Doc: The Life and Family of Frank Lukenbill Jenkins, Sr.

Dr. Frank Lukenbill Jenkins, Sr.

August 11, 1896 - May 30, 1976

Doc

The Life and Family of

Frank Lukenbill Jenkins, Sr.

William Barnum Jenkins, Sr.

November 15, 1994

335 Morningside

Lombard, IL 60148

http://Alignment2012.com/doc.html

Preface…………………………………………………………..1

BEGINNINGS ………………………………………….………3

SANDWICH, MASSACHUSETTS ………………….…………3

The End of the Beginning……………………………….………6

TAUNTON, MASSACHUSETTS………………………………8

VERMONT…………………………………………………..…10

SPRINGFIELD, VERMONT…………………………………11

JOHN JENKINS²……………………………………………11

MAJOR JENKINS³…………………………………………14

Major Jenkins and His Early Years……………………………15

Iowa and Major Jenkins……………………………..…………17

Jemima Harper…………………………………………………19

Major And Jemima…………………………………..…………22

Skeletons In The Closet………………………………..………24

More Skeletons…………………………………………………26

John Andrew Jenkins - The Early Years………………………29

OSCEOLA, IOWA and John Andrew Jenkins…………………32

SHANNON CITY, IOWA……………………………….……36

1900 TO 1906………………………………………….……36

CURTIS NEBRASKA 1906 TO 1909……………..…………40

TOLLEY NORTH DAKOTA…………………………………45

1909 to 1917……………………………………..…………45

CHAUTAUQUA………………………………………………50

GRAND FORKS, NORTH DAKOTA………………….……53

1917 TO 1924………………………………………………53

Chicago - 1920s and Early 30s………………………..………57

Louisa Lukenbill Jenkins………………………………………63

Lockwood Avenue…………………………………..…………67

The House on Pine Avenue……………………………………70

Vacations and Trips………………………………….…………77

The 1940s and 50s………………………………………..……82

The 1960s - Chicago……………………………………………84

ELMHURST, ILLINOIS - May 1976………………….………90

Some Final Notes………………………………………………100

AUTHOR’S ADDENDUM……………………………………102

Comparison of the Rhode Island Jenkins Line with my Line…105

Editor’s Addendum……………………………………………107

Two Jenkins Lines. Are They Connected?

John Jenkins, b. ca. 1625; d. 1684 in Sandwich MA, estate settled in 1708. He married Susannah Cooke; their son was Zachariah Jenkins, born in Sandwich in the 7th month of 1651. He married Abiah Allen in 1686. Their son was Zephaniah, b. ca. 1704, who married Hannah in 1737; their son John Jenkins was born that year on November 11.

This John Jenkins (b. 1737), is the last of the first line. He gets lost in the records, but the circumstances suggest a possible identity as the John Jenkins referred to in the letter of 1880 written by Major Jenkins’ brother George (“The Jenkins Race” letter). George’s letter names his Grandfather “John” and lists his first son as also named John Jenkins, born in 1770. There is more circumstantial evidence (see Author’s Addendum and “Comparison of the Rhode Island Jenkins Line with my Line” at the end of this book).

A son of John Jenkins (b. 1770) and Deborah Philips was Major Jenkins (b. 1807), whose son was John Andrew (b. 1852), whose son was Frank L Jenkins, Sr. (b. 1896), whose son was William B Jenkins Sr, (b 1936). He married Eleanor Doepp and their children are Cynthia Ann, William Barnum Jr. (b. 1958), John Major Scott, and Donald Walter (b. 1969). William Barnum Jr.’s daughter is Jessica (b. 1981). Donald Walter married Erika Crandall and their daughter is Paige Alicen (b. 2003).

PREFACE

This book originally was started as a reference sheet for my research needs only. Then, it was just a sequential list of events that occurred in the life of my grandfather, John Andrew Jenkins. After that, it was expanded to add some narrative so I could remember how some of the data fitted together and from there it just grew and grew.

In some ways, I would like to claim that this work is the output of my genealogical efforts of the last twelve years. That probably is an overstatement. The book fails in providing the rigorous documentation that is required. But what the heck, nothing is perfect.

So, this book will have to stand on its own merits. One of the most important merits is that it even exists and for that accomplishment, I am pleased. There must be many people that have undertaken genealogical efforts and have ended up with nothing more than file folders filled with data and no one to read them.

I suppose that every person who has put a pen or word processor to paper in an effort to write a book has always wished that there had been more time to do a better job. I have my wish list too. I would have liked to add more narrative about my father’s brother George. More information about details of what my father did before he completed his college days. There were descendants of Major who were only one generation away from knowing him. The last one, Flonda Hedeman, Major’s grand-daughter, died in 1992 at the age of 95. And that presents the likelihood that someone in her line is in possession of Jenkins memorabilia. I wish I had the time to search them out.

So many people that could have contributed more to what this book is are gone. As usual, I would ask that I be contacted by anyone who has information to add or corrections to make. Just don’t take too long to do it.

William B. Jenkins, Sr.

Lombard, Illinois

1995

____________________________________________________

Doc

The Life and Family of

Frank Lukenbill Jenkins, Sr.

William Barnum Jenkins, Sr.

BEGINNINGS

Every story is supposed to have a beginning. Stories of families have a special problem. They don’t have a beginning. For every early generation that can be found, each person in that generation had two parents. And so it goes, moving backwards in time, generation by generation. The search never ends.

Our story of the Jenkins family has a special wrinkle. It has two beginnings. The first begins with ancestors that are definitely known to have produced those of us that came after. The second is a “maybe” beginning.

There is an early line of Jenkinses that begin in New England in the mid 1600s. It ends with the birth of a John Jenkins in 1737. Then he disappears; but, not without leaving some tantalizing clues that “maybe” he belongs to our line. Let’s start with the “maybe” family line. If nothing else, it’s an interesting story.

SANDWICH, MASSACHUSETTS

A John Jenkins appears to have been a resident in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1644 and probably earlier. In 1648, when he was about 23 years old, he moved south down the coast to Sandwich.

Sandwich is located where the arm of Cape Cod joins Massachusetts. He married Susanna Cooke, daughter of Job Cooke, one of the prominent Quaker families in Sandwich. John was born in about 1625 and died in 1684, but, his estate remained unsettled until April 2, 1708. The estate was valued at 116 pounds. It’s difficult to translate this amount into current values, but it is safe to say that 116 pounds would be equivalent to a comfortable amount in modern terms. The real estate was assigned to his son Zachariah. He paid 46 pounds to heirs of his brother Job, who had died, and 52 pounds to his spinster sister Elizabeth.

Zachariah was born in Sandwich in the 7th month of 1651. This is a Quaker manner of referring to dates. As a point of their religious belief, Quakers rejected the use of conventional names of the months and names of the days of the week. On December 11, 1686, he married Abiah Allen.

Abiah was born December 10, 1666 to her parents Francis Allen and Mary Barlow. The Barlow family name is one found later in the ancestral line of Beatrice Moreland Riffle who married Frank Lukenbill Jenkins, Sr. No claim is being made from our line back to these Barlows. I point it out only to note that many of the ancestors which produced us have been in this country for a long time.

Zachariah and Abiah produced twelve children over the years from 1689 to 1711. One of them, Zephaniah, their ninth child, who was born on December 10th, 1704, is of interest to us.

Life had become more difficult for Quakers in the Massachusetts colony in the latter half of the 1600s. Persecution became intense and to those professing their Quaker beliefs, punishment was severe and without mercy. The Rhode Island Colony, on the other hand, was founded by Reverend Roger Williams for the express purpose of providing a haven to all, free from the threat of religious persecution. Roger Williams plays into the Jenkins history on this occasion because of the colony he founded. He is also important because he is another one of our Jenkins ancestors. We’ll see how he fits into the story of our known Jenkins line a little bit further on.

After their tenth child, Abigail, was born, Zachariah, age 57, and Abiah, age 41, moved the family from Sandwich to Greenwich, Rhode Island.

When a Quaker moved from one location to another, it was necessary for them to obtain a certificate from their Quaker organization that certified that they had left in good graces. Quakers are not organized in quite the same way as other churches. Their main meeting is called the Monthly Meeting and is where Quaker business is recorded. The Quaker belief holds that the individual is supreme, answerable first to God, before Country, governments or any other social system. In order to avoid coming into conflict with these systems, Quakers often made it a point to avoid being recorded in the public records whenever possible. This often makes it difficult to locate a Quaker ancestor in the usual civil records. The Monthly Meeting Records often are the only place to find proof of the existence of a Quaker ancestor.

And so it is that Zachariah appears in the records of the Greenwich Monthly Meeting held the 16th day of the 6th month of 1708. The record reads:

“Zachariah Jenkins, with family, settling among us, hath produced a certificate from the meeting he did belong to, and is admitted a member of this meeting.”

Zachariah and Abiah had two more children in East Greenwich where they had settled. The last one, Rebecca, was born in 1711. Less than three months later on the 10th of the second month in 1712, Abiah died. Zephaniah was a little more than seven years old.

When Zephaniah was 19, his father died. There is a gap of 14 years until we find him again. Perhaps he was out making his fortune. More likely, as a good Quaker, he was working the family farm, helping raise his two younger sisters.

By 1737 when he was 33 years old, Zephaniah had married a woman named Hannah. Her last name is lost. In that year on November 11, their first child, John Jenkins was born. On January 25, 1740, a second son, Zephaniah, was born. Their mother Hannah must have died in childbirth, because by September 19th of that year, Zephaniah had remarried. His new wife was the widow Mercy Baker. You didn’t wait too long in those days to find another wife if you had two small children that needed care.

Zephaniah and Mercy produced George in 1742, Hannah in 1744, Benjamin in 1746 and Marcy (or Mercy) in 1748.

At this point, it is important to keep some of these names in mind. We’re drawing near the end of this ‘maybe’ Jenkins line and when we pick up the beginning of our known Jenkins line, we’re going to see some of these names crop up again.

In the records, we lose information about this John who was born in 1737 and Zephaniah who was born in 1740. From the second marriage, there are records for the boys George and Benjamin. As is often the case with females, we lose track of Hannah and Marcy.

In 1756 when he was 52 years old, Zephaniah died. In his Will, he left his real estate to his sons of the second marriage, George and Benjamin. To John, from his first marriage, he left his farming and shoemaker tools. No mention is made in the Will of his son Zephaniah whom we could guess had died before then. The first impression of how the father Zephaniah divided his estate is that he gave George and Benjamin the gold mine and John got the shaft. It does seem to be unfairly divided. Perhaps not. In 1756, John would have been 19 years old. Old enough to become head of the family. His stepbrother George and Benjamin would have been fourteen and ten years old. His stepsisters, Hannah and Marcy, would have been twelve and eight years old. How old his stepmother would have been is a guess. As a widow, when she married Zephaniah, she could have been as young as in her mid thirties or as old as her mid forties. I prefer to guess that she was in the older age range.

The End of the Beginning

Now we’re at that misty interval that comes at the end of the ‘maybe’ Jenkins line that can not be proven to be part of our known Jenkins line. Before we start on the story of the known line, let’s do some creative guessing. But, be sure to remember that guessing is all we are doing.

So, here is John Jenkins in 1756. He plays his situation over in his mind...

He is 19 years old. His father and his brother, both named Zephaniah, are dead. If his brother had lived, he would have been a big help to him now to help in the raising of his young half-siblings. In a sense he was alone. He never knew his real mother. He was less than three years old when she died. His stepmother is the only mother he ever knew and she needs him now to help raise the younger children. It might have been unfair that George and Benjamin got the farm and him only the tools. In one way, it didn’t seem fair. But, if something happened to him, they would need the security of the farm to keep the family together. In four or five more years though, George would be old enough to take over the family. Then he could be off on his own.

That wasn’t quite the way it worked out. Nine years later, in 1765, George married and sold the house and land to his brother Benjamin who was now 19 years old. By 1769, Benjamin had married and could care for his mother, if she was still alive. She would have been in her late fifties. The youngest girl, Marcy, was now 21. She could care for the house.

For John, the years and life were passing by. He was 32 years old now. It was time for him to get on with his own life. He had given his early years caring for his step family. All he had to his name either was on his back or could be carried in his hands. His responsibilities had been fulfilled many times over. He had nothing left in East Greenwich to hold him. There were stories of promise and opportunity in Taunton, Massachusetts. Taunton was only about twenty five miles away across Narragansett Bay. Close enough and yet far enough to make a new start.

First page of letter titled “The Jenkins Race”
by George Jenkins
(b. 1800, brother of Major Jenkins).

TAUNTON, MASSACHUSETTS

Now, the second story, the real one begins.

In this story, there are a lot of people in different generations that have the same first names. It can get confusing. Formal genealogy papers are filled with names that have those superscript numbers such as: ¹ attached. It may tend to distract the reader’s attention; but, it does help eliminate confusion when there is a collection of generations and the same given names are used. I’ll use them every once in a while where it seems that it will help avoid confusion.

In 1880, Major Jenkins’ older brother George still lived in Springfield, Vermont on the family homestead. On Christmas Day of that year, George wrote a letter to someone in Iowa. The letter was written on fine blue vellum paper and bound with cotton thread. The threads have long since disappeared, but the words that George wrote remain clear. He wrote of the history of the family as he knew it.

He went on for pages and efficiently named children, nieces and nephews and whom they married. He wrote in a firm, even hand with a style that showed his early education learned in the last days of the Colonial period. This letter forms the beginning of our story. George’s letter begins:

“My Grandfather whose name was John¹ was a Quaker by profession and a Tinker by trade. He was from Taunton Mass. His wife was Elizabeth Knap. They moved into this part of the country [Vermont] in 1790”.

They had six children:

John, b. 1770; Zephaniah, b. 1773; Samuel, b. 1774; Elizabeth ‘Betsey’, b. 1776; Nathaniel, b. 1778 and Hannah, b. 1779.”

To the modern ear, the term of being a “Quaker by profession” might be interpreted as meaning he earned his living as a Quaker. That wouldn’t be so; there were no paid Quaker Church positions. It simply meant that he declared himself to be a Quaker. John earned his living as a Tinker, a person who fixed pots and pans.

So now we have our John¹ Jenkins, married and producing children of his own with his wife Elizabeth. The first one was named John² which is no surprise. The second child who was named Zephaniah² is interesting. Was he named after his paternal grandfather and deceased uncle? The next child was named Samuel, which could have been given to follow the tradition of using the maternal grandfather’s name. So was his name Samuel Knap? We don’t know. Elizabeth, the daughter, was likely named after Elizabeth, the mother. Her nickname of Betsey is also appropriate for the year 1776. The reason for Nathaniel’s name is unknown, but Hannah’s name could have come from the name of John’s real mother who died when he was three years old.

So these are the guesses made to link both sides of this misty interval of these two Jenkins lines. The Addenda at the end of this book has more detail on this subject.

Moving on to the facts, the Latter-day Saints’ records show the following for John and Zephaniah:

John² Jeakins, parents: John Jeakins/Elisabeth.

Christened 1 Oct 1770 in Bristol Co., Dighton Mass.

Zephaniah² Jinkins, parents: John Jinkins / Elizabeth.

Christened 2 Aug 1772 in Bristol Co., Dighton Mass.

It’s usual to find variations in the spelling of family names in early records. So many words were written the way they sounded. Given a full New England accent to the name Jenkins, Jeakins or Jinkins is as close as you can hope for. The variation of a year of 1772 and 1773 for Zephaniah’s birth is also quite close. George Jenkins wrote his letter more than 100 years after the fact. This allows him to be off by one year. Dighton, Massachusetts is about seven miles south of Taunton, Massachusetts.

VERMONT

We can gain some understanding of the country of Vermont that John¹ moved to in 1791 if we briefly look at the history of the state. It had been no more than twenty or thirty years since it became a settled area. Its early years had been turbulent and in 1791 were only beginning to settle down. Vermont was a new opportunity.

For some years prior to 1791, Vermont was an independent country. It was not part of the original thirteen colonies. It has an interesting history that results from conflicting land claims that New York and New Hampshire had over the same areas of Vermont.

When the English Crown was issuing grants of land, part of the Eastern boundary of New York and the Western boundary of New Hampshire were carelessly defined. Vermont was caught in the middle, both politically and geographically. Things got really tough for the new settlers when deeds that were issued by New Hampshire were declared invalid by New York. New York then ordered the settlers in Vermont to pay for their land a second time, but this time they were to pay the New York owners of the land. This upset the people who lived in Vermont. They had a little war that ended with both New York and New Hampshire giving up their Vermont claims.

Vermonters had had enough with outsiders. They didn’t want to align themselves with anyone. The new government of the United States was on shaky ground. They couldn’t seem to get their own act together on drawing up a Constitution and the War of Independence was still going on. So Vermont decided to go it on their own. They established the Republic of Vermont.

By 1790, Vermont realized that being caught between Canada on their Northern border and the now officially constituted United States on the other three borders didn’t make for a promising future as an independent Republic. Wisdom ruled and they petitioned the Congress for admission to the United States as the fourteenth state.

Before we move onto the next generation, we have one more record that comes from “The History of the Town of Springfield Vermont”.

“JOHN¹ JENKINS came to Springfield in 1789 from Taunton, Mass., with his wife and six children, four boys and two girls. He settled in the west part of the town, on a farm now owned by Herbert W. Jenkins. He was a Quaker and by trade a tinker. The first three boys were nail makers.”

For more accuracy, the Federal Census shows that John¹ and family were still in the City of Taunton, Bristol County, Massachusetts when the 1790 Census was taken. The Federal Census for Vermont was actually taken in 1791, after Vermont became part of the United States. John and his family could have arrived in Vermont after the Census was taken, or he could have been missed in the count. It is also possible that he declined to be counted in Vermont and told the Census Taker that he had already been counted in Massachusetts the year before.

John¹ must have died before the 1800 Federal Census was taken. He is not shown on that Census. His son Zephaniah² is shown as the head of the household with a female between 26 and 45 years old and another female over the age of 45. The older female might have been Zephaniah’s widowed mother, Elizabeth Knap. If our John¹ is the one who was born in 1737, he would have been sixty three years old in 1800 if he had lived that long.

SPRINGFIELD, VERMONT

JOHN JENKINS²

John Jenkins¹ is the father of John Jenkins² who was born in 1770; the Grandfather of Major Jenkins³, born in 1807; the great-Grandfather of John Andrew Jenkins⁴, born in 1852 and the great great Grandfather of Frank Lukenbill Jenkins⁵, born in 1896. Each one who reads this will have to figure out where they fit after that.

Our John Jenkins² was born in 1770. We’ve given the cold hard facts about him up to now, so let’s take a romantic side trip. It’s found in another entry from the book “History of the Town of Springfield, Vermont”.

“John Jenkins², oldest son of John¹, learned the mason’s trade at the age of twenty-two and he followed that business during the rest of his life. At the age of twenty six he married Deborah, daughter of Levi Philips, who was from Rhode Island. It is related that he was engaged by Mr. Philips to build a chimney and while on the roof, topping it out, saw Deborah laying the pewter plates, which she had washed and scoured from the dinner table, in the sun, and while noting the neatness and agility with which she spread the shining dishes, a little piece of mortar slipped from the point of his trowel and fell to the center of one of the shining plates. As a result of this bit of pleasantry their marriage occurred not long after. Twelve children.”

Here we get another link back to Rhode Island. John’s future father in law, Levi Philips, came from Rhode Island just as John’s father possibly did.

We also get the family connection at this point back to the Reverend Roger Williams who founded the Colony of Rhode Island. We’ll take the line back to before Roger in a very quick way.

Deborah Philips, b. 1773, married John Jenkins², her mother was Mary Bradway.

Mary Bradway, b. ca. 1740 and her mother was Mercy Angell.

Mercy Angell was b. 1716, her mother was Hannah Winsor.

Hannah Winsor, b. ca. 1679, her mother was Mercy Williams.

Mercy Williams, b. 1640, her father was Roger Williams.

Those born in England:

Roger Williams, b. ca 1603, his mother was Alice Pemberton.

Alice Pemberton, b. 1564, her father was Robert Pemberton.

Robert Pemberton, b. ca. 1520, his parents are unknown (to us).

And that’s as far back as this line goes. What does it all mean when you’re back that many generations? Genetically it means less and less. Robert Pemberton is thirteen generations back from the grandchildren of Frank Lukenbill Jenkins, Sr. Robert is therefore only one of 8,192 other ancestors thirteen generations back who contributed their genes to making those grandchildren who they are today. Still, those genes are in all of us and you can never predict which one will pop out in the next descendant.

jenfam06

After having met in that romantic manner, John Jenkins and Deborah Philips were married in about 1795. Then the kids starting coming and they ended having twelve of them.

The first was Polley in 1796, then John in 1798.

In 1800 and 1801 there were George and Benjamin. Remember the George and Benjamin, the ‘maybe’ John Jenkins stepbrothers who got the land when their father Zephaniah died? If the connection between these two Jenkins lines are valid, George and Benjamin from Rhode Island would be the uncles of John², the father of George and Benjamin born in 1800 and 1801. The George Jenkins³ born in 1800 is the one who wrote the letter to Iowa in 1880.

Next came Salmon and Joan who were born in 1803 and 1804.

Then came our Major Jenkins³ who was born January 20, 1807.

Following Major was Elizabeth in 1809 and another Benjamin in 1810. The first Benjamin born in 1801 must have died. William was born in 1811. He went west with Major to homestead farms in Iowa.

The last two children that John² and Deborah had were Harriet and Ruth, who were born in 1812 and 1817. By this time Deborah was 44 years old and probably worn out. She died sometime before 1830 which is the year that John married again. Joanna Hulett was his second wife for his twilight years. He was sixty years old when he married Joanna on Christmas Day of that year. She was 36 years old. Apparently he was energetic enough to produce one more child, Susanna Amanda, who was born in 1833 when he was sixty-three.

John² lived on in the Chester/Springfield Vermont area until he died in 1847 when he was seventy-six years old. In his will, which he made on July 10th in 1844, he gave all that he had to his second wife Joanna with his daughter Susan to live with her mother and to be supported from his estate for as long as she may wish. The estate, when probated, amounted to $187.97 in possessions with the land and buildings thereon being another $425.00. Claims against the estate came to $80.76.

Major Jenkins³ had just homesteaded his first 40 acres in Iowa when his father died. He did not share in his father’s estate nor did any of the other children from the first marriage. They were all grown by 1847 and John must have felt that he should provide for the security and comfort of his widow Joanna and their daughter Susan.

SPRINGFIELD, VERMONT

MAJOR JENKINS³

As we get closer to contemporary times, more information becomes available. The cold records and facts are still there to keep us on a true and accurate course, but we begin to get more of the stories and lore of the people. They become more real. Instead of faces looking at us from old photographs, we see a little bit of ourselves. We come to know more of who they were as people. Soon we can decide whether or not we like them and if we are happy that they are our ancestors.

Major Jenkins is one of the first in the line to get fleshed out as a real person. Even though the greatest part of his life was spent as a farmer, the early years were anything but ordinary.

As a matter of clarification, Major’s name does not come from any recognition of military honor in the family. Military service was contrary to the beliefs of Quakerism. Major is simply a given name that was used in that period of time. As a matter of fact, the Jenkins line is distinguished by a lack of military heroes. It must be those Quaker genes.

We know that his early years were spent in Springfield, Vermont and that he grew up as one of the middle children of a large family. The family was not rich but it seems that they were close. When Major was fourteen years old, his father became embarrassed. That was a nice way of saying that he couldn’t pay his debts. Major’s older brother George, who was 21 years old then, bought the lease on his father’s farm so it wouldn’t be lost. George then worked the next four years in Boston paying off the lease.

Land was not always owned outright on early New England farms. More often than not, only a lease was obtained even though a person would live on and farm the land all of their life. This was the case with the property that John leased. After paying off the lease, George was then able to buy “the right of soil.” The land was now owned by Jenkinses!

Major could see that his future did not lie with the family homestead. He was too far down on the list. His brother George was ultimately going to own the land outright. At the age of seventeen, Major left for Boston. George was working there to pay off his father’s lease. Major sailed for two years in order to earn money to complete his education and after that, he returned to Vermont in 1826. After a common school education, he learned the trade of a mason, becoming proficient in brick and stone work.

Major Jenkins and His Early Years

The Erie Canal had been completed and opened in 1825. The United States was growing and expanding. The Indians were being removed from their ancestral lands. New lands in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois were being opened for settlement. People from New York and New England took advantage of this new and easy transportation route to the West. Passengers were picked up by the canal barges as they moved along the way from Albany on the east to Buffalo, New York on the west. From there, the boats on the Great Lakes could take them as far as Fort Detroit.

Major must have felt the lure and adventure that the West offered. Around 1829, when he was twenty two, Major left Vermont again and headed west. From Fort Detroit, he moved on further west through the Michigan Territory.

The stagecoach road had been little improved since it was originally built by the Army to move supplies from Detroit to Fort Dearborn near the village of Chicago in Illinois. The Army construction specifications for the road called for the removal of trees with stumps to be cut no higher the three feet. This would allow the bottom of the wagons to clear the stumps. What resulted was called a road and became known as the Chicago Road. Today, U.S. Highway Route 12 closely follows the original road. At that time though, it passed small homestead farms that had been laboriously cut from the dense virgin forests. Farms so small and among trees so tall that in the summer, the sun would not shine on the small farm field plots until midmorning.

Major went as far as Prairie Pond, near present day Kalamazoo, Michigan. He stayed there for a short while and then returned to Vermont. There, in 1831, he married Eunice (or Emily) Fletcher. By August of 1832 their child Lucia Christina was born. According to Major’s obituary, he and Eunice had seven children of whom only Christina survived. From another source, it was said that they had five children. Four died in infancy. This has never been proven one way or the other. No record of any other children has been found. Eunice later died in 1845 shortly after Major went to Garnavillo, Iowa.

Throughout all of her life, Christina, or ‘Tinny’—pronounced ‘Teeny’, as she came to be called—lived with her father. An early census did not treat her kindly as she is listed as “idiotic”. The 1900 Census indicates that she could read and write. Somewhere in the middle is the truth. Whatever sort of life she had, happy or otherwise, she died at the age of 82.

One of Major’s biographies claims that he was in the Blackhawk War. It may be so but I’ve never found him listed in any military records I’ve searched. Possibly he provided some sort of nonmilitary support. It’s another one of those stories that adds some spice but not much substance.

Major had a wanderlust that wouldn’t be satisfied until he finally settled down in Iowa in 1846. In about 1832 he headed west again. His cousin Truman Jenkins, son of his Uncle Nathaniel, planned to homestead in Newton, Jasper County, Indiana. Truman’s third child was born there in 1833. Major worked his stone mason trade in Newton for four years but was then ready to move on. Truman stayed in Newton and became the patriarch of generations of Jenkinses, some of whom still live in the area.

This time, Major set his eyes on Galena, Illinois. He may have stopped in Chicago on the way. If he did, Chicago probably didn’t hold much interest for him. It was a squalid, dirty little settlement at the edge of a shallow sluggish creek that drained the nearby smelly swamps into Lake Michigan. The population was 100 people. The few houses there were built of wood. A town like that didn’t have much need for a stone mason.

On the other hand, in the 1830s, Galena Illinois was beginning to boom. The lead mines were producing riches and millionaires. Work, opportunity, and limestone quarries were there for a person with Major’s masonry skills. In about 1837, Major went to Galena and worked there for two years. In 1839 he moved on to Iowa. There are no land records for him until 1846, but he possibly was with his younger brother William in Jackson County, Iowa in 1840. There is also no other information about what he was doing during the early 1840s.

Iowa and Major Jenkins

Clayton County in Iowa is north of Dubuque and is bordered by the Mississippi River. The Military Road out of Dubuque, later known as U.S. Route 52, passed through Garnavillo and continued on further north. Homestead land was available here. It was good, rich and well watered land. And, it was cheap: $1.25 an acre. Major had at least that much money.

Major was there on a gray day in the early winter of 1846, in his search for land to buy and homestead.

As he left town, he took notice of the woods that covered the countryside. This wouldn’t do. He knew all too well how difficult it was to clear the land of trees to get a farm started in Vermont. He would have to find something better. He continued north on the Military Road, past the farm that Moses Davis was homesteading. At the time, Major probably did not know that Moses’ niece, Jemima, lived there. Two-and-a-half miles north of Garnavillo, the road angled slightly to the west, then turned north again. The land was still wooded, but not as heavily as before. Those trees that he would have to cut would see a new life as timbers and planks in the house and buildings that he would build.

On the east side of the road, the land rose in a hillock. A clear, cold spring issued from the side of the hill. As he stood in the lee of the hill, he appreciated how it sheltered him from the north wind that blew on that cold early winter day. He eyed the land carefully and liked what he saw. This was land on which he could raise a new family and provide a home for his poor Tinny.

On December 15th, 1846 Major bought the first piece of land he would own in Clayton County. He paid his $50.00 for the 40 acres. By June 28th, 1848 he had bought two more parcels totaling about 160 acres in all.

At the age of forty one, Major had finally reached the end of his wandering trail. He would build the family homestead on this property and live there with his second wife, Jemima, until the autumn of 1892 when they would give up the farm and move into Guttenberg. Eight children would be born on the farm, five would survive and be raised there, but not without trials and tribulations.

Jemima Harper

Major married Jemima Harper on September 28th, 1848 three months after he bought the 160 acres. Jemima was born in January of 1831 in Illinois and was the daughter of a Scotch Irishman named John Harper. There is a family myth that Jemima was part Cherokee. This came from two sources. The first says that a band of Indians came into town one day and when they had gone, Jemima was left behind. The second source is from the 1880 Census which lists her as “not white” with the letters “Ckee” after. The photograph I saw of Jemima that was taken in about the 1890s, is that of a stocky, unsmiling, thoroughly white looking older woman with an arched left eyebrow.

With the letter from George Jenkins, Major’s brother, in Vermont was a note giving some information about Jemima Harper, Major’s second wife.

Before getting into the details of the note, a little background would be interesting. The note about Jemima and the letter from George came from Mabel Runkle. She was the daughter of Frank R. Jenkins, John Andrew’s brother.

In the late 1950s, my mother contacted Mabel who at that time was living in Vancouver, B.C. In the correspondence that followed, Mabel ended up writing to her daughter back in Iowa. Whoever the daughter was or where she or her descendants are now, is lost. My Mother can’t remember any of the details. Mabel was born in 1882, so she is gone. Her children would be in their eighties. The threads of genealogical searches are very thin indeed and are easily broken.

What my Mother was sent was considered by us to be a gold mine of precious photographs, original documents and vital information. My Mother, my brother Frank and I spent hours trying to decode the relationships that George Jenkins wrote about in his letter. The answer eluded us and it was early in the 1980s before we even had the answer as to who wrote the letter. Since Mabel’s daughter parted with it so easily, I’ve often wondered if what we were sent were just the dregs of a larger treasure.

Back to the information about Jemima Harper. Jemima’s father, John Harper, was likely one of those early nineteenth-century frontiersmen. He was in the Western counties of Illinois before 1830 and was in Pope County along the Ohio River. Where he was before that is nothing more than a guess, but the best guess would be that he migrated westward from Kentucky or Tennessee. Before that, his family could have come from Virginia or North Carolina.

The given name of Jemima’s Mother is unknown. However, the note offers a tantalizing clue that the family name was possibly Davis.

The author of the note is also unknown. It was written sometime between the mid 1880s and 1903 on a store receipt with the name ‘P.P. Mast Co., Springfield, O.’ printed at the top. It was probably written earlier than later since it refers to Thomas Harper, Jemima’s brother, as being killed in 1862 in the “Late War”. The Civil War as a proper noun did not come into common usage for some time after the war. Before that, it was simply referred to as “the late war”.

John Harper was not likely in a position to provide proper care for Jemima and after her Mother died, she was moved from one relative to another—as was her brother Thomas.

Now for the note (the information and dates in parentheses are mine):

Jemima Harper Born Schuyler Co. Ill. Jan 22, 1831, moved with her father to Pope Co. Ill. when about 9 years old (1840), where her mother Died & Father married again & moved to James(?) Co. Ill, when about 11 years of age(.) (1842) & then she was adopted by her aunt Mrs. Fannie Guim where she lived 1 summer, Then was Transferred to a family by the name of Capp where she lived 1 year & from there Ams?? Davis from Schuyler Co. came & Took her from Capp.(1843) Mrs. Davis was an Aunt, & they moved from there to Wis grant Co. & when she was about 14 years old (1845) Removed with her uncle (Moses) Davis to (Garnavillo) Clayton Co. Iowa & was united in marriage to Major Jenkins in 1848 Garnavillo Clayton Co. Iowa. To them were born 8 Children. 1st Narcisca died in infancy. Alice Jane Stebbins B?B Sie??? Iowa, John A. of Oceola Iowa, Frank R Arlington Ia., Horace G. Guttenberg, Marcia A. Heddeman Clayton Iowa Ransom, Died of Diptheria age 4 years Lewis(?) Died in infancy.

Her mother was scotch Her father was scotch irish Grandfather scotch & grandmother Irish on fathers side

She had 1 brother Thomas Harper Born 1836 was killed in the late war in 1862.

And that’s how the note was written. One thought is that Jemima was taken care of by families that were more likely her Mother’s family than her Father’s.

A fact given in the note is that Moses Davis was her uncle and therefore could have been the brother of Jemima’s mother. Aunt Fannie Guim (Gwinn?) was probably her Mother’s sister. Jemima was born in Schuyler Co in 1831, the place where her Uncle Moses Davis was in 1843. Likely John Harper met Jemima’s mother in Schuyler where she was probably living with her parents and married her in 1830.

Then there is the family myth that Jemima was part Cherokee. If that is so, then it would have had to come through Jemima’s Grandmother. The note says that her mother was Scotch, and the note tells us of her paternal grandparent’s nationality. It does omit, perhaps diplomatically, any information about her Davis(?) grandparents. Is it possible that Jemima’s maternal grandmother was a Cherokee?

Before we leave the story of John Harper’s children, there is a little more to tell of his son, Thomas Harper.

In the 1850 Garnavillo Township, Clayton Co., Iowa Federal Census, Thomas Harper is listed with his Uncle Moses Davis on his farm. Moses is shown as 47 years old and as being born in Kentucky. His wife, Martha, is also 47 years old and is indicated as having been born in Tennessee. Thomas is thirteen years old and is shown as being born in Illinois. Moses’ children are shown as having attended school within the year. Thomas did not. For the record, Moses’ children are shown in the Census as: Joel(?), age 19; John, age 17; Mary A., age 15; Sarah, age 12; Elizabeth, age 8 and Frib?? a male, age 6. All of the children were born in Illinois, so Moses came to Iowa in 1845 or after. This fits with the year of 1845 as indicated in the note.

Ten years later in 1860, Thomas, age 24, is listed in the Census for Eldora Township in Hardin Co., Iowa along with his wife who is identified only as A. Harper, age 23. Thomas’ occupation is shown as Day Laborer with personal assets of $25.00. Their two male children (L. Harper, age 1 year and P.D. Harper, age 3 ½) are also listed.

Thomas did enlist in the Civil War just as the note said, but he wasn’t killed in the war. He enlisted at Wagoner, Iowa on July 4, 1861 and was mustered into service on the 17th. He suffered from constant diarrhea and Hepatitis and was discharged on July 7th, 1862. He died before leaving camp in Moscow, Tennessee. In his military papers, he is shown being born in Tippecanoe Co., Indiana; He was five feet, eight inches tall, his complexion is shown as quite dark and he had black eyes and black hair. If there was any Cherokee blood in his past, this description would certainly fit.

Major and Jemima

By 1849 enough of the homestead must have been built to justify bringing children into the world. The first one born to Major and Jemima was Alice in 1849. John Andrew came next on May 7th, 1852, followed two years later by Frank R. in 1854. Horace was born in 1859 then Marcia in 1862. Two children, Narcissus and Lewis, died as infants and another, Ransom, died at age four.

Tinny always lived with Major and Jemima but the rest of the children, except for Horace, eventually moved away from the farm. John Andrew we’ll learn more about soon. Frank R. settled down in Arlington, Iowa and died there in 1933. Later, Horace G. settled down in Guttenberg and was the topic of several unhappy events in the lives of Major and Jemima. Marcia married Fred Hedeman and settled on a farm about seven miles north of the family home. Later, they moved into Guttenberg.

For more than fifty years and into the 1930s, the old family homestead survived. In 1906, a photograph was taken by someone standing in the same place where Major might have stood in 1846 when he first saw the empty land. The scene the camera captured was now different.

Directly in front are the house and the dirt path from the main road leading to it. There is a wagon and a two-horse team standing in front. To the far right is the old granary, next down is a hen house. Then the Spring House which covers a wonderful big boxed in spring that was used to cool the milk and supply all the water for the farm. The spring flowed through the farm all year round. The big old barn is off to the right. You can notice the farm yards leading from it. To the back, in a clump of trees at the left end of the house is a large two-story brick building, the milk house. A little out of our view is the family cemetery plot.

The Homestead remained for some years after. It was still reported as existing in the mid-1930s. Then it was all gone. When I visited there in 1992, plowed fields had taken its place. All traces were indeed gone.

Skeletons in The Closet

Henry Jenkins⁵ was the son of Frank R. Jenkins⁴ and the nephew of John Andrew Jenkins⁴. By this simple relationship, Henry was the cousin of Frank Lukenbill Jenkins⁵. It was in 1941 that Henry wrote a letter to his cousin Frank. In it, Henry gave us a glimpse of the skeletons in the Jenkins family closet.

Henry wrote:

“After the others were all married and off by themselves, Horace remained with his family (and parents), on the homestead, for many years. An addition was built to the old log house and both families lived there. Finally, at the age of 94, grandfather contracted pneumonia and nearly passed out. It was during this spell of sickness, that Uncle Horace took advantage of all of grandfather’s children, except Aunt Marcia. He beat them all out of their inheritance.”

“The children did not find this out for five years after it took place. Then it was too late to do anything about it. He,Uncle Horace, had it fixed in the Will, so all the rest got $500.00 each. He got the farm, livestock, machinery and everything. It amounted to about $70,000.00.”

“Then in about 3 years he moved to Guttenburg taking grandfather, grandmother and Tinny with him. He put the old people off in an old shack of a house by themselves and he built himself a mansion.”

“It was in this old shack of a house that grandfather and grandmother died. Grandmother burned herself to death starting a fire in the stove one morning. It was terrible. He buried grandfather and grandmother in Guttenburg. Tinny was left to the mercy of other relatives. I lost all track of Tinny. She was always a little feebleminded, but she was always a lot of help to the old people as she was never sick.”

Horace married for the second time in November of 1899 to Emma Kords Rau who was born on Guttenberg in 1861. They had a daughter Bernice who was born in September of 1900. She died in about four or five months. It was also the second marriage for Emma and by her first marriage she had a son, Albert Rau, who was born in 1892. Albert figures into the next bit that Henry tells us about.

“All that money did Horace no good, and his children are none the better off for him stealing it, although they all were big guys for a while. If Uncle Horace’s second wife had not had enough of her own money left to bury him with, he would have went to a pauper’s grave. He got rid of about all of her money too, before she got next to him. Her son (Albert) give Uncle Horace such a beating and he never got over it.”

Horace, who died in 1914, was survived by Emma who died in 1934. Their son Albert died five years later.

“You see at the time Uncle Horace got that crooked Will made out, Aunt Marcia and her husband, Fred Hedeman, lived on a farm only 7 miles from Grandfather Major’s farm. I have always said and believed that they got a goodly share to keep them quiet about it. Grandmother Jemima could not read or write. They [Marcia and Fred] owed Grandfather quite a sum of money for land and borrowed cash. I can’t help believing they got all this to keep them still.”

“One time, years afterwards, Uncle Fred and Aunt Marcia were to my home here and while we were at the supper table, my father [Frank R.] also was here. We got to talking about Uncle Horace and it came in just right. So, I remarked that it was just too bad that Uncle Horace did not live long enough to go to prison and sit out time enough to pay for all his crookedness. Well, Aunt Marcia did not like that a little bit and she never was the same to me after that.”

“Uncle Horace’s children [from first marriage] were: Charlie, Walter and Arthur. Arthur got killed. Charlie Jenkins lives at 2575 White Street, Dubuque, Iowa. Walter, you know, lives at Guttenburg, very wealthy [his underline].”

“Well this is about all about Grandfather.”

Marcia married Fred Hedeman, whose father had the farm next to Major’s homestead. Their children were Lottie, Elmer, Edna, Lulu and Flonda.

More Skeletons

If Horace didn’t seem like a nice guy, one of his children, Walter, was truly strange. We’ll get to know more about Walter further on. Charles Blanchard Jenkins⁵ was Horace’s first son from the first marriage and was born in 1876. From all appearances, he lived out his 92 years in Guttenberg. The third son, Arthur L. Jenkins, died at an early age. No problems there. That leaves Walter⁵.

In 1937, my parents spent a little time in Iowa. When they were heading back to Chicago, they stopped at a gas station in Dubuque to get gas. My Mother noticed the old man who was servicing their car and said jokingly to my father, “That’s how you’re going to look when you get old.” By sheer coincidence, and unknown to either of my parents, they were at Walter’s gas station. As I remember the rest of the story, after they made their introductions, Walter was disinterested and abrupt with them. While denying that he was any relation at all, he directed them to a Lottie Ihm whom he said was a Jenkins.

Lottie was a daughter of Marcia and Fred Hedeman and therefore the granddaughter of Major and Jemima Jenkins and as a result, my father’s cousin.

Walter Jenkins⁵ was the second child of Horace’s first marriage. Born in 1878, he lived most of his life in Dubuque Iowa where he married Elizabeth Arendt. Their only son, Floyd Major Jenkins⁶, was born in December of 1899.

Walter denied that he ever married Elizabeth and consequently never acknowledged Floyd as his son. He abandoned both of them. Whether or not there was a marriage or a divorce, Walter did marry two more times. The second marriage was to Anna Margaret Born and the third was to Alice Sylvania Kafer Brandenburg.

Floyd⁶ was raised by Charles⁴ and Alice Amanda Hampshire Jenkins, but he was never legally adopted by them. (Charles was a nephew of Major’s and the son of William³, Major’s brother.) While they were raising Floyd, Floyd’s mother worked in Dubuque and sent money as she could, to help in raising Floyd.

Charles William and Alice Amanda Jenkins struck me as down-to-earth, nice people. A little information about them would be nice.

Charles was born in July of 1852 which made him about the same age as John Andrew Jenkins. William, Charles’ father, had the farm next to Major’s farm. In 1883, Charles married Alice Amanda Hampshire. In addition to raising Floyd Jenkins, they had three children of their own; Charlotte M., William C. and Milton H.

Charles William Jenkins was a stone mason, farmer, fisherman and blacksmith. He and his wife, Alice, raised Floyd Jenkins. They were very kind people, always helping their neighbors. The son Milton and his wife lived with them for some years after their marriage. Alice was very good to her daughter in law, Clara, and nursed her after the stillbirth of her first child.

Later, Charles and Alice lived with Milton and Clara in Beloit. There Charles died in 1930. Later that year, Milton and Clara named their newborn son after his grandfather. After Milton and Clara separated, Clara went back to live at McGregor. The Jenkinses and Hampshires were very good to her and her children, helping her to find jobs for herself and the two boys.

Charles died when he was 77 years old, in Beloit Wisconsin in March of 1930. Alice died four years later at age 69 in April of 1934 in Clayton County Iowa.

One week short of Floyd’s twelfth birthday he received the following sad information about his mother:

“Lizzie Jenkins ..., single, age 31, ... died of acute intestinal intoxication, informer Miss Elsie Marquard, 3614 Delhi St."

“She d. 11 Dec 1911 of an ‘overdose of headache medicine, fore lady at Bishops shirt factory, died Monday at 7:30 a.m. at her home at second and Locust.’”

Later in life, Floyd offered these several recollections:

“I didn’t think much of Horace either and he was my grandfather. Major had $20,000 in gold and Horace had gotten that. Horace was a big man.”

“One time, I needed a legal paper signed by my father, but he wouldn’t sign it.”

Floyd married twice. The first to Dorothy Brown and the second marriage was to Enid Reese Shuey. From the second marriage they had three boys: Neil W. born in 1935, Dale H. in 1936 and Reid Shuey Jenkins⁷ in 1942.

I talked to Dale on the phone in 1991. He told me that Floyd had been a policeman in Evanston for many years. He also said that one day in October 1953, his father got dressed up in a suit and tie and disappeared for a few days. Sometime later he said that he had gone to Dubuque to attend his father’s funeral. He said that other family members were shocked when he walked in. It seemed that they were concerned that Floyd was going to claim his share of Walter’s estate.

Floyd died in Evanston, Illinois in February of 1988.

John Andrew Jenkins The Early Years

In another letter from Henry Jenkins, we are given an opportunity to know a little of John Andrew’s life, his brother Frank R., and a little about Henry himself. In his 1941 letter to his cousin Frank he wrote the following:

“Now I will try to give you something concerning your father, mine and the rest of the family, as nearly as possible for me to do.”

“It seems like all Grandfather’s children remained at home on the farm a year or two after their marriage, then they would work grandfather for a little money, stock, etc. and then pull off for themselves.”

“Well, after your father [John Andrew] was married and when your oldest brother [half brother] Major and your oldest sister [half sister] Mamie, were just little tots, your parents came out west here [in 1875] and bought 160 acres homestead land up in Sac County, near Storm Lake, Iowa.”

This is as good as time as any to point out some of the name changes that people chose in John’s first family. John Andrew’s first son, Major, was later known as John and still later as Pat Jenkins. He lived in Wisconsin in his later years.

Mamie changed her name to Eve. She was married to a man named Will Willerton. They had two little girls, Agnes and Pearl. Eve and her husband came to live at their Uncle Frank R.’s home, but he soon got them located by themselves. They lived there in Arlington, Iowa for ten or twelve years. Finally Eve and Will separated. She later was married to a railroad man and lived in Oelwein, Iowa.

A son born later, William H. Jenkins, decided that his name was going to be Harvey. Maybe that was his middle name.

Doc

TABLE OF CONTENTS

AUTHOR’S ADDENDUM……………………………………102

Doc

BEGINNINGS

The End of the Beginning