In the 1800s and the early to mid 1900s, biographical compilations were published across the United States; there were publishers at the time who specialized in such books. Some were serious works of biography. Many were less rigorously assembled, with the entries being written by the subjects themselves, as these books were intended to “pump up” the town in a wave of “boosterism.” Some of these subjects seem not to have been able to resist the temptation to pad the resume, as we say today. So, when you find an ancestor listed in one of these compilations, can you put full faith and credit in what is said in the entry? What pitfalls may await the unwary family historian in such an entry?
Let’s take a case study. My grand-uncle Don Francis Reed (1887-1930) has an entry in a compilation titled A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans, written and compiled by William E. Connelley (Chicago, Lewis, 1918, five volumes). I found this particular entry while searching the World Wide Web, and was surprised to find Uncle Don’s information. At that point, I didn’t have much on the Reed family, my mother’s people, and I was happy to find the information. I have to say I became a little less happy once I started accumulating other documentation and discovered that the information in Uncle Don’s entry was less than 100% reliable and that there is a source of confusion lurking in the information..
I will reproduce here a portion of the entry, as it is, then I will discuss the errors and confusion that exist in the text. Points in the text where these errors occur are marked with a consecutive number in square brackets; each error is discussed at the end of the quoted portion of text, by number. I suggest reading the text without pausing, first, as the text will give the reader a flavor of the type of biography that appears in these compilations.
“Don Francis Reed has been identified with Harper, Kansas, successively as a blacksmith, farmer, and lawyer. Admitted to the bar a little more than two years ago he has won his spurs in his first legal contest and is now well established with a general clientage [sic] drawn from all over Harper County.
“Mr. Reed was born at Logansport, Indiana, January 10, 1887, and is a member of a family that has three living generations. He is of Scotch ancestry. His great-grandfather, Herriman Reed [1], was born in Scotland, came to this country in early times, settling in Philadelphia, and died there. By trade he was a cooper.
“The grandfather of the Harper lawyer is Charles Reed, who was born in Jay County, Indiana [2], in 1846 [3], and has spent all his life in that section of Eastern Indiana as a farmer. He has been identified with the republican party for many years, and saw 3 ½ years of active service with an Indiana regiment of infantry in the Civil war [4]. He was at the second battle of Bull Run [5], where he was shot through the arm [6], and later participated in the Atlanta campaign [7] and was at the battle of Kenesaw Mountain [8] and other engagements. He married Miss Wright, who was born in Pennsylvania [9] and died in Jay County, Indiana. Ten of their children are still living, namely: Sarah, wife of S. C. Milton, a farmer in Jay County, Indiana; F. H. Reed; James J. [10], an oil well driller near Portland, Oregon; William M. [11], who is also in the oil well business in Oregon; Solon M. [12], a merchant at Portland, Indiana; Sallie, wife of Ernest J. Louden, who is agent for the Salt Lake Railroad Company at San Pedro, California; Nellie, wife of Waldo Twiggs, an employee of the Warner Gear Company of Muncie, Indiana; Carrie, unmarried and living at Portland, Indiana; John, agent for the Lake Erie and Western Railway at Anson, Ohio; and Leslie, an oil well driller near Portland, Oregon. [13]
“F. H. Reed, father of Don Francis, was born in Jay County, Indiana, November 19, 1861 [14], and is still living at Logansport in that state. He has spent practically all his life in Logansport and is a veteran of the Pennsylvania Railway service, still having a run as passenger conductor out of Logansport, which is one of the division points on that road. He is a republican, very active in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and one of the church trustees. He married Florence McKee, who was born in White County, [15] Indiana, November 17, 1861 [16]. They are the parents of a family of eleven children: Perry W., a resident of Chicago and connected with the Interstate Commerce Commission [17]; Don Francis; Benjamin Franklin, a passenger conductor [18] with the Wabash Railway Company, living at Detroit, Michigan; Charles C., a lieutenant in the Aviation Corps of the United States Army; Merritt W., a farmer in Cass County, Indiana; Edmund McKee, cashier of the Wabash Railway Company at Detriot, Michigan; William E., a student in the Detroit College of Medicine; Lawrence L., now serving with the United States Cavalry stationed at Louisville, Kentucky; Florence G., living with her parents; Paul P. and John, both students in the high school at Logansport.”
Now to discuss the errors and confusions in the text.
[1]. This is one of those traps for the unwary. Here the term “great-grandfather” is being used loosely. Uncle Don’s great-grandfather on the Reed side was Harvey Reed, not Herriman (or Harriman; remember, we need to be aware of alternative spellings in our research), and he was born probably in Gallia County, Ohio, according to information developed by a distant cousin, Shirley Reed. The term “great-grandfather” here may simply mean a distant ancestor, not his actual great-grandfather as we define the term. There may very well be a Herriman Reed, immigrant from Scotland, back in the ancestry. So far, searches in such sources as the 1790 census for Philadelphia, ship passenger lists, and other references have turned up no Herriman (or Harriman) Reed.
[2] According to Charles Reed’s invalid pension claim, obtained from the National Archives and Records Administration1, Charles Reed was born in Gallia County, Ohio. His family moved to Jay County, Indiana when he was a youngster. This is probably one of those instances where the biography’s subject is not certain of his information, but goes ahead anyway because he’s close enough for government work, as we say. In fact, I doubt that many mistakes such as these which appear in these biographies are intentional, and certainly they’re not malicious, in the main. They’re simply the result of slips of memory.
[3] Charles Reed’s birth year, according to his invalid pension file, was 1840, not 1846.
[4] Charles Reed’s active service in the Civil War was less than a year. He enlisted on 13 October 1864 and was mustered out 11 July 1865 (however, he had been invalided home, actually, on 30 June 1865). His service consisted mainly in being ill with “camp diarrhoea” (probably amoebic dysentery) and “break-bone fever” (the old name for dengue fever).
[5] Since 2nd Bull Run (or 2nd Manassas) was fought in 1862 and Charles Reed enlisted on 13 October 1864, this is unlikely, to say the least.
[6] Charles Reed’s invalid pension file, which includes a number of reports of medical examinations complete with illustrated body diagram, makes no mention whatsoever of any wounds received in service. His disability claim was based entirely on bacterial and viral diseases and their complications.
[7] According to Charles Reed’s pension file, which includes statements by himself as to his service, as well as reports of service from the War Department, his regiment was nowhere near Atlanta. The regiment’s service was entirely in Tennessee and North Carolina. A report on the movements of the regiment, the 140th Indiana Infantry, is found at the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System website, maintained by the National Park Service, located at web address http://www.itd.nps.gov/cwss/regiments,htm on which none of these campaigns attributed to Charles Reed by his grandson are mentioned. Here the case might either be faulty recall, complete ignorance of the facts coupled with a desire to pump up the resume, or remembering tales grandpa spun out of whole cloth because he didn’t care to admit that he spent most of the Civil War in hospital.
[8] Again, this campaign is not mentioned in Charles Reed’s pension file nor on the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System as having been engaged by the 140th Indiana Infantry.
[9] According to research so far, it appears that “Miss Wright,” (Clarissa Haney Wright) was born in Xenia, Green County, Ohio.
[10] Here, Uncle Don has misremembered his uncle’s name. The middle initial for James is M., not J., for his name was James Marcellus Reed. Information for these name corrections comes from Charles Reed’s pension file and from a typescript in the family begun by Charles’s son John (John Robinson Reed)2 and continued by another family member after John’s death.
[11] This is simply another misremembered name. Middle initial should be I.; his name was William Irvin Reed.
[12] Another misremembered name. Middle initial should be E.; his name was Solon Ernest Reed.
[13] Uncle Don has forgotten that there were twelve living children of Charles Reed at the time he made his entry for this biography. Mary Catherine didn’t die until 1932, and Lawrence Elbert died in 1942.3
[14] F. H. (Francis Harvey, or “Frank”) Reed’s birthdate is November 17, 1862, according to a family genealogy prepared by the children of Frank Reed and Florence McKee Reed on their fiftieth wedding anniversary in 1934.4
[15] There is a point of confusion here, possibly. On his application for a marriage license in 1913, Florence Reed’s son Benjamin Franklin Reed gives her birthplace as Warsaw, Indiana,5 which is in Wabash County, not White County. Florence and Frank Reed were married in White County, and that may be the source for confusion. Her birthplace will need to be investigated.
[16] Florence’s birth date is November 19, 1862.6
[17] According to the birth certificate of Perry’s daughter Mary Elizabeth, he was a “traffic manager” (railroad) in 1910. The answer is provided by my uncle Bob, Perry Reed’s son, in an article in Pensacola History Illustrated7: “[Perry Reed] was a mathematical whiz, a freight rate expert with a license to practice before the Interstate Commerce Commission.” So the connection was simply this license, which does not make him an employee of the ICC. It simply means he could represent his employer, the railroad, in matters brought before the ICC. By the letters that he wrote to his wife Mary LeSourd between 1907 and 1914 on letter head of various railroads, he worked for the railroads, not for the ICC. By 1920 he was living in Pensacola and working as the general freight agent for the Gulf, Florida, and Alabama Railway.8
[18] According to his obituary in the Logansport, Indiana, Pharos-Reporter, Benjamin Franklin Reed's occupation was as a switchman, not a conductor.9 ( He died in a railway accident 22 October 1917; this book apparently went to press before a correction could be entered noting his death.)
It pays to be wary when reading these biographies of our ancestors in compilations such as these. One probably can rely on the information concerning activities in the geographical area covered by the compilation. A subject would not be able to get away with padding the resume where there are many fellow citizens who would be likely to say, “That isn’t exactly right, now, is it?” to the subject’s face once the book came out. But activities which took place away from that region, or information about ancestors, is more suspect, as we see here in this case study. These biographies can be a useful springboard for further research, but we must beware of the traps they may contain.
1 Charles Reed, Civil War Pension Application File SO 816,345; SC 697,707; Records of the Veterans Administration, Record Group 15, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
2 John Robinson Reed, and others, “Births and Deaths in the Reed Family to April 1, 1913,” typescript, copy in possession of the author. Added to the list are dates after 1913; those added after 1918, the year John Robinson Reed died, were added by another family member, identity unknown.
3 Ibid.
4 “Reed Family Genealogy,” typescript prepared by Rosanna Jane Breese, granddaughter of Francis Harvey Reed. In possession of the author.
5 Frank (Benjamin Franklin) Reed and Ruth Nave, marriage applications, license, and certificate, Clerk of Circuit Court, St. Joseph County, South Bend, Indiana, Marriage Book 26, page 88.
6 “Reed Family Genealogy.”
7 Robert Reed, “Little Man,” Pensacola History Illustrated (Pensacola Historical Society, vol.1 no. 4, Winter 1985) pp. 27-32
8 Letters of Perry Wilmer Reed and Mary LeSourd, 1907-1920. In possession of the author.
9 “Engine Kills a Switchman,” Logansport, Indiana, Pharos-Reporter, October 22, 1917 (n.p.)
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