Photo of Waggoner Home at Ceres, Virginia

Pictures of home places rank almost as high in my book as pictures of the people themselves, so I was pleased when distant Waggoner cousin, Margaret Wagner Allen,[1] sent me a photo of the home that supposedly belonged to Jacob and Ann Waggoner at Ceres in Bland County Virginia. This is the home where our great-grandfather, Eli Waggoner, grew up. This photo also appears in the Adam Waggoner family history book,[2] and I have a hunch that Margaret contributed it to the book. In fact, Margaret contributed most of the information on Jacob's family for that book. She made a few mistakes, but don't we all!

It seems that there is some dispute amongst Waggoner descendants over the authenticity of this photo[3]—whether it is actually the one where the Jacob Waggoner family lived—but until anyone can prove otherwise, I’ll take Margaret’s word for it.

Home of Jacob and Anna F. Waggoner, Ceres, Bland County Virginia.

 If you look closely, you can see a horse and a man in the front yard of the house. Also, I think there are people on the backs of a couple of the horses outside the yard fence. Don't you wish we could zoom in closer?!

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[1] Margaret Wagner Allen has supplied me with a lot of information on the Waggoner family. She is descended from Jacob and his second wife, Fanny, and their son Franklin Green Wagner (1877-1958). Green’s son, Ward Lincoln Wagner (1910-2004), was Margaret's father. Ward was a first cousin (half) of Grandma Mary, so Margaret was a second cousin (half) to Neville, James, Carl, Verne, and Virginia.

[2] Thomas C. Hatcher and Nancy Nash, The Adam Waggoner Family of Tazewell and Montgomery Counties Virginia, 1750-1996 (no place, no publisher, 1996), p. 32.

[3] Nancy A. Nash to Zola Troutman Noble, letter, 1 April 2003; privately held by Zola Troutman Noble, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] Anderson, Indiana.

(c) 2013 Z. T. Noble

Eli Waggoner, Mountain Boy

Growing up on Walker Mountain, my great-grandfather Eli Pierce Waggoner, father of my grandmother Mary, and his many siblings enjoyed a childhood filled with “hunting, shooting, and the wonderful swimming holes in the deep creek near their home.”[1] I’ve told Rachel’s story in my July 11, 2013, post titled “Rachel Haven’s Childhood: Not an Easy Life.” Eli’s story is different from Rachel’s in many ways, yet similar, too.

Eli was born 24 October 1854 in Smyth County, Virginia,[2] a dark haired, bright eyed boy, the second child of nine born to Jacob and Anna F. (Harman) Waggoner.[3] On the other hand, Rachel who was eight years younger the Eli was second to youngest of at least seven in the Havens family. (For sources on Rachel’s life, see the July 11, 2013, post.)

Eli’s father was a landowner, a farmer, a country doctor, and a justice of the peace. He helped establish a church and school in the community of Sharon; he filed bankruptcy twice. (More on him later.) Rachel’s father never owned land and seems not to have accumulated much financial wealth.

Eli’s mother Anna, after giving birth to her ninth child, a son named William,[4] died 9 March 1871[5] when Eli was 14 years old.  Rachel’s father died of unknown causes when Rachel was about age 6.

Eli’s father remarried within a year of Anna’s death to a much younger woman, Fanny Kirby, who had been employed as a “domestic servant” in the household before Anna died.[6] Jacob was 45 and Fanny was 22. Together Jacob and Fanny had eleven more children. Rachel’s mother never remarried, and she struggled to support the children she had. From all indications, her older children supported her and the younger children.

Eli descended from German immigrants who came to America about 1753.[7] Rachel descended from Scots-Irish immigrants who arrived on these shores about 1720.[8]

Some similarities intertwined like wisteria vines throughout the childhoods of Eli and Rachel, too. Both knew the cool summer nights of the mountains and the rocky, rolling farmland of Bland and Smyth Counties. Both had little education and neither could read nor write. Both of their fathers were Confederate veterans. Both at a young age had experienced the death of a parent. Both had suffered a broken marriage prior to marrying each other.

When they married on 2 September 1885, Eli was a month shy of age 31, and Rachel was about ten weeks from her 23^rd  birthday. Rachel had been divorced a little more that a year. So far, I’ve not been able to find any records on how or when Eli’s first marriage ended nor verify by any official records where and when Rachel and Eli’s marriage occurred. If the marriage date is correct, they started their marriage with a baby boy already in their laps, Emory Marco, born three months before the marriage on 24 May in Bland County.[9] Without doubt, they were seeing each other at the time of or soon after Rachel’s divorce. Why did they delay their marriage? Perhaps, Eli wasn’t free to marry someone else, yet. Wish I could find the records to prove my theory.

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[1] Nancy A. Nash to Zola Troutman Noble, letter, 1 April 2003, quoting a letter to her from Forrest Philpott regarding his grandfather, H. H. Waggoner, brother to Eli Waggoner,  describing their childhood in Virginia; privately held by Zola Troutman Noble, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE] Anderson, Indiana.

[2] Virginia, Smyth County Register of Births, Book 1, p. 71, for Eli P. Waggoner, 1854; Office of the Clerk, Smyth County Court House, Marion.

[3] Thomas C. Hatcher and Nancy Nash, The Adam Waggoner Family of Tazewell and Montgomery Counties Virginia, 1750-1996 (no place, no publisher, 1996), p. 33. 1870 U. S. census, Sharon, Bland County, Virginia, population schedule, Sharon Post Office, p. 7 (penned), dwelling 47, family 47, Jacob Wagoner family; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 23 July 2013); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm publication M593, roll 1140.

[4] Bland County, Virginia Births: 1861-96: 22, William Waggoner, 8 March 1871; database Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com : accessed 23 July 2013), extracted from original records, Richmond, Virginia, Library of Virginia, 1861.

[5] Virginia Deaths and Burials Index, 1853-1917, database Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com : accessed 23 July 2013), entry for Anna Waggoner; FHL film no. 2056975.

[6] 1870 U. S. census, Sharon, Bland County, Virginia, population schedule, Sharon Post Office, p. 7 (penned), dwelling 47, family 47, Jacob Wagoner family; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 23 July 2013); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm publication M593, roll 1140.

[7] Thomas C. Hatcher and Nancy Nash, The Adam Waggoner Family of Tazewell and Montgomery Counties Virginia, 1750-1996 (no place, no publisher, 1996), p. ii.

[8] Daniel Dunbar Howe, Listen to the Mockingbird (Boyce, Virginia:  Carr Publishing Company, Inc., 1961), p. 367.

[9] Bland County, Virginia Births: 1861-96, p. 87, Emry Waggoner, 31 May 1885; database Ancestry.com (http://ancestry.com : accessed 23 July 2013), extracted from original records, Richmond, Virginia, USA: Library of Virginia, 1861.

(c) 2013 Z. T. Noble

Pedigree Chart for Mary Ann Waggoner

In case you're having trouble keeping relationships straight in all that I've written so far, a visual may help you keep relationships clear. So I thought I'd add this pedigree chart for my grandmother, Mary Ann Waggoner, wife of Clint Troutman, mother of Neville, James, Carl, Verne, and Virginia, grandmother of . . . . well, there were nineteen of us.

Four Generation Pedigree Chart for Mary Ann Waggoner

As a side note, I've been to Charlotte, North Carolina, this past week with Myron. He was attending a conference for church administrators, and I explored the area while he was busy. I've never done much Troutman research because of the big book Descending Jacob's Ladder. I figured it had all been done. But lately, I've felt the need to see what I could learn on my own, so I went to the Record of Deeds building in Statesville. I was amazed at all the deeds I found regarding Jacob Troutman, our earliest Troutman ancestor born in America, and his land purchases from individuals and grants from the state of North Carolina. In addition, I found a document regarding the distribution of his property after he died. He left nearly 500 acres to each of seven children. That man owned a lot of land!

By the way, I also learned that all those records are online, so I can access them from home. If you're interested, go to http://www.co.iredell.nc.us/Departments/RegDeeds/. Click on Online Records Search, create an account, and have at it.

(c) 2013 Z. T. Noble

James Havens' Civil War Record

I don't know why I didn't think to add to yesterday's story these images of my great-great-grandfather, James Haven's Confederate records.

James Havens, muster roll.

This oath of allegiance to the United States government taken in June 1865 is especially interesting to me because it shows his signature, not once, but twice. And it describes his physical appearance at the end: 5'11", dark complexion, dark eyes, dark skin. Note no whiskers, so he must have been clean shaven. It says he was 48 years old, but if he was born in 1821, that's not quite correct. Oh, if only records agreed on these little details!

James Havens' oath of allegiance to the United States government, 24 June 1865.

Well, there you have it. Yes, any and all of our Troutman/Waggoner ancestors who fought in the Civil War were in rebellion against the Union. I've yet to find a Yankee soldier among them. In their minds, they were Virginians or North Carolinians defending their home states against an invading army.

(c) 2013 Z. T. Noble

Rachel Havens' Childhood: Not an Easy Life

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What was childhood like for my grandmother Mary Waggoner’s mother, Rachel Havens? Born in 1862 when her mother was 38 years old, during the second year of the Civil War, Rachel was the sixth of seven children. Her siblings were Bryant, born 1843; Andrew Jackson, born 1845; Cosby Victoria, born 1846; John James, born 1850; Barbara Elizabeth, born 1852; then a younger brother James Winton “Wint,” born 1865. Due to that ten year time gap between the birth of Elizabeth and Rachel, it’s possible there were other children who died. Many families lost children in those days.

War or no war, the family seems to have had little in terms of financial resources. Census records show that her father, James Havens, owned no land. In the 1860 Wythe County Virginia census, his personal estate was valued at $500.00.[1] In today’s dollars, this amounts to about $11,295.00, according to “historic value of the dollar” on Google.com/answers.

In 1860, the James Havens family lived in Wythe County. To see an interesting historical map of Wythe County click on this link: http://www.jdhartsell.com/hartsell/SettlementMapWythe2.html  Note surrounding counties.

Considering the time she was born and her father’s finances, it’s safe to say that she must have faced hardships. Early in the war, Rachel’s brothers Bryant and Andrew had enlisted with Company F, 45^th Virginia Infantry.[2] What anxiety must have permeated the home to have these older brothers gone off to war! By 1864, at age 43, her father James had also enlisted, but with Co. A, 11 Battalion, Virginia Reserves, Wallace’s Battalion, CSA, serving under his older brother, Captain John Havens.[3] At the end of the war, James signed an oath of allegiance to the United States Government on 13 June 1865, in Charleston, West Virginia.[4]
 

All of them returned from the war, but James survived only a short time. Sometime between signing the oath and the 1870 census, he died leaving his wife, Mary Jane to fend for herself with two small children still at home. By 1870, she had moved to Maiden Spring, Tazewell County. Besides Rachel and Wint, sister Cosby and brother John were still at home with their mother. John, who was working as a farm laborer, appears to have been the only source of income for the household.[5]

To see the only map I could find that shows Maiden Spring, click on this link. You can see the name M. Springs, just below Tazewell C. H. http://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/files/images/HD_TazewellCoVA1857.jpg

The war was disastrous for the South, and this was only five short years later. The war had ripped apart families and country and killed thousands of the nation’s young men. In the years following the war, Virginia’s economy was in ruins, many banks had closed, Confederate money was worthless, many families had lost husbands and sons. Soldiers in the South had returned to ruined homes and farms and plantations. Mary Jane Havens and her family surely were struggling to survive. Many children worked odd jobs for people to earn a little extra money for the family. By 1880, Rachel was working as a cook in the home of a young attorney, S. W. Williams and his family, on Jackson Street in Sedden, now Bland, Virginia.[6] Mary Jane had also moved to Sedden and lived with her daughter Elizabeth and husband, John Pauley; she earned her living knitting stockings.[7]

This link will take you to a great map of Bland County, so you can get an idea of where they lived, and you can see the relationship to surrounding counties, especially Tazewell. Smyth County is straight south, but the name is not on the map.
 

This was life for Rachel at age 18 when she met and married young Mark Rhea Deavor, age 19 in January 1881. We just do not know what hardships they faced that caused their divorce. Apparently, no children were born to them. Considering the cultural mores of the 1880s, especially in rural areas such as Rich Valley, Smyth County Virginia, when divorce was not the norm, they may have been scorned. Some people may have gossiped about them or looked down on them. I can only speculate. What might have been a scandal then is ho hum today. But we do know that a year after her divorce, Rachel married our great-grandfather, Eli Pierce Waggoner, and the two of them raised eight children, including our grandmother Mary, and had a long life together.

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[1] 1860 U.S. census, Wythe County, Virginia, population schedule, sixty-eighth district, p. 165 (penned), dwelling 1234, family 1100, James Harins [Havens], database Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 08 July 2013).

[2] U.S. Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861-1865, Bryant Havens, Private, Company F, Virginia 45th Infantry Regiment; database Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com, accessed 10 July 2013). Kentucky, Confederate Pension Records, 1912-1930, Andrew J. Havens, 45^th Virginia Infantry; database Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 11 July 2013).

[3] Military, compiled service records, Civil War, Confederate, images Fold3 (http://www.fold3.com : accessed 8 July 2013), card for James Havens, Pvt., Co. A, 11 Battalion Virginia Reserves, 1864-1865.

[4] Ibid.

[5] 1870 U. S. census, Maiden Spring, Tazewell County, Virginia, population schedule, Knob Post Office, p. 88 (penned), dwelling 501, family 511, Mary Havens family; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 8 July 2013); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm publication T9, roll 1356.

[6] 1880 U.S. census, Sedden, Bland County, Virginia, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 6, p. 19 (penned), dwelling 2, family 2, Rachael Havens; digital image, Ancesrty.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 2 July 2013); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm publication T9, roll 1390.

[7] 1880 U.S. census, Sedden, Bland County, Virginia, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 6, p. 1 (penned), dwelling 2, family 2, John G Pauley household; digital image, Ancesrty.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 11 July 2013); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm publication T9, roll 1356.

(c) 2013 Z. T. Noble

Eli's First Wife: What happened to her?

The romantic story of the courtship of my grandparents, Clint Troutman and Mary Waggoner, has always sent my imagination soaring. I wish I could have heard my grandfather telling the story, but he died when I was only three years old. I don’t remember him. I’m glad my cousin Connee remembers the twinkle in his eye when he told the story. She relates it beautifully in her poem, “Mountain Girl Grandma,” posted on April 24.

My dad talked a lot about his father and mother, but not so much about his grandparents, Daniel and America (Pratt) Troutman and Eli and Rachel (Havens) Waggoner. Oh, I’d heard stories about his Troutman grandparents, but not about the Waggoners. The Troutmans had reunions, but not the Waggoners. The Troutmans tended to laud their heritage, but not the Waggoners. The Waggoners were a mystery, so I set out to learn more about them.

After I learned the story of Rachel's first marriage to Mark Rhea Devor, I started searching for answers to the identity of the first wife of my great-grandfather, Eli Pierce Waggoner. Learning her name was easier than finding out what happened to that marriage. At the Smyth County Court House in Marion, Virginia, I was hoping to find a marriage record for Eli and Rachel, but instead I uncovered a record for Eli and Betty O. Colly:

            “Eli P. Wagoner (25) to Betty O. Colly (22), 21 July 1881.  Parents: Jacob and Ann             Wagoner and S.P. and Sarah Colly.”[1]

So who was Betty O. Colly? According to the 1870 census, Betty was born in North Carolina about 1859, the eldest child of Luther and Sarah Colly.[2] The family lived in Center Grove Township, Guilford County North Carolina, and Luther was a shoemaker.[3] Betty had five younger brothers: Charlie (10), Luther (8), William (6), and Seymour (2).[4] Ten years later when the 1880 census was taken, the family had moved to Rich Valley, Smyth County Virginia.[5] Luther R. is still a shoemaker, and there are two additional children: Clayton Decatur (9) and Bessie L. (7). At last, Betty has a younger sister. This time the census says Betty was born in Virginia. Census record do not always agree on every point. (Not all records are transcribed correctly, either. Case in point is Betty's father's name in the marriage record. Was it S. P. or Luther R? All records, agree on Luther R., so the marriage record is most likely a transcription error.)

Now how did the boy from Bland County meet the girl from Smyth County? The answer is in the 1880 census. Living on the next farm to the Colley family is the Jerome Harman family.[6] Jerome Harman’s sister is Anna F. Harman Waggoner,[7] Eli’s mother. And where is Eli? At age 23, he’s living with his uncle Jerome’s family working as a hired hand on his farm.[8]

1880 Census Rich Valley, Virginia, Luther Colley family and Jerome Harman family. Betty's name is at row 15 and Eli's name is at row 31.

 

The big question though, is how did the marriage of Eli and Betty Waggoner end? I have not been able to find a death record for Betty nor a divorce decree for Eli and Betty. I'll keep searching for and answer, but for now, it’s still a mystery.

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[1] Smyth County, Virginia, Register of Marriage Book 1: 59, Eli P. Waggoner and Betty O. Colly, 1881; Clerk’s Office, Marion.

[2] 1870 U. S. census, Center Grove, Guilford County, North Carolina, population schedule, Hillsdale Post Office, p. 26 (penned), dwelling 183, family 181, Luther Colly family; digital image, Ancesrty.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 2 July 2013); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm publication M593, roll 1140.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] 1880 U.S. census, Rich Valley, Smyth County, Virginia, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 83, p. 12 (penned), dwelling 94, family 93, Luther R. Colley family; digital image, Ancesrty.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 2 July 2013); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm publication T9, roll 1390.

[6] 1880 U.S. census, Rich Valley, Smyth County, Virginia, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 83, p. 12 (penned), dwelling 94, family 93, Jerome Harman family; digital image, Ancesrty.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 2 July 2013); citing National Archives and Records Administration microfilm publication T9, roll 1390.

[7] John Newton Harman, Sr., Harman Genealogy (Southern Branch) with Biographical Sketches and Historical Notes, 1700-1924 (Radford, Virginia: Commwealth Press, Inc., 1925).

[8] 1880 U.S. census, Rich Valley, Smyth County, Virginia, Jerome Harman family.

(c) 2013 Z. T. Noble