William Lewis Rogers | marieqrogers

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Digging Up Dead Relatives (And Finding a Live One)

Posted in Family History, Marie's Musings, tagged Ancestors, Evsn Hiett House, Family Heritage, Genealogy, Hampshire County WV, History, Kidwell Cemetery, Mary Virginia Kidwell McDonald, Slanesville WV, William Lewis Rogers on February 1, 2018| 1 Comment »

This past summer, my sister Sue and I embarked on a genealogical expedition. Our main focus was Hampshire County, West Virginia where the Rogers family has roots going back hundreds of years. I’d visited this area before but this was Sue’s first trip. We camped at Wapacoma Campground on the South Fork of the Potomac River, west of the county seat of Romney.

Wapocoma Campground

It takes a special kind of nerd to find pleasure in digging through old documents for clues to our past. We visited the main library and the Capon Bridge branch, both which have historical and genealogical records. I’ve spent many hours in these libraries and always find new treasures, but the weather was too nice to spend all day indoors.

Most of our West Virginia ancestors came from the British Isles in the 1700’s and settled in the vicinity of Slanesville, a small community in the Cacapon River Valley. Daniel and Nancy Slane and their six children immigrated from Ireland in the late 18^th century and settled in what became known as Dogtown because the Slanes had so many dogs. Later it was renamed Slanesville.

Almost Heaven

The Rogers moved here after the Civil War and married into the McDonald clan. After farming in Pennsylvania and Kansas, this part of West Virginia must have seemed like Heaven. For the life of me, I don’t understand why they left this lovely valley for the bitter climate of upstate New York. Not all of them left. William Lewis Rogers remained and is buried in the Kidwell Cemetery.

Sue’s favorite place to look for ancestors is in old graveyards. The Kidwell Cemetery is at the end of a private lane with one residence which is a family day care. In addition to Kidwells, there are a variety of other family names, including McDonald. William Rogers was not related by blood to the Kidwells but through the marriage of his son John Thomas Rogers, my great-grandfather, to Rebecca McDonald. Apparently William got along well enough with his in-laws for them to provide him with an eternal resting place.

Sue meticulously inspected each headstone, deciphering weathered inscriptions, while I took notes and photographed them. I noticed more comings and goings at the day care next door than usual, but I didn’t give it much thought. Finally, no more tombstones to examine, we moved to the nearby Mount Union Church Cemetery. I’d never stopped here, but Sue couldn’t pass it by.

We parked on the dirt road behind the church and found dozens more Kidwells, McDonalds, and other names connected with our family. While we cataloged more possible dead relatives, quite a bit of traffic zipped by on the dirt road, which I thought was strange. Sue went back to my van for something, leaving me to take notes and pictures. When she didn’t return, I went to check on her. I found a pickup truck parked near my van, and a man was talking to Sue.

Apparently, my big blue van with the Florida license tag had attracted attention. The valley was buzzing with questions about who we were and why we were hanging out in these graveyards all afternoon. Hence, the traffic at the day care and behind the church. Finally, this man had the courage to stop and check us out. He had a good laugh. Two ladies doing genealogical research had spooked the whole community! He said we were welcome to visit any dead relatives we wanted to, and he would notify the citizens of Slanesville that we were no threat.

Not only accommodating, but helpful, he said, “You see that house next door? That man knows all about these cemeteries and who’s buried here. Go over and tell him I sent you.”

So we did. I wasn’t sure what kind of reception we’d get, but by now word must have gone ‘round that we were harmless. The man next door didn’t know much about our dead relatives, but he did know some of our living ones. Names like Hiett and Kidwell, previously known to me only from dusty documents and decaying headstones, tumbled from his mouth. He gave us directions and phone numbers. I’d always suspected we had distant cousins here but wasn’t sure how to find them. Could our attempts to dig up dead relatives yield some live ones?

I drove around trying to locate their residences while Sue tried calling them on her cell phone. Country directions being what they are, I couldn’t find them. Sue couldn’t reach anyone by phone and left messages. We headed toward North River Mills in search of the historic Evan Hiett House.

“Evan Hiett House” in North River Mills

On the way, we passed a little church with a cemetery. We stopped and, no surprise, found more dead relatives. While there, Sue received a phone call. One of her messages had reached someone who passed it on to the family historian, Linda, a distant cousin who was more than willing to share her knowledge of the Kidwell/Hiett/McDonald families. We met her for lunch at the restaurant in Slanesville the next day.

Mary Virginia Kidwell McDonald, ca 1930

Linda turned out to be our fourth cousin, descended from Francis Marion Kidwell, the brother of our great-great grandmother, Mary Virginia Kidwell McDonald. Cousin Linda came armed with a wealth of information, including old photographs and family crests.

Kidwell Family Crest

Cousin Linda kept making references to the “tiara” she should wear because we are descended from royalty, specifically the Plantagenets who ruled England before the Tudors. Then she burst our bubble by explaining that many people are of noble descent. We know more about our exalted ancestors because the nobility kept better records than the peasantry. No surprise—we’re also descended from peasants.

Hiett Family Crest

Cousin Linda said the house in North River Mills wasn’t our ancestor Evan Hiett’s residence, that his was up the road from Slanesville. She showed us pictures of his and other ancestral homes. These are on private property and not readily accessible, but she knows who to ask for permission to visit them.

Unfortunately, Sue and I had to leave the following day, so further adventures had to wait. This coming summer I look forward to exploring the nooks and crannies of Hampshire County for more stories about my roots.

Read the story of Linda’s ancestor, our Uncle Frank, at https://marieqrogers.com/2012/12/30/falling-off-dutchess/

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Edsel

Posted in Marie's Musings, tagged Edsel, Family Heritage, Memories, Nancy Turk, William Lewis Rogers on March 31, 2015| 6 Comments »

Last week I saw an Edsel. It’s uncanny how one thought runs into another, and almost spooky when one of those random thoughts materializes.

It began in my writer’s group. One member was struggling to reword an awkward phrase about surnames from different languages. My mind meandered to my eighth grade social studies class. At the beginning of the school year, when the teacher called the roll, going down the list of Polish and Russian and Slavic names, he came to “Rogers”. He asked me, “What are you doing in Johnson City?”

Indeed, what was I doing there? My English-sounding last name seemed out of place. Most of my classmates were descended from Eastern Europeans who escaped persecution in their homelands and were attracted to well-paying jobs in the shoe factories. The Rogers had come here by a different route.

Although he lived in Pennsylvania, my ancestor William enlisted in the Union Army in Elmira, NY. After the war, he went to Albany to marry Nancy Turk. He and Nancy must have met before the war, probably in Upstate New York.

The Rogers are such wanderers. William took his bride to Wisconsin where he taught school. Later they homesteaded in Kansas. He returned to the East when he inherited his brother’s farm in Pennsylvania, then settled in West Virginia with some of his sons. For reasons I am unaware of, Nancy returned to the Johnson City area where her relatives lived. Most of her sons eventually followed her, including my great-grandfather John Thomas, whom I called Granddad.

For the better part of the Twentieth Century, there were quite a few Rogers in that part of the country. Granddad had four sons. Uncle Jim had no wife or children, but he made his mark by building houses, including my grandparents’, before he moved to California. Uncle Floyd and Uncle Buck had three sons apiece. My grandparents had only one who survived to adulthood, but he made up for it with three sons and six daughters before we moved to Florida. Notice I keep saying sons. I was the first girl born in the Rogers family in a century.

So at one time there were quite a few of us in Johnson City and surrounding communities. Now I’m not sure if any remain. We are such wanderers. Uncle Buck and Aunt Ora Mae migrated to her home state, Alabama. Their sons now live in Alabama and the Carolinas. Uncle Floyd’s have similarly dispersed. My family is spread around the globe.

One thought drifting to another brought me to the Edsel. In that same social studies class, one day we held a debate. A boy posing as Henry Ford defended his position, whatever it was, by saying he hadn’t sold an Edsel in over three years. Unprepared with facts to the contrary, I countered with, “You must have. I’ve seen dozens on the road.” After the debate, the teacher set the record straight, “The Edsel went out of production in 1960.”

That was so long ago. I couldn’t tell you when I had last seen an Edsel or even thought about one. The Edsel had been a mechanical and marketing flop in its day. Now, the few that remain must be worth a fortune. The word is so obsolete my spell-check did not list it. But that’s where my thoughts wandered that day in my writing group.

On the way home, I saw an old car coming down the road toward me. As it drew closer, I noticed the distinctive grill. It was an Edsel! What on Earth was it doing on that back road? And, more significantly, why in Heaven’s name was it driving through my thoughts?

You might ask, what do these two topics have to do with one another? Nothing, except they converged in memories of my eighth grade social studies class. Interesting, how the mind works.

If you knew what an Edsel was before you googled it, congratulations. You win the Geezer Award.

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IN QUEST OF MY ANCESTOR

Posted in Family History, Marie's Musings, tagged Battle of Wyse Fork, Family Heritage, Genealogy, Kinston NC, William Lewis Rogers on August 30, 2013| 7 Comments »

Before I became more than casually interested in my family’s history, William Lewis Rogers had been a shadowy figure in our past. I knew two of his sons, Uncle Will and Grandad, who were old men when I was a child. Family lore proclaimed W.L. was wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg and spent the night hiding in a corn crib where he had to fend off rats. We knew this about him because he kept a journal. But no one knew what became of the journal. It has been lost.

One summer, my sister Sue, our family genealogist, and I visited the county in Pennsylvania where W.L. had lived as a child. I helped her search records at their historical society for information on his family. We visited his mother’s grave.

Threads from diverse sources gather to weave a tale.

My daughter lived in Virginia Beach for a time. Traveling to or from her home, I took back ways to break the monotony of the usual route. Once I noticed a large bear by the road. It was a sign for a park, but later I could not recall where I was, or indeed what highway I’d traveled. On a later trip, back roads again, I spotted the bear and this time I stopped. Neuseway Nature Park in Kinston, NC has become one of my favorite places to visit when I’m in the neighborhood. There is no admission charge and the camping fee is almost indecently low.

Then my son moved to West Virginia. Well, we had ancestors in that state, too. Once Sue learned about my plans to visit there, she set me on the quest. Given a list of ancestor’s names and the location of the Hampshire County Library, which has a genealogical section, I reported, like a dutiful sister, intending to spend two hours in research. After three hours, I had to make myself stop. Not only did I need fresh air, I had to digest the volume of information I had acquired. I was hooked on genealogy.

W.L. Rogers had been born in Connecticut and died in West Virginia. Grandad always said, “Don’t go to West Virginia. They’ll kill you there.” Well, who killed William, and why? Unfortunately, my hours of research failed to solve the mystery. Could we find old newspaper stories or police reports that would answer the question? I would have to wait for another trip.

After West Virginia I proceeded to Virginia Beach. On my way home, I drove through Kinston. This visit was bittersweet because my daughter was moving from Virginia Beach and I thought I would have no reason to come through here again.

The following year, on my return to West Virginia, I searched through death records and learned the identity of my ancestor’s murderer–cancer! Cancer? So why did Grandad say he had been killed? Who knows! Grandad was more than a little paranoid. Knowing where W.L. was buried, I visited his grave. Below his name and the dates of birth and death was engraved, “Co. A 85^thRegt. NY Vol.”

One mystery solved, another reared its head. Sue obtained W.L.’s military records. Guess what – Gettysburg was fought in 1863 and he did not enlist until the following year. So much for family lore! What about the corncrib and the rats? Was that part true or did the family once have possession of some other soldier’s journal? We will not know until it surfaces.

But we did learn that W.L.’s regiment had fought in the Battle of Wyse Fork which took place near Kinston, NC. Was that what kept drawing me to the place? Now I had an excuse to go back.

Wherever I go seeking historical information, I find people who are not only proud of their history, but willing to share what they know. This was no exception. I had a nice visit with Shirley at the Kinston/Lenoir County Visitor’s Center and left with a wealth of information, including a driving tour of the Battle of Wyse Fork. Armed with the pamphlet and my camera, I set out to trace the footsteps of my ancestor.

W. L. may be forever nameless in the history books, but what a thrill it was to drive around the battle area thinking, I am in the footsteps of my ancestor. I could not help imagining what this young man, only 21 at the time, was thinking and feeling amid the noise and terror of the guns, death, and suffering. No, W.L. did not fight through three sweaty days in July, but through three cold days in March, in rain and mud and snow. I followed his path from Wyse Fork, through Kinston, and as far as Goldsboro but I lacked the time to visit everywhere his regiment went.

My quest is far from complete. We have documentation that after the war W.L. married Nancy Turk who, we believe, was part Cherokee. He taught school in Pepin, Wisconsin, then homesteaded in Kansas. Family lore has stories of the family’s experiences in Kansas. How much is true? I hope to find out.

Why did they leave Kansas? What adventures took him to West Virginia? I am still on the quest for this ancestor.