The Nugents: The Second Generation

The one who left for Texas

In my previous posts, I introduced the Nugent line of my husband's family: his great-great-great grandfather John Pratt Nugent, who came to the United States from Ireland and who eventually made his way south to Louisiana, where he married Anne Lavinia Lewis, a daughter of Seth Lewis, who had been the chief justice of the Mississippi Territory. John Pratt Nugent and Anne Lavinia Lewis had nine children, and at the beginning of this year, I searched online for any internet information on these children, avoiding at this time signing up for genealogy sites that require payment. As I have mentioned before, we have quite a lot of material--photos, letters, other ephemera--related to Tom's ancestors, but the people in so many of these photographs have never been identified. At the end of a few days of careful searching, I had found a photograph of one of John's and Anne's sons in the Flickr album of the University of Texas at Arlington, and, scrabbling through the boxes of photos that we owned, I found a photograph of the same man and thus was able to identify that photo as that of Thomas Lewis Nugent, one of the younger sons who had gone to Texas and settled there. Some time later, I came across a photo of William Lewis Nugent, in an online archive of Harvard. The search continues, but here is a summary of a few details--and links to sources--that I found online.

A very useful online source is the Find A Grave website. While the information loaded on this site is all done by volunteers, I have cross-referenced family information we have with information on this site and found that, usually, the web site information is fairly accurate. One does have to be careful, though, as I have discovered some errors. A little family background on Anne Lavinia Lewis and a photo of her cemetery marker can be found on that website:  link. A photo of John Pratt Nugent's cemetery marker can be found here: link. In a letter we have, written to my husband's great aunt Mary (Mimi) Armstrong, dated March 25, 1932, another descendent of John and Anne, Annie Nugent Gibbs, writes: 

Grandfather Nugent died in our home in Feb. 1872, and Papa bought a lot in which to bury him; in August of the same year grandmother Nugent died in Christiansburg, Va., where she and Aunt Nannie had gone because of the ill health of the former, and, on account of the heat of the Summer. Papa could not have her body brought here so had to wait until the cool weather and he then laid them side by side and buried them in a cradle style monument, with small slabs at their heads and just their names on the stones.

Aphra Pratt Nugent [married, Boyle], the oldest child of John and Anne: The lives of most women in the nineteenth century revolved around their families, and only through letters or remembrances are we likely to discover any details beyond a photograph. Online I found record of the births of a couple of Aphra's children, in the 1849 and the 1856 New Orleans Parish Birth Index, and a record of her marriage to Francis Boyle in the "New Orleans Marriage Index, Daily Picayune, 1837-1857, Surnames Beginning with Letter 'B'." According to these sources, Aphra Pratt Nugent married Francis Boyle on July 20, 1848 [Ref. Daily Picayne 7/25/1848 P2C6]. Birth records reveal that a daughter, Anne Nugent Boyle, was born to Francis A. Boyle and Aphra Pratt Nugent on June 8, 1849, and that another daughter, Aphra Francis Boyle, was born on November 24, 1856.

family photograph--"Aunt Aphra Boyle" written on back

 Perry Nugent, oldest son of John Pratt Nugent and Anne Lavinia Lewis Nugent: Because Perry is Tom's great-great grandfather, we have quite a lot of information about him and many letters written by him. Perry's story is a somewhat tragic one, as he rose to some wealth and prominence in New Orleans, the highlight of which was his tenure as the President of the New Orleans Cotton Exchange, but then he lost most of his money in his later years and spent the remaining years of his life working to repay debts. Letters from his old age reveal that he felt that God had abandoned him; they make very melancholy reading. I have written of Perry in other posts (see "Perry Nugent--'The Loss of Wealth was his Trial.") and will return to him in future ones, so I will not elaborate here on Perry's long and interesting life. We have a family Bible in which births and marriages were recorded. Perry Nugent married Amanda Maria Keep Cook on December 1, 1853. They had seven children, one of whom, Catherine, died while still a baby. Of the six children who lived late into adulthood, only two married, my husband's great-grandmother Mary Ophelia Nugent [married, Armstrong] and the youngest son, Paul Cook Nugent. I did find online, however, a very interesting letter written by a nephew of Perry's--James E. Edmonds, the son of the youngest daughter of John Pratt Nugent and Anne Lavinia Lewis Nugent. The letter is in the James E. Edmonds Collection in the University of Mississippi Libraries Digital Collections. In this letter, James tries to comfort his mother on the death of her oldest brother Perry Nugent. The letter was written May 22, 1900. What follows is a partial quote:

My dear Mother, I have not heard from you since Uncle Perry's death but of course I did not expect to do so.

I should have written you sooner--and I have tried to do so a dozen times, but a letter of sympathy was so hard to write and any other kind seemed almost heartless. Your anxiety and hope in Greenville [Mississippi, where Perry Nugent had been living] touched me more than I have been in a long time.

For Uncle Perry--his life seems a failure to the world that does not know him. To them he should have died twenty years ago President of the New Orleans Cotton Exchange and the wealthy commission merchant. Far happier he would have been also--had this been the case. But in such event the most heroic part of his career would never have been played. A man who is brave, and loyal to himself and his ideals in the midst of defeat has double the heroism of any other part. Uncle Perry certainly was not the least of those who noble battled an adverse fate. His life should be [unreadable] and an example for emulation and a warning of dangers to avoid."

family photograph--Perry Nugent

William Lewis Nugent, third child of John Pratt Nugent and Anne Lavinia Lewis Nugent: Information on William Lewis Nugent is readily available online, as he became a prominent lawyer in Mississippi; his letters to his first wife, Eleanor Fulkerson Smith, were collected, edited and published; his and Eleanor's only daughter, Eleanor (Nellie) Nugent [married Robert Somerville] served as vice-president of the National Women's Suffrage Association and was the first woman elected to the Mississippi legislature in 1923; and his granddaughter Lucy Somerville Howorth, was a prominent lawyer and feminist in Mississippi in the 20th century.  What interests me the most about the William Nugent family is this progression--from a generation of slave owners (well, William didn't own slaves, but his father did, and his father-in-law did, and a slave accompanied William when he fought for the Confederate Army) to descendents who worked for women's rights as well as for the rights of African Americans. As chairwoman of the American Association of University Women, Lucy Somerville Howorth (William Lewis Nugent's granddaughter), successfully led that organization to open its membership to African American women in 1949. After the death of his first wife, William married again, to Mary Catherine Montgomery, who died a year or so after their marriage. He married a third time, to Aimee Webb, with whom he fathered five more children. The Mississippi Department of Archives and History has the papers of William Lewis Nugent in its archives. Information about William Lewis Nugent can also be found online in Google Books, one being Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Mississippi: Volume II, Part I, published by Firebird Press; another being Soldiers of the Cross: Confederate Soldier-Christians and the Impact of War on Their Faith, by Kent T. Dollar.

A copy of a photograph of William Lewis Nugent can be found online in Harvard University Library's Visual Information Access website: Engraved Portrait of William Lewis Nugent.

Richard James Nugent, the fourth child of John Pratt Nugent and Anne Lewis Nugent: Richard Nugent married a grand-niece of the President of the Confederacy and is mentioned in the letters of Jefferson Davis. A collection of those letters includes the following note:

Richard James Nugent (Nov. 14, 1834 - Aug. 8, 1891) was born in St. Landry Parish, the son of John Pratt and Anne Lewis Nugent, and lived in New Orleans before the war. On December 15, 1859, he married Mary Coralie Smith (1839-67) eldest child of Davis' nephew Dr. Joseph Davis Smith; the Nugents had three children. Entering service in 1862 as a lieutenant in the Confederate Guards, Louisiana militia, he was appointed a quartermaster officer (1862-65), working mainly in Opelousas and Alexandria. At war's end he returned to New Orleans, but after his wife died in the 1867 yellow fever epidemic, he settled at Reveille plantation in Bolivar County, Mississippi, where he was also a magistrate and levee commissioner. In 1884, Davis contacted Nugent about supervision of Brierfield. [The Papers of Jefferson Davis, vol. 8, 1862, Lynda Lasswell Crist, editor, Mary Seaton Dix, co-editor; 1995, Louisiana State University Press]

On August 9, 1891, The New Orleans Times-Picayune published the following obituary:

Death of Major Richard J Nugent

 Major Richard J. Nugent, who died in this city yesterday, is of the Nugent family of St. Landry parish, where he was born in 1835. He came to New Orleans while quite young, and married Miss Cora Smith, a grand niece of Jefferson Davis.

After the war, in which Major Nugent served gallantly, he lived here until 1868, when on the death of his wife, he moved to Bolivar County, Miss., and engaged in planting. Major Nugent was the brother of Perry Nugent, formerly president of the Cotton Exchange, and of W. L. Nugent of Jackson, Miss.

He leaves a son and two daughters, all married, to share in the grief for a parent with that of a friend.

We also have a letter written by one of Richard's daughters, Coralie Nugent Lobdell, dated January 14, 1944, in which the daughter mentions her mother and the family's moving to the Mississippi Delta:

I had the pleasure of knowing all of my uncles and aunts and cousins except Uncle Tom's family [Thomas Nugent] who moved to Texas before I was born. Your Grandmother (my Aunt Amanda) had me in her keeping after my Mother's death in New Orleans of yellow fever, when I was seven months old. When the scourge was over my Grandmother, Anne Nugent, came to live with my Father. He moved to Bolivar County, Mississippi, and here in the Delta I have spent my life.  [heading on the letter: The John V. Lobdell Agency, Rosedale, Mississippi. An archive of the Lobdell family papers can be found in the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Coralie Nugent married John V. Lobdell, Jr.; John V. Lobdell, Sr., died just before the Civil War began; John V. Lobdell, Jr., was born in 1859. The Lobdell family papers include correspondence to other Nugent family members. ]

More information on Richard James Nugent can be found in Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Mississippi: Volume II, Part I, by Firebird Press, Pelican Publishing, Nov. 30, 1999, p. 517. Richard Nugent and his wife Mary Coralie Smith Nugent are buried in Metairie Cemetery, Orleans Parish, Louisiana. Information about their grave sites can also be found online at the Find a Grave website, but I have noted errors in the information.

family photo--Richard James Nugent

John Pratt Nugent, Jr., fifth child of John Pratt Nugent and Anne Lavinia Lewis Nugent: John, Jr., is the offspring for whom I have the least information at this time. His name appears in the index of An Evening When Alone: Four Journals of Single Women in the South: 1827-67, edited by Michael O'Brien and published by the University Press of Virginia (Southern Texts Society), where it is noted that John Pratt Nugent, Jr., was born in 1836. I could access only portions of the book online; the Nugents are mentioned in Anne Lewis Hardeman's journals. Anne Lewis Hardeman was a cousin of Anne Lavinia Lewis Nugent. (Nancy Hardeman had married Seth Lewis--Anne Lewis Nugent was a daughter.) He is also mentioned in a letter that one of Richard Nugent's daughters (Coralie Nugent Lobdell) wrote to my husband's great-aunt Mary (Mimi) Ophelia Nugent Armstrong, dated January 14, 1944:

The children of John Pratt Nugent and Anne Lavinia Lewis Nugent were Aphra (an Irish name), Perry, named for a brother of Grandfather's, William, Richard, Amelia, Thomas, John and Clarance (sic) [notice that Anne Maria Nugent Edmonds is missing from this list]. All the boys except Tom were in the Confederate Army [a contradiction of other sources], John being the only one who was wounded.

 John Pratt Nugent, Jr., died in 1888.

Amelia Thompson Nugent Vairin, sixth child of John Pratt Nugent and Anne Lavinia Lewis Nugent: Some day I will have gone through all the family letters and perhaps have found more information on Aunt Amelia. Online, I found a record of her death in the 1908 Orleans Parish Death Index: March 4, 1908, at the age of 69 years. According to other records, she was born January 1, 1839. We also have a number of letters written by various Vairin descendents, among whom there was some ill feeling, as the letters reveal--but that's for another day, another post, perhaps. Amelia married Julius Vairin, with whom she had several children; family letters refer to a Julius Vairin and Nugent Beverly Vairin, as well as to the Baldwins who married into the family. (Nugent Beverly Vairin married Alice Baldwin; Sarah Vairin married Harry F. Baldwin). For now, the most we have personally on Amelia Thomson Nugent Vairin is the photo below, identified as "Aunt Amelia."

family photo--Amelia Thompson Nugent Vairin

Thomas Lewis Nugent, seventh child of John Pratt Nugent and Anne Lavinia Lewis Nugent: Thomas Lewis Nugent was born in 1841 and died in 1895. Among all his siblings, he made the smartest move after the Civil War and moved to Texas (my home state), where he taught school for a while before becoming a lawyer. Late in his life, he entered politics and was the populist candidate for governor of Texas in 1892.  The Handbook of Texas Online has an entry on Thomas, here: "Nugent, Thomas Lewis". Google Books also has the full contents of a book of his life available online, edited by his third wife: Life Work of Thomas L. Nugent, by Mrs. Catharine Nugent. According to the Handbook of Texas entry, Thomas Nugent married Clara Hardeman (his second cousin) in the 1860s, and they had five children, three sons and two daughters. One of those sons, Clarence, also became a leader in the Populist party in Texas, and in the 20th century, he was a leader of the Socialist party. Thomas Nugent's second wife was a Miss Chamberlain, who "survived only a short time," and then Thomas married for the third and last time to Catharine C. Earl, who edited the book about his life. Many reminiscences of Thomas Nugent's old friends are included in Life and Work of Thomas L. Nugent, but my favorites are a couple by Thomas B. King. King writes about Thomas Nugent's campaign for governor in 1892:

In the great canvas of 1892, all of the Gubernatorial candidates, Hogg, Clark and Nugent, on different days came to Stephenville [Texas]. Both Gov. Hogg and Gen. Clark were received at the depot with brass bands and conducted to the best hotels in carriages. Nugent came, walked leisurely along, shook hands, as was his custom, even with many of his old colored neighbors, as friendly as if they were princes of royal blood. I know this was not for any effect, but his simple, natural way. He could not help it any more than a child could help being glad to see home people on getting home.

Speaking of the colored people, some months before the Judge [Thomas Nugent] died, and the last time he was ever in my office he and a well dressed and seemingly well-to-do gentleman were in a friendly conversation which became somewhat animated at a point in which there is generally a good deal of animus. Both were southern born, the Judge coming from an old Louisiana family of slave-holders and having himself seen service in the Confederate army. The gentleman remarked that if the slave-holders had been paid for their slaves it would have been nothing but justice. The Judge replied that it appeared to him that having had the services of the slaves for several generations for nothing, justice rather demanded that the slaves, rather than their owners, ought to have been paid at least enough to start them in life.

Of course, Thomas Lewis Nugent was still a son of the Old South, and while he was enlightened in many ways, other stories of Nugent and his campaign for governor reflect the divide between whites and blacks in the South following the Civil War.

 I found a portrait of Thomas Lewis Nugent in a Flickr account of the University of Texas at Arlington and so was able to identify a photo in our collection as a photo of Uncle Thomas. Our photo was not in good shape, but I include here a copy of it.

family photo--Thomas Lewis Nugent

Clarence Jewell Nugent, eighth child of John Pratt Nugent and Anne Lavinia Lewis Nugent: On a website maintained by the Oldham County [Kentucky] Historical Society, I accessed in March of this year the cemetery records of Clarence Nugent and his wife Addie May Alexander Nugent. According to these records, Clarence was born December 7, 1843, and died on October 5, 1915. His wife Addie was born February 6, 1852, and died on December 2, 1912. We have among our records a letter written by Clarence to his niece Mary Ophelia Nugent [married Baker Armstrong] in which he mourns the many years that had passed since he had last seen his brothers and sisters and their children. He and his brother Thomas, however, kept in touch over the years, and Clarence wrote a reminiscence of his brother that was included in Life and Work of Thomas L. Nugent. I also accessed a couple of obituaries online, through the Library of Congress' Chronicling America site. The following was originally published in The Daily Public Ledger, Maysville, Kentucky, Thursday, October 7, 1915:

Former Pastor of the First M. E. Church, South, Here, Died at Deaconess Hospital in Louisville

Rev. Dr. Clarence J. Nugent, retired minister of the Methodist Episcopal church, died Tuesday morning at the Deaconess Hospital at Louisville. He had been ill of nephritis a month and last week was removed from the home of his son, C. J. Nugent, divisional Sunday school secretary for the Methodist Episcopal church.

He was 72 years old and a native of Alabama. He was a member of the Mississippi Conference before coming to Kentucky, and had held charges at Brooksville, Carrolton, Lagrange, Maysville and other Kentucky towns.

His last service was with a church near Harrods Creek. He resigned from the Kentucky Conference at its session last month. His son and two grandchildren survive. The body was taken to his old home in Lagrange for burial.

While pastor of the First M. E. church, South, here, Dr. Nugent made many friends who will regret to learn of his death. He was very popular with all denominations in this city and was a strong preacher.

I don't know why this obituary claimed that Clarence was a native of Alabama, since he was born in Opelousas, Louisiana, but perhaps it's because he lived and pastored in Alabama, too.

family photo--Clarence J. Nugent, 1891

Anna Maria Nugent Edmonds, ninth child of John Pratt Nugent and Anne Lavinia Lewis Nugent: The last of John's and Anne's children, Anna (or Aunt Nannie, as she was called by some of her nieces and nephews) was born August 8, 1850. The online site of the Orleans Parish Brides' Marriage Index, 1800-1899, records that she married James E. Edmonds, December 15, 1875. While searching for more information on Anna Maria in March of this year, I came across Ira and Larry Goldberg Auctioneers, through which a collection of Anna M. Nugent Edmonds' original typescripts and manuscripts had been auctioned for $690 (with an estimated value of $1000-1500). Although I have provided a link to the description of the manuscripts, I have copied below the information included at that link, as I'm not sure how long that link will be active:

Lot 1176--Archive of Anna M. (Nugent) Edmonds, 1870s-1919.  Archive of the original typescripts and manuscripts by Anna M. (Nugent) Edmonds, approximately 100 pages, c.1870s-1910, New Orleans, Louisiana. Anna Nugent was reared in an old Louisiana family that settled in St. Landry Parish after 1690. Seven sons served in the Confederate Army and the family fled from advancing Federal troops in 1862. Ironically, in 1875, Miss Nugent married a Yankee entrepreneur, Captain James E. Edmonds of Ohio, who served in the 94th Ohio Volunteers. During Reconstruction he bought "Buck Ridge," a 1,000 acre cotton plantation in the Delta region of Mississippi. Here, with his Southern belle bride, Edmonds proceeded to live like the planters' sons he had recently helped vanquish. Anna Edmonds began writing short stories under the pseudonym Nathaniel Neugent. Her pieces were of that once-popular sentimental genre that relied heavily on Negro dialect for a sense of place and mythologized the finer aspects of life in the Old South. Quite often the tales were based upon her own experiences before, during, and after the Civil War. This archive includes two manuscripts, most likely written while the Edmonds lived in Mississippi. The stories are "Hazards of New Fortunes" and "A Successful Runaway"; the former is penned on thin, tissue-like paper, while the latter is penciled on lined ledger paper. Also included are four typescripts for "The Banshee of the Stoddards," "How Elder Bolivar Elected Himself," "Aunt Sally's Victory," and "Uncle Bill as a Labor Agent"; these stories are written for submission to a publisher, giving word count and return address. There is also a typed excerpt from "Reminiscence 1832 on a Louisiana Plantation"; this centers around the author's grandfather, Judge Seth Lewis, and gives some family history, as well as an examination of local customs. Some of the material is quite fragile.

  Of course, I wonder who the successful bidder was and where these manuscripts are now.

Anna and James had one son, named after his father, James E. Edmonds. Both father and son attended the University of Mississippi, the son entering in the fall of 1896. The son's letters are in the James E. Edmonds Collection, of the University of Mississippi Libraries Digital Collections.  The son of Anna M. Nugent and James Edmonds would go on to work as a newspaper correspondent/artist in New Orleans, Louisiana, during which time he married Rosa Warfield, of Natchez, MS. He worked for the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Many years ago, someone in Tom's family cut out a newspaper article about "Major General James E. Edmonds" being given the "Legion of Merit." Unfortunately, the newspaper clipping does not include a date, but this has to be the son of Anna Nugent and James Edmonds, for the information included in the clipping corresponds to some of the information in the biographical note accompanying the James E. Edmonds Collection at the University of Mississippi. James and his wife Rosa had one son, James Edmonds, Jr.

As for Anna Maria Nugent Edmonds, so far I have not been able to identify a photograph among the family's collections, but that does not mean one does not exist.

A lot of work remains to be done in sifting through the family archives of letters and other ephemera.

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

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..."

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

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"

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?

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"

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.