Of Ships and Puzzles, Alewines and Culbertsons

Well! Now I know that it’s a little harder than I thought it’d be to research and write two genealogy blogs, teach Spanish, and keep up with a house (and let’s not leave out trying to do my job as musician at church) at the same time.
So, some housekeeping HERE before I get to the REAL housekeeping…which I’m gonna put off a while longer on this long Easter weekend.

First: I’m adding links to the sidebar at the right, and whenever you’re on this blog, please check out the others. The one titled “Thead, Not Thread” is for my daughters’ side of the family. Sometimes this one may overlap with it, so from time to time, please check it out. Two of my daughters write the other blogs, if you’re interested in birds, nature or veterinary things.
Second: Today is a “miscellany” day, like the items on my housecleaning list. So there will be things about Alewines, Alawines, and Culbertsons and Tolberts (on my mother’s side). Read on, or bail out whenever you want!

One of those miscellaneous items is a picture of a distant relative (distant in time, and, probably, in kinship, for most of us): Daniel Alewine, of South Carolina.

Daniel lived from 1793-1880, as you see in the documentation. This copy of a photo was in another of those files Alton kept. To remind you of who Daniel was, here’s a closeup of the tree.

Daniel was John’s son, the great-grandson of John George Alewine. He would therefore be MY great-great-great-great-uncle. I always find it fun to envision people from our past; and, while most of us in Mississippi aren’t descended from Daniel, perhaps he resembled his brother Elijah…who WAS our ancestor. John (not to be confused with John George) was the father of David, Elijah, Daniel, and Reuben, at least, and possibly others. So maybe the brothers looked somewhat alike. Who knows? Anyway, that’s a grim man!

Another interesting document I ran across recently was the pension application of Andrew Jackson Alawine, my great-grandfather. I don’t know who all may have already seen this, but if you haven’t, here it is.

 

If you look through the pages, you’ll see his signature on the 4th one, and, as always, I’m keen on seeing something—anything—my ancestor (male or female) wrote.

You also get a sense of what was going on in his life in 1911, a year before my father (his grandson) was born. For one thing, at the age of 65, he was judged to be “unable to earn a support by his own labor, caused by wounds or injuries received during the civil war.” I have no idea whether he’d been actually wounded, or whether it was just age and the stress of having fought that had debilitated him…possibly both.

And now onward to the Culbertsons, and a mildly irritating problem. First, I’ll remind you of the family tree again:

Eliza (Elizabeth) Culbertson was married to Charles W. Tolbert. Eliza’s parents were Porter William Culbertson and Sarah F. Webb. In 1870 they were 22 and 20, married, in Neshoba County.

1870 Neshoba County MS

Going back past them, Porter’s parents were most likely Thomas B. Culbertson and Minerva (sometimes spelled “Manerva”) Porter. I say “most likely” because on the 1860 census Porter’s listed as “William P.,” and, as Kathy McKinion Sansing has pointed out, there was at least one other William Porter, or Porter William, around to complicate things. There ARE always complications!

Apparently, “Porter” was a highly-venerated family name, since other relatives besides Thomas tagged sons with it. However, the one I see on the 1860 census matches my ancestor in age, so I’m hopeful he is THAT one. Still, these things are hard to figure out. Those names—William and Porter—were really used a lot during the period 1850 to 1900. I mean, A LOT.

Going one more decade back to 1850 with Thomas B. and Minerva, we see Porter listed, again with the right birth year.

1850 Kemper County MS

Up above Thomas on this census is “Mrs. Culbertson,” with “James” in her household.

And in 1860, in Kemper County, there’s a James Culberson (note the spelling of his surname) who’s CLOSE to the right age to be the one in 1850; he has an older woman named Mary in his household at that time. In 1880 he’s probably the same one in Kemper, again, but now with the spelling “Culbertson.”

1860 Kemper County MS

Makes you wish people had named their children different things!

I can’t get past 1850 with Thomas B. and Minerva. There were other Culbertsons in Mississippi—W.D.T., for instance, and his descendants in nearby Winston County. Back in 1980 I met Mary Lynn Holman of Noxapater, whose great-grandfather was W.D.T. (the initials stand for “William Davies Thomas”). There’s a direct line from him to a Revolutionary War soldier; Ms. Holman was in the DAR. I am including a copy of a hand-drawn family “tree” based on what Ms. Holman told me and what I was able to get from these sources: the DAR Patriot Index; a book called Culbertson Genealogy, by L. D. Culbertson, 1923; W.D.T.’s family Bible; and Tomb Records of Winston County, by Josie W. Holman. I mention all this because I hope someone else—thirty-eight years later—can duplicate or improve on my own research. This family chart is, I think, pretty accurate except for how our ancestor Thomas B. Culbertson fits in.

Based on the answers these people supposedly gave census-takers concerning their birth places and ages, I THINK (and am not sure) that our Thomas B. Culbertson was the son of Andrew. He would therefore have been W.D.T.’s nephew.

Some quick remarks to explain the scrawled chart:

At the top left is a disconnected grouping that shows John Thomas and his children, one of whom is Mary, Josiah Culbertson’s wife. One of her brothers was named William Davies and another, Thomas, which was the name Mary gave her son. Look for Josiah in the middle of the tree. Beside him are PA, SC and IN in a tiny circle. The very top sentence I penciled in explains the moves he made and approximately when.

Under Josiah’s name and those state abbreviations are his sons, W.D.T. and Andrew. Andrew, I speculate, may have been “our” Thomas B.’s father.

Near the bottom on the left side I wrote, “These four brothers emigrated from Ireland.” This I read in the materials I cited up above. On the chart, there are four reddish circles identifying the brothers.

By the way, during the Civil War Thomas B. served in the 3rd Mississippi Cavalry Reserves, Company G, as a corporal. This unit surrendered in Columbus, MS, on May 4, 1865.

An interesting and very puzzling thing I recently found concerns Thomas (one of the Thomases, anyway): There’s an 1858 record of a Marine Guard muster roll for the U.S. steamer Mississippi. The list has columns labeled “Date of Enlistment” and “Date of Re-Enlistment,” “Date of Desertion,” “Date of Apprehension,” “Date of Sentence of Court Martial,” and “Of What Offence Found Guilty.”

Muster Roll, USS Mississippi

I’m supposing those last columns are for “just-in-case” scenarios. The records came up in a search I made of “Thomas Culbertson, Mississippi 1850-1860”; therefore, it appears to apply to our ancestor. Thomas had an interesting early life! The remark beside his name says, “Joined Frig. St. Lawrence 23 Oct. 1858.” If this is “our” Thomas, and if he did transfer to the St. Lawrence, he traveled around some before the Civil War.

USS Mississippi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Mississippi_(1841)

And here’s an old sketch from the Library of Congress, showing the frigates St. Lawrence and Minnesota. I will include here another wikipedia link, but this one lacks proper attribution, it says. Still, there is a pretty good paragraph about the St. Lawrence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_St._Lawrence_(1848)

(For fun, if that’s your kind of thing, check out this list of steamers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_steam_frigates_of_the_United_States_Navy )

Back to the Culbertsons:

In 1900, Sarah was listed as head of her household.

1900 Neshoba County MS

She described herself as a widow and, among other children, had a son, Isaac, age 10. (I heard Mother refer to him as “Cousin Ike Culbertson.”) So sometime between 1890 and 1900, Porter had died. It’s interesting that in 1900 Minerva was still alive, living with her daughter Mary who had apparently never married. And, doggone it—right up above that was James with ANOTHER William P. in his house! You see what I mean!

Anyone wishing to contribute to this line, please comment below.

In going through all these things today, I found myself not wanting to fall into a particular pit in which I and others have fallen: using flat, emotionless facts to try to tell a story. I realized halfway through that I’d pasted in a lot of census records, and I wondered whether it had devalued the story behind the dates. I hope not. The problem for me is always that I can’t just make up things to fill gaps and holes. When I can’t find anything to definitely confirm a pet theory of mine, it’s just not possible for me to say the theory is fact. I have to admit that I don’t know. And, unless you have some facts to show me yourself (and I’m always glad when people do), YOU can’t say it’s all true, either.

So, inevitably, I’ll have census records, documents, articles for you to read or look at. Perhaps they’ll help you come to a different but logical conclusion. Tonight my daughter Lauren deciphered the “F” on the muster roll. Since I’d been thinking about ships, that help was what it took for me to connect “Frig.” with the St. Lawrence.

I appreciate good advice.

And if we can remember to find the stories behind these facts, it makes it all so much more interesting!