Peter Jeremiah Norris' Bibles

One of my husband's ancestors is Peter Jeremiah Norris. Jim's grandmother Rutledge always told him he had the Norris eyes. Peter is five generations back but from the nose up they could be the same man.

Peter must have been an interesting person as he was a merchant in Culpeper Courthouse throughout the Civil War. According to his obituary, he had enlisted in the Confederate Army but was discharged because of his health. I am still trying to find his service records. 

He was born 13 November 1822. His sister Sarah Ann Clayton Norris was born  5 February 1825 and and their mother died 7 March 1825. According to Harry Alexander Davis's book on the Norrises, Peter's father remarried and another son was born, Robert R. Neither the stepmother or stepbrother are mentioned in Peter's Bibles. Robert and his children are included in the monumental court case the heirs of W. C. Norris vs. St. Stephens Episcopal Church, Culpeper County, VA, 1911. The court file spells out every descendant of the children and siblings of William Calvert Norris and Ann Eliza Norris Norris (yes, she did marry a distant relative).

Peter's bibles are in the Virginia Historical Society's collection, donated by his son John R. Norris's family in 1991, probably by daughter, Sanford McDonald. John R. was Peter's eldest son and very family oriented. He was apparently fairly well off as several reports in the WPA Virginia Historical Inventory mention him restoring graveyards and erecting monuments. 

I wish I could put up the images of the actual pages. But the VHS only lets people see photocopies of the pages, and they aren't the best quality. I have sent a question to them because the image of one page is cut off at the edge and you can't read the last number of a date.

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Peter Jeremiah Norris Bible, 1836, a gift from his Aunt Sarah Ann Norris 14 November 1836, The Virginia Historical Society, gift of Mrs. John R. Norris, Fredericksburg, Va., 7 November 1991, MSS 6:4N7997:1; Manuscript/Original Pages; 4 leaves; handwritten; 8 1/2 X 11 in.

Inscription in his handwriting “Presented to Peter J. Norris by his affectionate Aunt S. A. Norris Novembr. 14, 1836.” (S.A. is Sarah Ann, his father's sister. She waited on Lafayette during his triumphal 1825 visit, but that's a story for another time.)

On a different page in a different handwriting, perhaps his aunt’s, “Peter J. Norris From his affectionate aunt. S. A. Norris”

This poem was written in it, perhaps by Peter J. when he was younger as the handwriting is similar to his adult handwriting, which had lots of flourishes. A longer version is found as Reading Lesson XXXIX. The Bible in Cobb’s New North American Reader, Fifth reading book, page 126. Lyman Cobb wrote school books beginning in 1825, and they were widely adopted by cities such as Baltimore.

“This little book I’d rather own,

Than all the gold and gems

That are in monarch’s coffers shone,

Than all their diadems.

Nay, were the seas one chrysolite

The earth one golden ball

And diamonds all the stars of night

This book were worth them all.

====

Ah, no, the soul ne’re found relief

In glittering hoards of wealth

Gems dazzle not the eye of grief

Gold cannot purchase health

But here a blessed balm appears

To heal the deepest woe;

And he that seeks this book in tears,

His tears shall cease to flow.”

P.J.A. Novb. 14th 1836

On another page family birth dates were written in various handwritings.

Richard Norris was born May 30th 1800.

Elizabeth C. Hall was born October 22nd 1779

P. J. Norris was born Novb. 13th 1822

Thomas W. Norris was born March 21st 1824

Sarah Ann C. Norris was born Feby 5th 182(edge torn off)

Departed this life 7th May 1825 Elizabeth C Norris in the 26th year of her age.

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Family Bible of Peter Jeremiah Norris and Cornelia Guinn Norris,  American Bible Society 1864; The Virginia Historical Society, gift of Mrs. John R. Norris, Fredericksburg, Va., 7 November 1991, MSS 6:4N7997:2; Manuscript/Original Pages; 4 leaves; handwritten; 8 1/2 X 11 in.

Marriages

Peter J. Norris and Cornelia H. Guinn were married Nov 22nd 1855.

John R. Norris & Mary Mason Green were married July 27th 1886.

Thomas B. Norris & Bertha Lee Willis were married Sept. 1st 1886.

Charles H. McGhee and Laura E. Norris were married Nov. 15th 1887. (My husband's great-grandparents)

Deaths

P. Jarry Norris, son of P. J. &; C. H. Norris departed this life on Friday evening the 24th December 1867 at ten minutes past seven o’clock. Aged 4 years and two days.

Peter Jeremiah Norris son of Richard &; Elizabeth Clayton Norris died at Culpeper Sept 24th at 6 PM in 1893.

Suddenly at the old home in Culpeper Cornelia Helen departed this life on Thursday morning just before nine o’clock April 16th 96. She was laid to rest on Monday at 3;30 P.M. from the M.E. Church. Funeral sermon by Rev. H. P. Mitchell.

Mrs. Mary Guinn departed this life on Monday morning at 5:30  June 25th 1883 age 88 years 6 months and 4 das. “Blessed are they who die in the Lord.”

At Denver, Col on 16th Feb J. R. Norris Jr. age 4 months. In 1893.

Died suddenly at Fredericksburg, Virginia January 19th 1907 Hannon Edwards Norris.

Births

John R. Norris son of Cornelia H. & P. J. Norris was born Sep. 29th 1859.

John R. Norris Jr. son of J.R. & Mary Norris born Oct. 2nd 1892.

Laura E. Norris Born Feby 5th 1861. (My husband's great-grandmother.)

Thomas B. Norris Born July 18th 1863.

P. Jerry Norris Born Decembr 21st 65

Edgar Warren Norris Born May 27th 1868.

Cornelia H. Norris Born March 13th 1870.

Hannon E. Norris. Born May 10th 1872.

Ivan Merle Norris was born January 31st 8176.

Sanford McDonald Norris daughter of J.R. & Mary M. Norris was born Sept. 14th 1887.

Cornelia Lee Norris daughter of T.B. & B. L. Norris was born July 7th 1887.

(Richard Norris through Sarah A. C. Norris were obviously copied from the bible Sarah Ann Norris gave Peter Jeremiah Norris when he was a child.)

Richard Norris born May 30th 1800 Father of P. J. N.

Elizabeth C. Hall born Oct. 22nd 1779.

P. J. Norris Sr. born Nov. 13th 1822.

T. W. Norris born March 21st 1821.

Sarah A. C. Norris born Feb. 5th 1825.

Cornelia Helen Guinn born July 31 1833 wife of P. J. Norris

Hannon Edwards Norris born May 10th 1892

Died Jan 19th 1907

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Now clearly Elizabeth C. Hall could not have been born in 1779 and died at the age of 26 in 1825. She was either born in 1799 or was 46 when she passed away. Her husband, Richard, was born in 1800 and his age is confirmed by census records. Her last child, Sarah Ann, was born 5 February 1825, so Elizabeth died after that date.

In the 1930s the WPA inventoried cemeteries in Virginia. One of those reports (Hall Graveyard Second Report, Culpeper County, Virginia ; J.P. Thompson 30 June 1937; Works Project Admistration of Virginia Historical Inventory; Library of Virginia Call Number /VHI/R/07/0066; digital images online at digital images online here) transcribed this grave marker:

Sacred to the memory of

Elizabeth C. Norris

who departed this life

May 7th, 1825

in the 26th year of her age.

The wording of her epitaph similar to the entry in the Bible Peter's aunt gave him.  

Mathew Locke, An Early Tea Partier

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Here's something ripped out of today's politics, but written more than 200 years ago by one of my husband's ancestors:

"To the freemen, of the Counties of Rowan, Irecell, Cabarrus, Mecklenburg, and Montgomery.

Gentlemen:

At the request of a number of my fellow-citizens concurring wut do believe, that millions of dollars hae been expended, that ought to have been saved. These measures I have always opposed, and shall always in a legislative capacity, think it my duty, to give my negative to all propositions or attempts, that in my opinion, have a dtendency, unnecessarily to oppress the citizens or enslave posterity.

With my own inclination, I purpose to be a candidate at the ensuing election, for a seat in Congress. I declare myself a real friend to the Federal government, and a zealous defender of the Constitution, which I have often sworn to support, but do not implicitly rely upon a belief, that all the present measures of Government have been wisely adopted, and impartially administered; b

"I have been for a number of years honored with your suffrages to represent you in the Congress of the United States, and fully believing that on a fair investigation of my political conduct. whilst in your service, I shall stand acquitted from the calumny raised against me in my absence, to which I impute the result of my last unsuccessful attempt. Should I again be the object of your choice, my exertions shall not be wanting to render myself worthy of your confidence, and to convince your, that no one has the welfare of his country more sincerely at heart, than

Your most obedient

Humble servant,

MATTHEW LOCKE

July 15, 1800.

Watson Non-Family Papers

The Watson men of Barry were very active in their communities, and I wound up with a lot of papers that had nothing to do with the family. A few years ago I sorted through them.

A lot of them were related to the Barry chautauquas as the Watsons did a lot of the bookings. These were easy to place at the University of Iowa, which has a large chautauqua collection. The Barry Chautauqua Collection

The rest all concerned political campaigns in Illinois, as Buck (W.W.) Watson was very involved in Republican politics. I wrote to both the Illinois State Archives and the University of Illinois, and both replied. I ultimately sent them to the University of Illinois as their researchers seemed more eager to get them and Dad and Mom both went there. They now reside in their own special collection Buck Watson Collection

Special Edition of the Barry Adage Wins Award

I love WeRelate.org, the Wiki genealogy site. I can create articles and post source information and every word is indexed so others can find it with any search engine. Recently I've been writing articles about the wills and genealogical records I've found while reading the court files in the Library of Virginia's digital chancery records collection.

One of my biggest projects was the transcription of the special edition of the Barry Adage that my great-grandfather published to celebrate Barry's recovery after the disasterous fire that devastated its downtown. It was a lot of work to upload all the pictures that were in the paper, but I did it as a tribute to him and my father who loved him.

I did not know until this morning, however, that was WeRelate's featured article for the week of March 23, 2008 and had been awarded a ribbon for "Exemplary WeRelate page with a well-written narrative, or comprehensive information."

Both William Walcott Watsons, Dad and Great-grandfather, would be pleased.

Special Edition of The Barry Adage 2 April 1896

Slave Ownership in Our Family

My mother's family never lived closer to the Mason-Dixon line than southern Illinois. My Dad's grandfather was a carpetbagger, having moved to Texas in the 1880's for the opportunities there. But his daughter married a boy from her Dad's hometown and moved to Illinois, so our southern roots were really shallow. My great-aunt Ruth used to say she'd never get anywhere in Texas society because she couldn't join the Daugters of the Confedeacy. (She joined every other genealogical society in sight, but that's a different story.)

My husband's mother's family were all Swedes who came over in the 1880's. But his father's family never lived farther north than Oklahoma until his Dad moved to Rock Island to work at the arsenal. After Navy training in Chicago, he settled there after WW2.

For a long time I haven't been able to find Peter Jeremiah Norris in the 1860 census. In 1850 he was in Missouri. In 1870 he was back in Culpeper County, Virginia. Yesterday I was working on the McGhees (PJ's daughter marri
ed a McGhee) and clicked on the 1850 census, found my McGhee and looked at the image. Instead of what I expected, I found myself looking at the 1850 slave census. Sure enough, my McGhee owned 4 slaves.

On a whim, I checked the Norrises in Culpeper County in the 1860 slave census. And up came P.J. Norris. So I opened the regular 1860 census and searched for his slaveowning neighbor. And right on the same page was PJ and his family, though you would never know it from the beautiful, but completely illegible handwriting. One of those times where "if you know what it says, you can see it says it," as my Dad used to say.

I've always said in genealogy there is a time when information wants to be revealed, and sometimes you just have to be patient.

By the way, James D. McGhee owned 4 slaves in 1850, and his widow 6 slaves in 1860. One was a woman who was evidently the mother of all the younger slaves. But the McGhees did not own an adult male. So who fathered her children? Did a relative or neigbor own her husband?

Peter Jeremiah Norris owned no slaves in 1850 and 2 slaves in 1860, both adult males. They probably worked in his store or warehouse.

William Rutledge owned no slaves in 1850, nor did his mother. But in 1860 he owned a 56-year old man. I'd sure love to know how that happened, because the Rutledges were always small farmers in southwestern Tennessee.

Scalded to Death in a Railroad Accident

Newspapers sure can mess things up. And once they do, you can spend years trying to find the facts.

My ancestor Alexander McClelland had many children, their births and deaths all faithfully recorded in his family bible by his wife, until she died. One child was a mystery to my mother, and to me, for decades. Rufus Buchanan McClelland was listed as born 30 September 1856. But we could never find him in any census after 1880.

Last fall I took a trip to Marion County, Illinois, where all these McClellands were born and raised. The Marion County Genealogical and Historical Society folks were just wonderful to me. I acquired the complete set of their quarterly publications, and learned much by going through them.

In 1980 they published a McClelland genealogy compiled by Mary K. Lyons. Rufus was listed, with the notation "died before 1889–killed in a railroad accident in Indiana." Newspapers in the 1880's were full of railroad accidents. But no article listed Rufus.

One of the treasures of the Marion society was George E. Ross. He searched through Marion county newspapers for years, gleaning anything that could be useful to a family historian. And the results were published by the Marion Society in their quarterlies. That's where I found

"Rufus McClelland, son of Alexander, was scaleded to death in a railroad accident near Shoals, Indiana." Several local papers reported this information on November 17, 1876.

So naturally I ran to my newspaper databases, and sure enough, there were articles about a grizzly accident near Shoals, Indiana. But none of the reported dead had names anything like Rufus McClelland, and the accident was on the 4th.

In the midddle of the night I woke up with an inspiration. What if there had been another grizzly accident around the same time, and the newspapers confused them? So I jumped out of bed, ran downstairs and looked. This time I searched for railroad accidents.

Sure enough, I found it. The best coverage was in the St. Louis Globe Democrat, 19 and 20 November 1876, "A railroad accident occurred on the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad at Sparksville, Illinois, at Mitchell Station, at 1 o'clock in the morning on Novembe 18, resulting in the death of two brakemen, Frank Albert (other articles say his name was Dirge) and Lucas McClelland. The westward bound freight train went upon a side track at that place to let the Western express paas. Two brakemen were asleep in the caboose and the conductor opened the switch and forgot to close it again. The express thundered along, and ran into the caboose, making a fearful wreck. Two freight brakemen, Dirge and McClelland, were so badly scalded that both died. The baggage and postal cars of the express were telescoped, crushing a leg off A. Greenland, postal clerk. Others were slightly injured. The engine, baggage car, postal car, caboose and five or six freight cars were badly wrecked.

Rufus was just 21. All of his brothers worked on the railroad for a while. Marion Clark lived to retire from one. My ancestor, John Allen, lost an arm working for the Illinois Central, and supposedly threw himself into the Mississippi River. Oliver shot himself. But those are stories for another day.

Divorce Comes From Out of the Blue

You have to love newspapers. Public records give you the bones, birth, death, marriage dates, but the newspapers give you the meat that fills out a person.

One of my husband's greatgrandmother's cousins was involved in a scandalous divorce suit in Omaha in 1929, one so juicy it made the front pages of the Omaha World Herald.

Frank Sheldon Selby left Omaha for Army reserve training camp at Camp Sparta, Wisconsin. Our ancestor's cousin Mary Norris Selby saw her husband off at the train station, as she always did, and kissed him a fond goodbye.

The next day he wrote her a letter asking her to divorce him. She was shocked! After she wrote him back "No," he telegraphed her that he'd instructed his attorney to file a petition for divorce. He'd talked to them before he left town.

The newspaper articles on the subsequent trial was full of his testimony about her cruelty to him. She scratched him, kept him from his family and threatened to commit suicide several times. She denied or explained everything. The judge said the testimony was contradictory, and hoped they'd work it out, but Frank Selby said he'd never live with his wife again. The judge finally ruled they couldn't possibly live together after all this, and granted the divorce. Mary wasn't granted any alimony, but was awarded the houshold furniture.

She appealed the settlement to the Nebraska Supreme Court, and lost.

She moved to Huntington Park, California and died there in 1986, never remarrying. Frank stayed in Omaha and remarried a few years after the divorce.

In a sad and ironic note, her father did commit suicide back in Omaha.

Killed in an Explosion

Rex Robert Campbell of Burlington, Washington, born 14 January 1899, was a problem at an early age. In February 1919 he pled guilty to stealing Sheriff Charles Stevenson's car from the main streets of Anacortes, Washington on a Friday evening. Rex rode "in state" from Anacortes to Burlington, and then abandoned the car without knowing whose car he was driving.

In April 1919 he was selling "Dago Red" at a cement works in Balfour. It was prohibition, and he was selling bootlegged booze made from raisins, sugar and water, a sort of wine with an "awful kick." The men at the plant bought the stuff and went wild after drinking it, becoming unmanageable. The steam shovel operator was apparently really hit hard, and damaged the shovel so badly that repairs cost $700. Campbell was sentenced to one year at the Monroe Reformatory and the sheriff seized his still.

Campbell's life did not get any easier. In the 1920 census he is an inmate in the Washington State Reformatory. Somewhere along the line he married, but wife Kathleen divorced him in 1932 for non-support.

He made papers all over the country in April 1938, when a fishing boat blew up off Orcas Island in Puget Sound. George Patrick, a Coal Point Indian, reported hearing a blast and seeing the boat blown to pieces more than a mile offshore. He rowed to the scene but said the last survivor lost his hold on the wreckage and disappeared before he arrived. No wreckage was found, but search parties found three bodies. I haven't found reports of them finding Rex's, but he has a grave marker at Green Hill Memorial Cemberary, Burlington, Skagit County Washington, and the death date is that of the explosion.

The Fragility of Human Life: Young Charles Rowley

When I read about people who won't vaccinate their children, I think about stories like this one in the Bellingham (Washington) Herald 3 May 1907 page 10:

Burlington, Wash., May 3–Charles Rowley, the 18-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. A. Rowley took will with spinal meningitis Wednesday evening about 10 o’clock at Cleary’s Mill Bow, and was brought to the home of his parents, about a mile south of this place, where he grew rapidly worse, and at 4 a.m. Dr. I.B. Shoemaker was summoned, but nothing could be done to save his life. He died between 9 and 10 o’clock yesterday morning.

No arrangements have yet been made for the funeral, but he will probably be buried sometime tomorrow.

No parent today should have to suffer what these parents did.

Killed by Tornado: Thomas Benjamin Norris and Daughter Cora Lee

My husband's great-grandmother, Laura Norris McGhee, was living in Muskogee, Oklahoma on March 23, 1913 when a devastating tornado struck Omaha, Nebraska.

When she read the article in her local paper, The Muskogee Times Democrat, about the devastation, she saw her brother's name, and her niece's, in the list of those killed.

The Omaha World Herald printed an article, "Unusual Pathos in Death of T.B. Norris and Daughter." It said T.B. and his daughter, Corie Lee, had been playmates since her earliest childhood. At the time of the tornado she was recovering from a lingering illness, and the day it struck was the first day s
he was able to join the family in the living room. Suddenly a guest, George Pratt (who later married her sister, Edith), called out the trees were coming. T.B. Picked up his daughter and started with her to the cellar, She was clasped tight in his arms when rescuers pulled them from the wreckage, dead. Cornelia was 26 when she died.

Edith married George Pratt in 1915 and lived in Omaha until she died in 1977. Mrs. T.B. Norris lived with them until she died in 1938. Every year Mrs. Norris spent several months back in Virginia, visiting family. Both she and her husband are buried in Culpeper, Virginia near their daughter Corrie.

The whole story of T.B. Norris and the tornado can be found on the Cedar Tree Blog.
The Story of Thomas Norris and the Easter Tornado of 1913

Another Mushroom Death

Apparently mushrooms really were a threat to humanity in the early 20th century. While researching the family of Thomas Benjamin Norris (always called T.B. Norris in the newspapers), a long-time shoe magnate in Omaha, Nebraska, I stumbled on this story in the 3 August 1900 Omaha World Herald. These Norrises are no relation to the ones I've been tracing.

"Chicago, Ill., Aug 2–Three persons are dead in the home of J.A. Norris, near Harvey, Ill., and four others are seriously ill, the result of eating toadstools which they mistook for mushrooms. The dead are: Mrs. Edith Norris, Maud Norris, Thomas Norris. The others poisoned: J.A. Norris, Eva Norris, Edith Norris,Robert Smith. Thomas Norris, 12 years old, undoubtedly saved those yet alive. Half clad and suffering with pain that almost crazed him, he rode bareback to Homewood, three miles away, and fell exhausted as he reached the house of a physician. He died soon after noon, but the doctor reached the Norris home in time to save four of the seven who ate the deadly toadstools."

It sure makes one wonder about the mushrooms in the grocery stores.