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.)
