quite sure whether or not the third brother is Robert, I continue the search.

Going through these old papers and photographs, I feel as if I am a history detective, searching for clues to a puzzle that can only be assembled incompletely.

William Armstrong: "He Came to This Country when a Boy"

2009-10-25T08:59:00.000-07:00

The life of William Armstrong, immigrant from Ireland in 1790 (or 1792--records disagree), illustrates how quickly America could absorb its foreign-born citizens. William Armstrong was ten years old when he came to the United States, and by the time of his death in 1865, he had risen to the United States Congress, representing Virginia. A brief biography of the great-great-great grandfather of my husband, Thomas Alexander Greene, and his sister, Linda Katharine Greene Bolano, can be found here: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress." He is buried at Indian Mound Cemetery, Romney, West Virginia, and a photograph of his grave marker can be found on the Find-A-Grave website here.

Records indicate that William Armstrong kept a tavern in Romney, in what is now West Virginia. In the family photographs and papers, I came across a photo purported to be of Main Street in Romney; one of the buildings is the Armstrong tavern. The smeared print on the bottom front of the photograph reads: "Main St., Romney, W. Va. Armstrong Hotel, subsequently Keller Hotel, on the right." The rest of the handwriting is unreadable to me, though the writer seems to be identifying a building opposite the Armstrong hotel. The back of the photograph has information written in two hands--in pencil at the top: "Present from Lyde Wilson, Black Mountain, N. C." In another hand, which I identify as either Mimi's (Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong, daughter of Baker White Armstrong, Sr.) or Katharine Armstrong Robb (oldest daughter of Baker White Armstrong, Sr.), is written the following: "Armstrong Hotel--Romney, W. Va. Grandfather or great-grandfather E. M. Armstrong.... William Armstrong." (In time, I will be able to identify just which sister wrote these notes, as I become more familiar with the family material.) That photograph is below.

In consulting the Armstrong Family Tree, one can see that William Armstrong married Elizabeth McCarty, and they had six children:

James Dillon Armstrong (married Anne Waterman Foote)
Sarah Rebecca Armstrong
Charles McGill Armstrong
Edward McCarty Armstrong (1st wife, Hannah Pancake, with whom he fathered seven children; 2nd wife, Louisa Tapscott White, with whom he fathered seven children)
William J. Armstrong (married Susan C. White)
Eliza Jane Armstrong (married David Gibson)

What do we know of William Armstrong besides what is contained in brief Congressional biographies, tombstone photographs, or a list of his descendants? We have a discourse prepared for William Armstrong's funeral, and below I have included pages from the discourse that focus on the life of William Armstrong. The photo of the cover of the booklet is at the top of this post.

Click on the images to increase to readable size.

Note: Julian Armstrong, descendant of John Armstrong, who was an uncle to William Armstrong, writes that he can decipher the rest of the handwritten note on the photo of Main Street in Romney, West Virginia. In an e-mail, 25 October 2009, Julian writes: " “Main Street Romney W. Va Armstrong Hotel subsequently Keller Hotel on the right. Gilkerson Street opposite & the Heiskel corner”. I know this is a bit of a guess but the Gilkerson and Heiskel families were contemporary neighbours in Romney and there is just enough legible to be able to interpret the inscription accordingly." Julian has been researching the Armstrong family for years and has gathered quite a lot of information on his American cousins. Thank you, Julian.

Our Armstrong Family Tree

2009-10-21T17:33:00.000-07:00

Here I have posted an image of the Armstrong family tree. How it came into Mimi's possession, I do not know, but we have extensive evidence of her correspondence with other relatives as she tried to locate information about various branches of her family. Recently, I discovered that an Armstrong descendant has been researching the family for years. We got in touch, and Julian Armstrong, who lives in England, told me that several Armstrong brothers emigrated from Ireland in the late-1700s, one of which was Tom's and Linda's ancestor, James Armstrong. The eldest of the brothers, John, remained in Ireland, and then his descendants moved to England in 1922. Julian Armstrong provided me with this information:

Baker White Armstrong, Sr.’s father Edward McCarty Armstrong (1816-1890) married 2^nd Louisa Tapscott White (1836-1887) – both mentioned in one of your newspaper cuttings - on 23^rd October, 1856. His father William Armstrong (1782-1865) was a Lawyer, JP, Congressman and in retirement a Taverner. He left Ireland for the States in 1792. He was the son of James Armstrong (1760-1795) who emigrated from Ireland to the States in 1790 and was one of the original four brothers to do so – the others being William (1757-1824); Robert (1766-c1828); and David (1768-1838) who was the last to come over in September 1815 aboard the “Westpoint”. I am descended from their eldest brother John (1754-1837) who remained in Ireland. John was my great great great grandfather.

How exciting to locate a distant relative with this information! I will be providing more information about William Armstrong in another post.

The Armstrongs and Nugents: Through the Mists of Time

2009-10-21T17:07:00.000-07:00

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.

The Early Years of Jell-O

2009-10-16T12:37:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has listened over the years to Garrison Keillor's radio program A Prairie Home Companion will know that Jell-O plays an important part in Lutheran church life. Jell-O goes with everything, even lutefisk. In 1993, my husband, children, and I moved to Cloquet, Minnesota, where we learned first-hand that all those jokes about Jell-O are firmly based in reality. A couple of years after we had moved to Cloquet, a new friend gave me a recipe book that illustrates how Lutherans are in on the joke: Lutheran Church Basement Women: Lutefisk, lefse, lunch, and Jell-O. Yep, the book includes a chapter of Jell-O recipes, with directions for making "Everyday Jello," "Jello for a Crowd," and "Jello and Vegetables," among others. Not very imaginative, our Lutheran Jello lovers (though the title of "Under-the-Sea Pear Salad," sometimes known as "Pharoah's Army Jello," does suggest some hidden depths). Among the boxes of Armstrong-Nugent ephemera are many recipe booklets from the early-to-mid-twentieth century, and among these is at least one little recipe booklet for Jell-O, from which I've taken the images on this post.

You can learn about the history of Jell-O by visiting a Kraft Foods website, "Jell-O History: Behind the Wiggle." There you will discover that lime-flavored Jell-O--good for salads!--was introduced in 1930. The little booklet from which I've taken these images does not list lime as one of the flavorings, so it must have been published before 1930. The Kraft Foods Jell-O history also reveals how well-known artists in the 1920s created illustrations used in Jell-O advertisements. In this little Jell-O recipe booklet, with folded pages tied together with one string running through holes at the upper left-hand corner of each page, are several full-color illustrations. I've included a few of those here. Click on the images for a better view.

Katharine Nugent Armstrong: An Introduction

2009-10-16T09:14:00.000-07:00

Katharine Nugent Armstrong was the oldest child of Baker White Armstrong, Sr., and Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong (Sr.). Her siblings were Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong (Jr.), Baker White Armstrong, Jr., and Helen Frances Armstrong. Of the four children, only Katharine and Baker married, and only Katharine had offspring. (Baker's wife had two children from a previous marriage.) The descendents of Baker White Armstrong, Sr., then, include four children, three grandchildren, two great-grandchildren (my husband and his sister) and five great-great-grandchildren. The family tree sort of bottlenecked there for a generation or so.

We have many of Katharine's letters, her Wedding and Anniversary album, as well as numerous photographs. But this post will just introduce the oldest child of the man who left Virginia and lived a prosperous life in Houston, Texas. The family was well known and respected in Houston and in Boulder, Colorado, where they had a summer home. Katharine and her siblings had all the advantages of an upper-middle-class family: social connections, good educations, family wealth. Katherine and her sister Mary ("Mimi") participated in recitals that were recorded in local newspapers. Both could play the piano, and Katharine was also known for her poetry, which she recited at public events. (See a sample of her poetry in the newspaper. Click on the image to read the poems and on the photographs to view larger images.) That the girls enjoyed full social lives is supported by the many playbills, tourist souvenirs, and individually kept photo albums and scrap books among the family papers.

The children of Baker White Armstrong, Sr., were also mentored by their aunts. At various times, Baker's unmarried sisters lived with them or near them, as well as one or two of his wife's maiden sisters. Mary's sister Helen Nugent, after whom her daughter Helen ("Hydie") Frances Armstrong was named, left behind several personal journals and a few letters; this maiden aunt lived with the Armstrongs in Houston, moving there some years after the Nugent family home, "Longwood," burned in Salem, Virginia, and after which the family (Perry Nugent, Sr., and his family) suffered serious financial difficulties. Katharine was surrounded by this extended family and must have felt sympathy for the privations of her elderly relatives. Her own father's prosperity, while providing her and her siblings with material goods, was no barrier to sorrow and loss.

Katharine Armstrong Nugent (later married Samuel Thomas "Sam Tom" Robb): born May 5, 1894, in Houston, Texas; died November 14, 1964, in Houston, Texas.

Helen ("Hydie") Frances Armstrong and Her Family

2009-10-12T21:17:00.000-07:00

So far, I have introduced two children of Baker White Armstrong, Sr., who left his home in Salem, Virginia, for Texas: those children are Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong (named after her mother) and Baker White Armstrong, Jr.. Of the four children of Baker White Armstrong, Sr., and Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong, only one had offspring: my husband's grandmother, Katharine Nugent Armstrong. I will introduce this grandmother in the next post. This entry is dedicated to the third child of Baker and Mary: Helen Frances Armstrong, also known as "Hydie."

The family left hundreds of letters, and of those I have read, I have learned that Hydie was epileptic. The family evidently spent a lot of time, effort, and money seeking a cure, or at least comfort, for their daughter. At times Hydie had a personal teacher and a personal nurse, for family letters mention these people. Other letters describe a household filled with sadness during one of Hydie's episodes or sudden onset of illness. As I go through the letters, I will discover more about Hydie and will include some of that information on this blog. Another thing I do know is that Hydie loved creating geometric ink drawings and that she collected postcards. She left behind boxes and boxes of these collected postcards.

The second photo is of Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong and her daughter Helen ("Hydie"). The writing on the back of the photograph (dated Oct. 1909) suggests the family sadness over Hydie's health: "Sorry Mother is not more of a comfort to her. She looks neither comfortable nor happy." Click on the photos for larger images.

The next photograph is of Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong and her three daughters. The mother is at the far left; next to her is Katharine (my husband's grandmother), Mary ("Mimi"), and Helen ("Hydie").

The photo below is of all the Armstrong children. Although there is no date on the photo, I estimate that it was taken around 1910 or 1911. From left to right: Katharine ("Tash") Nugent Armstrong, Baker White Armstrong, Jr. (the baby), Helen ("Hydie") Frances Armstrong, and Mary ("Mimi") Ophelia Nugent Armstrong (Jr). The photograph was likely taken at the family home in Houston, Texas.

I'll end this post with another photograph of Helen and with her obituary. She was the first of the Armstrong children to die.; she was sixty-three years old at her passing.

Helen Frances Armstrong: October 2, 1898 to February 15, 1962

Baker White Armstrong, Jr: He "Risked His Life"

2009-10-12T19:57:00.000-07:00

In a previous post, I introduced Baker White Armstrong, Jr., son of Baker White Armstrong, Sr. and Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong. Baker was the fourth child of this couple and the only son. Baker, Sr., had left Virginia in the late 1880s and moved to Houston, Texas, where he prospered. The family had a home in Houston and a summer home in Boulder, Colorado. Later I will include a few photographs of the family enjoying their summers in Colorado, but this post will concentrate on one event in which Baker White Armstrong, Jr. showed courage in rescuing the body of a young boy who had fallen while climbing in the mountains of Colorado. The young man was William Brode, 15, from Memphis, Tennesee. Click on the images in order to read the accompanying text.The clipping just below is a news photo of Lindbergh Peak, near where Baker Armstrong, Jr., located the young man's body.

Stored in a plastic baggie along with another newspaper clipping and unrelated photos was a letter that Baker wrote his family shortly after the event. I'm rewriting the text here. The letter is written on the front and back of one sheet of paper from The Albany Hotel, R J. Bush, Proprieter, Cor. Thirteenth and Walnut Streets, Boulder, Colorado:

Camp Audubon
Ward, Colorado

Dear Folks:
In answer to your letter I am O.K. and have climbed Long's Peak twice since the accident and am going up again in the morning. Would appreciate it a lot if you will get me two copies of every Houston paper having anything about the accident AND PUT THEM IN THE MIDDLE DRAW OF MY DRESSER SO THEY WON'T GET LOST. Please do this right away before they are all sold out.

One of the Rangers over at the accident said that if I ever wanted a Ranger's job to let him know and that I might be able to get it without studying forestry.

Camp closes 26th this month and I will leave for Yellowstone with the MacDonald boys about the 27 or 28th.

Please do not do a lot of bragging on what I did to people. Thanks.

Lots of love to all,
BW
Dates of papers should be about Aug 9th 10th 11th as I found the poor boy on the 8th. P. S. Please order me two copies of New York Times for Aug 9th--It was in there, too.

Baker White Armstrong: great-uncle of my husband and his sister

Cigarette Advertising, 1930s

2009-10-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

Among the family material that I am trying to catalog (not just on this blog but also in real time--in the limited space of my study) are magazine and newspaper clippings, recipes, greeting cards, canceled bank checks, and other such ephemera. Occasionally, I will load up some images that strike me as interesting. These images are from the cover pages of The Literary Digest. Only the covers remain; the pages of text were long removed. The image at above-left is from the inside back cover of The Literary Digest, dated February 21, 1931 (Vol. 108, No. 8), with price noted on the front cover as 10 cents. The next image, an advertisement for Chesterfields, is from the the back cover of the February 6, 1932, edition of The Literary Digest (vol. 112, No. 6). The third image is on the back cover of the April 23, 1932, edition of the same magazine (vol. 113, No. 4).

When I first began noticing cigarette advertising in the late-1960s and early-1970s, the images associated with cigarette advertising were rugged cowboys (the Marlboro Man) and women celebrating their sexual and cultural freedom ("You've Come a Long Way, Baby"). I did not realize that women were a target audience for cigarette companies as early as the 1930s. Notice that one of the ads is being endorsed by Betty Compson, an actress of the early-twentieth century. And, despite the note in tiny print about taking the advice of your physician, the first ad promotes cigarette smoking as an almost healthy exercise, associating the "toasting" of the tobacco to healthful sunshine. For a better view, click on the images.

Baker White Armstrong, Jr: "World Famous Illusions"

2009-10-09T21:51:00.000-07:00

Somewhere there is an obituary for Baker White Armstrong, Jr., my husband's great-uncle, but I can't find it in the boxes of disorganized stuff. I'm sure I will run across it somewhere and will provide a copy of it on this blog, but until then, we will have to be satisfied with Baker White Armstrong, Jr., as a young boy, as illustrated in the photograph with his father, Baker, Sr., to the left, and as a young adult. Later, I will add a photo or two of Baker, Sr., as an old man, which is how I knew him when I first met him in the 1980s. He and his wife Betty, whom he had married when he was about fifty years old, were then living in the home his father had purchased in the early 1900s, in Boulder, Colorado.

So for a while, Baker is still a young man, climbing the mountains of Colorado, presenting magic shows as a magician in Houston, and, later joining the U.S. Navy in World War II. Baker loved Colorado, as did the rest of the young Armstrongs, Katharine ("Tash"), Mary ("Mimi"), and Helen ("Hydie"). Old photo albums are full of photographs taken of them hiking in the mountains. A story was told in the family that after Baker, Jr., returned from his tour of the Philippines in World War II, he said that he had had enough humid heat: he was leaving Houston to live permanently in Boulder, Colorado. There he lived until he died in the late 1980s.

Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong (Jr.)--An Old Woman is a Young Woman in Disguise

2009-10-07T15:53:00.000-07:00

When I met my then-boyfriend's great-aunt in 1975 or so, I was impressed by this small-of-stature woman's gentility. Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong had never married. White-haired, kind, very Southern, with a mischievous and childlike sense of humor, she seemed to represent my idea of a Southern gentlewoman from an earlier era. I remember Mimi's always being impeccably dressed in a jacket and a skirt, often with a hat, the epitome of a certain class of Southern woman from the 1940s or so. Only after she died and we inherited letters written to her by old boyfriends and by a male first cousin who lived in New Orleans, only after we inherited all the photographs and the newspaper clippings, did I realize that this seemingly very proper Southern woman had lived a rich and full life. An old, unmarried woman she might have been, but a stereotypical old maid she wasn't. Because I knew her only in old age, I didn't realize how active "Mimi" had been as a younger woman--hiking in the mountains of Colorado, going on trips around the world with her teacher friends.

Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong was named after her mother. If she had been a man, "Jr.," would have followed her name. Her father, Baker White Armstrong, had left Virginia in the 1880s for Texas. Not long thereafter, he married a young woman from the state he had left behind: Mary Ophelia Nugent, daughter of Perry Nugent and Amanda Mariah Keep Cook. Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong was the couple's second child and second daughter. The first child and daughter was my husband's grandmother, Katherine Armstrong. The third child was another daughter: Helen Armstrong. (Helen was epileptic, and from letters that I've read, the family spent much time and effort providing the best care they could for their beautiful third daughter.) The fourth and final child was a son: Baker White Armstrong, Jr. Of the four children of Baker and Mary Armstrong, only Katherine had offspring.

If you click on the images for a larger view, you will be able to read the text of the newspaper clippings. The photograph at the top of the page of "Mimi" in graduation regalia has a note on the original, written in my mother-in-law's hand: "Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong 1916. Grad. Liggett School, Detroit, Michigan."

Paul Cook--Sugar Refiner in Louisiana in the 1800s

2009-10-06T17:45:00.000-07:00

Paul Cook is my husband's great-great-great grandfather. Born in 1808, he was married to Elizabeth Simmons (born 1814), who is recorded to have died in Salem, Virginia, in 1886. He died in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on February 4, 1893. The obituaries reveal a few more details about Paul Cook. Somewhere in the family letters there may be more information, and I'll provide it as I find it. For a better view, click on the images.

Years ago, I went searching for the grave of Paul Cook and found it in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a serendipitous discovery. In one of the family letters, someone mentioned the grave's being in Baton Rouge, and the writer included descriptions of how to get to the grave from one of the gates to the cemetery--but the name of the cemetery was omitted. I guess the recipient of the letter already knew what cemetery to go to, just not how to locate the grave once she arrived. My best friend and I decided to begin with one of the oldest cemeteries in Baton Rouge: and we struck gold... or dirt....or something. Somewhere in the boxes of my own stuff, there are pictures of me posing at the grave in a cemetery on Florida Boulevard in Baton Rouge.

Amanda Mariah Cook Nugent

2009-10-06T17:30:00.000-07:00

Amanda Mariah Cook is my husband's great-great grandmother, the mother of Mary Ophelia Nugent (who married Baker White Armstrong) and the wife of Perry Nugent. She was born on October 31, 1834. Her father, Paul Cook, was born in Rhode Island.

I don't know much about Amanda Mariah Cook Nugent, however, beyond what is revealed in the photos we have and the obituaries. However, as I organize and read the letters she wrote her daughters in the 1870s through early-1880s, I will learn more and post that information. To read the obituary, click on the image for a larger view. Click on the photograph for a close-up.

Perry Nugent--"The Loss of Wealth was his Trial"

2009-10-06T15:46:00.000-07:00

Below is a memorial to Perry Nugent, my husband's great-great grandfather. Perry was the father of Mary Ophelia Nugent, my husband's great-grandmother. He married Amanda Mariah Keep Cook, daughter of Paul Cook and Elizabeth Simmons.

From the obituaries of the Christian Advocate, Thursday, November 1, 1900

Perry Nugent

It is never to late to remember the dead. What does “In Memoriam” say?

“O sorrow, then can sorrow wane?

O grief, can grief be changed to less?

O last regret—regret can die?

No, mixed with all this mystic frame,

Her deep relations are the same,

But with long use her tears are dry.”

And Washington Irving? “Sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced.” This introduction is suggested by the fact that the man, brother, and friend of whom this paper shall treat, passed away from earth as much as five months since, and only now have the request and certain material together reached the writer, finding a ready response in his own heart.

Brief funeral services have their reason, but yet, on the other hand, reverence and affection do often want to linger about the dust in sight; and when we are gone ourselves we do not want ever to be forgotten. I have never forgotten Perry Nugent, the subject of whom I write, since I was his pastor in New Orleans from 1871 to 1874, although while yet he lived, I had not seen him more than one time; and now that he has gone still farther away, I still remember him. “Who is it puts that twenty-dollar gold piece in the basket?” I asked at last, when at each separate collection for missions, for Conference Fund, for education, and so on, there was the regular gold piece. Perry Nugent, they told me. I marked him for the man to call and count on for a contribution in case of any distress, private or public, a poor widow, or a Galveston flood, and the twenty-dollar gold piece or its just proportion was produced. I called on him to pray in the congregation, but after one or two trials concluded to relieve his evidently great embarrassment. No doubt if he had thought of it he would have come to me as Stonewall Jackson went to his pastor, who had similarly excused him for his difficult and halting speech; “Pastor,” said Jackson, “it is your duty to call on me; it is mine to do the best I can.”

Perry Nugent was born in Washington, Miss., January 20, 1831, and died in Greenville, Miss., May 14, 1900, in the seventieth year of his age. One great-grandfather was Thomas Hardeman, for whom Hardeman County, Tenn., was named; his mother’s father was Seth Lewis, for twenty-seven years Circuit Judge of the Opelousas District, Louisiana. His Methodism came through two generations of Methodists. His boyhood was amiable, singularly without reproof or punishment. He advanced rapidly in learning, and early developed the ability which made him afterwards a successful merchant. He grew up a praying and Bible-reading man, and I found him a member and steward of the Carondelet Street M. E. Church, South, New Orleans—a worthy member, a faithful steward. He was married December 1, 1853, to Amanda Keep Cook; the children were seven—Elizabeth, Anne, Helen, Perry Hardeman, Mary, Catherine, and Paul Cook, the last a man of letters. The mother, now deceased, was a worthy companion for so good a man, and the reverence the sons and daughters had for their parents was as beautiful as it was just. It is worth recording what the son, Paul C., says of his father in a letter to me, as follows—viz.: “I can express only a small part of the admiration which I have always felt for my father’s character. To me he has seemed the perfect ideal of strength, of integrity, and of truthfulness. I would as soon have thought of the reversal of every law of nature as I would of doubting his word in any matter. To the strength and beauty of his nature were added a sweet affection and a noble liberality. He was possessed of intelligence in a high degree, and I have many times been struck with the force and clearness of his conclusions. Add to these qualities a love of nature that made communion with it a delight, and a deep appreciation of all that was beautiful in art, and you have my father as I knew him. His whole life was a sermon on the stirring words of the text, ‘Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, . . . . . think on these things!’”

I found Perry Nugent a member of the firm of T. H. & J. M. Allen & Co, New Orleans, to which position he had arisen from being bookkeeper in the same house. The following tribute was paid him by Mr. Ashton Phelps, in the New Orleans Times-Democrat: ‘A dispatch from Greenville, Miss., brings intelligence of the death of Perry Nugent, sometime President of the New Orleans Cotton Exchange, and one of the most prominent merchants in the South. The house of T. H. & J. M. Allen & Co. stood in the very front rank. Mr. Nugent was noted for the strict integrity with which he safeguarded the interests of his firm’s correspondents. A Christian who carried his religion into every relation, a citizen without fear and without reproach, a man of the most refined manners and the kindliest sympathies, Perry Nugent was a living illustration of the fact that the loftiest code of morality may be practiced to the letter amid all the storm and stress of the commercial life. Although the deceased merchant’s declining years were spent in the shadow of impaired fortunes and absence from the scene of his early activities, time had no power to touch the pure gold of his nature.’

Another friend, Rev. J. A. B. Scherer, pastor of St. Andrews Lutheran Church, Charleston, S. C., writes of him: “I think the first thing about Perry Nugent was his soldierliness, a quality deeper than bravery. I saw him during the bitterest battles a man ever can fight, and the sight was an inspiration. I think the next thing was his sweet kindliness. He saw the foibles of men as keenly as anybody, but he had that charity which covers the multitude of sins, and was a true gentleman. Altogether, the impression he made upon me was most profound. To sum it all in a word, he was the knightliest man I ever knew.’

So also another man, far from New Orleans, and in the presence of strangers, said of a certain other man, Perry Nugent: ‘Why, sir, he was the most honorable man I ever knew, the only one who would unhesitatingly sacrifice his best business interests for a principle.’

There are such men, as others have known, but Nugent was one, by above testimony. A case in point may be quoted here: He was an assignee in a case in Greenville. The head of the firm that assigned said: ‘Mr. Nugent, you have made a mistake. You have not taken out all that was due you.’ He answered: “I took out all I was entitled to.’ The other: ‘No, you have not. The law allows you so much. It is yours and nobody else’s; you must have it.’ He said: ‘No; I know the law allows it; but I have taken enough to pay me a reasonable amount for my work. If I had taken any more, I would have felt like I was robbing the creditors.’

Having lost an ample fortune, in the later years of his life he was employed by others. His last employer made him a present of money, saying that it was a tribute to his fidelity and given so that he might visit his children in Salem, Va., whom he had not seen for some time. Instead of spending the money in that way, however, he denied himself the pleasure of the trip, and paid the sum to a creditor to whom he had been in debt for some time. Such actions speak louder than words of affectionate eulogy.

The loss of wealth was his trial, and the fire was hot; but eventually the gold of his faith came out refined and precious. He died in great peace, and this paper is written con amore by the pastor who enjoyed his friendship and often admired his gentle spirit.

W. V. TUDOR

Note: Perry Nugent's parents were John Pratt Nugent (1792-1873) and Anne Lewis Nugent (1807-1873). John Pratt Nugent married Anne Lewis in 1827.

Marriage and Deaths--Armstrong-Nugent

2009-10-06T15:09:00.000-07:00

Beside me on my desk are two or three piles of newspaper clippings, old letters, an Applicant's Working Sheet for the National Society of Children of the American Revolution, and pamphlets. There is no order to these materials which were contained in two or three large manila envelopes. In one envelope were obituaries from newspaper clippings with dates spanning from the 1880s to 1986.

From this pile I've found the marriage announcement of Baker White Armstrong, my husband's great-grandfather who moved from Salem, Virginia, to Texas in the 1880s, as well as Baker Armstrong's obituary. With these first two entries in my Left for Texas blog, I illustrate the fleetingness of the life of man. Between that marriage announcement and the obituary lie the details of one life long forgotten except in the fragments that we own. Here, perhaps, over the next months as I catalog these fragments, the life of Baker White Armstrong may flesh out once again--metaphorically speaking--in cyber space. With that life are fragments of other lives that will also be revealed "through a glass darkly."

According to that Applicant's Worksheet, Baker White Armstrong was born December 10, 1858, in Keyser, West Virginia. After leaving his family home in Virginia for Texas, he married a young woman whom he had known in Virginia: Mary Ophelia Nugent, born January 3, 1864, in Prairie Lea, Texas. Mary's being born in Texas was an accident of history, as her family had been misplaced there by the Civil War--more on that in a future post.

Baker and Mary (or "Boggy" as her children called her years later) married on July 14, 1892. Baker died first, in Houston, Texas, on February 20, 1937; Mary died in Houston, Texas, on April 10, 1943. Later posts may be confusing, as Baker and Mary named their second child (and daughter) after Mary; that daughter never married, and thus she, also, was until her death, Mary Ophelia Nugent Armstrong. We knew her as "Mimi," my husband's great-aunt who taught first grade in Houston for many years. But that's for another post.

Left for Texas: The Beginnings

2009-10-05T19:56:00.000-07:00

Anything labelled as "the beginning" is done so arbitrarily. Can any beginning be definitively assigned? Especially when that beginning relates to the history of a family. Here we have a family: four people, a father, a mother, two children--son and daughter. Where does the family begin? With the parents? grandparents? great-grandparents? great-great-grandparents? And what about the ancillary branches: the sisters and brothers of the father and the mother, the offspring of those sisters and brothers, the in-laws? And so the tree branches.

A little over twenty years ago, someone died in my husband's family, and then someone else, and then someone else, and before we knew it, we had inherited boxes and boxes of family letters, cards, magazine and newspaper clippings, pamphlets, family Bibles, photographs, photograph albums. My husband and his sister divided the furniture and objects that had immediate value and use; we ended up with boxes, files, diaries, and photographs going back to the early 1800s. For years we hauled around this stuff, weighed down by history and someone else's lack of organization. When a great-aunt who had taught first-grade in Houston, Texas, for thirty years died, she left behind hundreds of greeting cards her students had given her over the years, even valentines with candy still inside. Each of us has more than enough detritus from our own lives; imagine inheriting the detritus of the lives of people who kept everything.

A couple of years ago, I began some attempt at organizating all this stuff by creating seven photograph albums, one for each of my and my husband's children and my husband's sister's children. I included photographs from one line of the family, going back to the late 1800s, a few newspaper clippings, a sampling of greeting cards, and other bits of interest. Yet boxes remain. Who has the time to go through every box, pick through every letter (each with its own eccentric handwriting), sort through every newspaper clipping or magazine cutting and put it all in order? So here, I'll attempt an order of a different kind. I'll pull something from the boxes and post it here. The order will be in the index. Everything else will be haphazard, a surprise, a treasure hunt.

And so we begin with a family Bible, one owned by a Mrs. L. T. (could be "J") Armstrong, living in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1878. This is my husband's great-great grandmother. Somewhere in the boxes are obituaries of various members of this family from the 1800s. At some point, those obituaries will appear on this blog--as I come across them again. Here, however, we have the family Bible of a mother who worried about two sons who decided to go to Texas: Baker (my husband's great-grandfather) and Robert. On the inside pages of the family Bible, the mother records these departures. Later she was to write the sons. We have some of the letters sent to Baker. Those, also, shall appear on this blog as I re-discover them.

"Baker left for Texas, Oct. 8th 1884," the mother writes. And so the son leaves Virginia behind and begins a new life in Texas.