Dirty Jobs

Many of you may have seen the show “Dirty Jobs” on the Discovery Channel (from 2005-2012) where the host, Mike Rowe, spends a day accompanying people doing manual labor jobs that are classified as “dirty” jobs. He did everything from sewer cleaner to pig farmer to taxidermist. These types of jobs are ones that are necessary to keep our economy going and not the ones that people get college educations for. I respect the people who perform this kind of work. Part of the reason is that I’ve had a few of these types of jobs in my life and I believe that others would benefit from it as well. Here are some of the details.

Charcoal bagger

This is one of the jobs that Mike actually put in his list of the seven dirtiest jobs that he had. Here is what he had to say about it:

"Labor Day cookouts don't happen without a relatively small number of people walking into what amounts to a giant bunker where scrap wood is slowly charred for 72 hours," said Rowe. It's not burned, but rather charred, like a S'more, "just to the point where it becomes internally toasted. Then you hammer the wood, beat it to pieces, and there's smoke everywhere, and you look like Al Jolson."

My first paying job (at about age 10 or 12) was bagging charcoal at the “charcoal pit” at the end of the road. A local neighbor, Mr. Seery, who owned the land, would cut down some trees, put the logs in an enclosure, light it, then seal the entrance so as it burned it would turn to charcoal. It took several days for Mr. Seery and his sons to cut enough trees to fill the enclosure and, as noted above, about 3 days of charring to turn the trees into charcoal. After opening the enclosure, it took another day or so for the charcoal to cool down enough that we could begin breaking apart the big pieces and start the bagging process.

My cousin Dave and I would use a shovel, minus handle, to scoop up the charcoal, fill sturdy paper bags and wrap a wire twist tie around the neck. We got paid so much a bag. It was dirty work, but both Dave and I were hard workers and it was good pocket money. That meant that every few weeks during the summer Dave and I would get to work for several days to bag everything. We’d come home just coated with the charcoal dust. Not sure how my mother felt about how black I got doing this, but it kept us out of trouble and taught us good work ethics.

Truck Tire Recapping

This is another job that Mike Rowe featured in one of his shows. The below video gives some idea of what was involved, but this video shows some of the more advanced technology that is now being used. I’ll note below what was different when I had this job.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X2GMD1TPzg

In 1966, I graduated from high school and needed to have a summer job to earn money to pay for college. My father had seen a job posted at a small business that he went by on the way to his work. The name of the business was “Service Tire.” While they had a showroom where they sold car tires, the primary focus of the business was repairing and recapping truck tires. The owner, Andy, worked on the car tire sales part of the business, together with one lady in the business office. My only exposure to that side of the business was when they needed the sales floor restocked with tires. They were stored in the basement and I’d go down the stairs, load up four tires on each arm and bring them up to be stacked in the showroom.

Everyone else there worked in the tire repair/recapping side of the business (and mostly recapping with only a few repairs from time to time). There were 3 full-time employees, John (the supervisor), Fred (a black fellow), and Frenchie (so called because he was French-Canadian). There were two of us who applied for a job there. I was a skinny 17-year old who weighed perhaps 155 pounds. The guys who worked in the shop didn’t think that I’d last two weeks and they were betting on the other teen. But whereas he quit after less than two weeks, I continued not only the entire summer, but came back the next summer as well.  It was 55 hours a week, nine hours a day and ten on Saturday – with overtime that was 62.5 hours pay at $1.60/hour or a gross of $100/week.

Recapping truck tires is a tiring, tedious job:

·       Step 1 – mount the tire on a buffer that slowly turns the tire past a set of spinning blades that chew off all the outer surface of the tire, even out any flat spots, etc.  While the tire is still mounted on the buffer, you also had to check for any tire imperfections, noting any holes that need patching, grinding out any spots that need it, etc. [Unlike the video above, we had no automated equipment to scan for imperfections, it was a totally manual inspection.]

·       Step 2 – spray a temporary adhesive on the buffed-up surface, put the new raw rubber around the outside and stitch it down (stitcher is like a thick pizza cutter but with a ribbed edge).  [We had no overhead carrying system, so we then had to just carry the tire with brute force from the buffer to the spreader. I could carry nearly all tires by myself, only needed help once when we had a 12x24 tire with 10 layers of steel that took two of us to carry.]

·       Step 3 – put the tire on a spreader which has one set of paddles holding each of the two tire beads, then use air pressure to spread the beads apart which shrinks the overall diameter of the tire (don’t stand in front of the tire as if the paddles slip they will kill you – there was a hole in the cinder block wall at the opposite side of the building from one such slippage!); put an aluminum band on the tire that has the new tread on the inside. [Unlike the video, we did not use cured rubber tread, but used raw uncured rubber and the tread design was in the aluminum band.]

·       Step 4 – put on a heavy metal rim, put the whole thing on a round table with another round table over it, clamp it all together, inflate the inner tube, then run high-temperature steam through the tubes around the outside of the band. 

·       Step 5 – “cook” for several hours. The rubber gets melted into the design on the inside of the aluminum band then cures.

·       Step 6 – remove everything and you have a newly retreaded tire. 

It was generally 90% humidity and over 90 degrees, so with the black rubber dust that you quickly get coated with, you sweat a lot – making the black dust stick even more.  It was hot, hard work, but I came to appreciate this experience over the coming years.

I did the above nine hours a day from M-F. On Saturday we didn’t recap, but there were other duties. The first thing in the morning I had to take a junk truck that we had out back and drive it to the city dump and empty it there. The truck sat there all week and we loaded it up with empty boxes that the rubber had come in, the rubber dust from the buffing operation, and any other trash from the store. I’d borrow one of our dealer plates from one of the other shop trucks, and use jumper cable to start the engine.

The “junk truck” was a real piece of trash. Besides having a dead battery (which is why I had to jump it to get started), the turn signals didn’t work, the clutch was shot so you had to “double clutch” it to shift, and the brakes were shot so you had to pump the brakes while pulling on the emergency brake to stop it. So, part of the job requirement was you had to know how to use a stick shift, know how to give hand signals out the window to indicate turns, etc. Since the dump was only a few miles away it wasn’t too bad, except for the one time that the truck stalled while I was unloading it and it took me close to an hour of giving the battery a rest before trying to start it again.

Once I got back to the shop it was time to make a delivery run. We had a large contract with a trucking company about 25 miles away. We’d recap their tires during the week, then deliver them every Saturday and pick up any that they had noted needed to be recapped to bring back. My job while I was there was to ensure that every single tire in the facility was brought up to proper pressure (low air pressure is one of the leading causes of tire separation due to excessive heat in the flexing). We had a small truck with a compressor and a 200’ air hose which we stored there. I’d drive to one section of the large facility, check every tire (trucks, trailers, and buses) in that section, noting mentally any needing inflation, then start the compressor and use my long hose to bring everything up to spec.

Despite it being really hard work, I enjoyed it and got along well with my fellow workers. The only person who did not appreciate it was my mother. When I got home each day my instructions were “don’t touch anything, just walk straight to the downstairs bathroom, strip down and shower.”

Dirty jobs are everywhere. And the people that are in them are some of the nicest folks I’ve ever had to work with.

Russell Connections

Some Root Connections

Recently I was doing some further research into my wife’s family tree and while tracing the lines from her mother (born Mary Ellen Wright), I ran into a distant ancestor by the name of Hannah Root (1662-1706) who lived most of her life in Connecticut. This especially interested me because my grandfather, Harold Pierpont, had a step-mother, Anna Root, with that same last name (*1). I wondered if the two Root women might be related and so I began tracing those two lines. The answers took me down some very interesting paths.

Hannah’s grandfather was Thomas Root (1605-1694) and her great-grandparents were John Root and Mary Ann Russell (1574-1683). Anna’s Root line went back to John Root (1608-1684) who was a younger brother of Thomas. So not only was my wife a distant cousin of my grandfather’s step-mother, but there was a Russell connection as well. Some further investigation was definitely called for.

The Russell Links

Mary Ann Russell was the daughter of Francis Russell (1554-1585) who was the 4^th child of Francis Russell (1527-1585). Her marriage to John Root[e] is documented in (*2). But this latter Francis was the 2^nd Earl of Bedford. This means that Francis, 2^nd Earl of Bedford, is the great*11 grandfather of my wife as well as my step-great*11 grandfather.

But there are other connections to the Earls of Bedford that I have previously investigated (*3).

First, going through my grandmother, Sarah [Blackman] Pierpont, and following her ancestral line from Blackman to Talmadge to Sperry to Russell – Sarah’s great*2 grandmother is Mary Russell (1786-1857)). Mary is descended from Lord Edward Russell (1572-1627), the older brother of Mary Ann, and the 3^rd Earl of Bedford. Through this path Francis, 2^nd Earl of Bedford, is my great*14 grandfather.

Finally, my Pierpont great*6 grandfather, Joseph Pierpont, married Hannah Russell. Hannah is descended from William Russell, the 5^th child of Francis (*4). Through this path, Francis, 2^nd Earl of Bedford, is my great*10 grandfather.

What an amazing number of connections to this significant family in England!

The current Duke of Bedford, Andrew Henry Ian Russell, is the 15^th Duke of Bedford. His line of descent from the Earls and prior Dukes of Bedford is a somewhat complicated one (*5), but Francis, 2^nd Earl of Bedford, is his great*13 grandfather. This means that he is my 11^th cousin, 3 times removed (as well as my step-12^th cousin twice removed and my 14^th cousin, once removed) and he is also the 12^th cousin, twice removed of my wife.

Connections among the various Russell groups

While I have mentioned some of the connections between the Bedford Russells, the Kingston Russells, the Scottish Russell ancestors in my direct Russell line, and the origin of the family name in Normandy (*3), I’d like to explore that a little more.

The biography of the first Earl of Bedford, John Russell (*6), claims that his father was Sir James Russell, his grandfather was most likely John Russell, his great-grandfather was Sir Henry Russell, and his great-great-grandfather was Sir Stephen Russell. It then notes that “It was long believed that the family was descended from the ancient family of Russell of Kingston Russell in Dorset, which descent was declared unproven by Gladys Scott Thomson in 1930.”

Similarly, the writeup on the Bedford Russell coat of arms in (*5) notes that “The arms show a claim to be descended from the medieval lord Hugh de Rozel, which has been debunked, especially by J. Horace Round in his essay The Rozels of Bedford (1999). The family tree on the website of Woburn Abbey only refers to the descent from the provable Stephen Russell in 1394.”

However, in (*7), it notes that recent research shows that Sir Theobald Russell (1301-1340) was a direct ancestor of John Russell, the first Earl of Bedford, and documents the line of descent in great detail. Thus, it appears that more recent research, with all the advances in DNA analysis and using the Internet to pull together resources that were previously unavailable, has superseded the prior conclusions.

Since the Kingston Russells trace their lineage back to the time of William the Conqueror, this would also mean that all the connections I have documented above take my lineage back to Norman times and prior to that to the Vikings who conquered Normandy in the 900s (and which accounts for the small percentage of Swedish DNA in my blood (*8)).

Finally, my direct Russell ancestors through my father go back to Robert Russell who immigrated to New York from Scotland around 1750. He would have been part of the Clan Russell, an armigerous clan in Scotland (*9). While there is no complete family documented from this clan, they claim connections back to the original Baron Rozel in Normandy through individuals who arrived in Scotland as early as the mid-1100s.

Notes:

*1 – https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2017/12/genealogy-story-my-pierpont-grandparents.html

*2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Russell,_2nd_Earl_of_Bedford

*3 - https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2018/12/russell-ancestral-lines.html 

*4 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Russell,_1st_Baron_Russell_of_Thornhaugh

*5 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_of_Bedford

*6 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Russell,_1st_Earl_of_Bedford

*7 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingston_Russell

*8 - https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2018/09/revised-dna-results.html

*9 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Russell

Lost Dukedom of the New England Pierponts

One of the long forgotten stories of the New England Pierponts is how they made an effort to claim a title in England of the Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull. In order to understand this effort a little background information is needed first.

Background on English Titles

There are three categories of individuals in England – commoners, peers, and royalty. Commoners may sometimes be recognized for their contribution to the country or to royals, in which case they are knighted and given the designation of “Sir”. For example, the drummer for the Beatles, Ringo Starr, was recently knighted for his contribution to music and charity and is now officially Sir Richard Starkey MBE (Member of the British Empire). There have been several such individuals in the history of the Pierrepont family (*1). This designation is for an individual only and cannot be passed on.

Peers are given specific titles by the royalty. There are five levels of peerage, from lowest to highest baron, viscount, earl, marquess, and duke. These may also be awarded with (or without) various types of inheritance rules such as “heir male” or “heir general”. In general, the higher the level the more likely that inheritance may be attached to it as well. An individual may have more than one title. Also, the higher levels are often associated with specific properties, so that while someone may be Baron Smith, at a higher level they may be the Earl of Anytown.

Royalty are in another entire category – which I will not attempt to explain here. Royals may also be given various other titles as well. For example, the full title of Prince Charles is: His Royal Highness Prince Charles Phillip Arthur George, Prince of Wales, Earl of Chester, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Prince and Great Steward of Scotland. (How's that for a mouthful!)

Peerage in the Pierpont Family

There had been a number of knights in the Pierrepont family over the centuries. The direct forebear of the peers in the family was Sir Henry Pierrepont (1546-1616) who represented Nottinghamshire in Parliament (*2) and who had succeeded his father, Sir George. Sir Henry's son, Sir Robert Pierpont (1584-1643), was created Viscount Newark and Baron Pierrepont in 1627. In 1628 Robert was further honored when he was made Earl of Kingston-upon-Hull.

The first Earl was succeeded by his son, Henry Pierrepont (1607-1680), who was also created Marquess of Dorchester in 1645. When he died his Marquessate became extinct as it could only pass to male descendants. However, the Earldom and other titles devolved on his nephew, Robert (1660-1682), the son of Henry's younger brother. Robert died unmarried two years later and was succeeded by his younger brother William (1662-1690), who himself died a few years later without issue and he was succeeded by yet another younger brother, Evelyn (1665-1726).

Evelyn received other titles – Marquess of Dorchester in 1706, and then he became the first Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull in 1715. When he died, these titles passed to his grandson, also named Evelyn (1711-1773), as the first Evelyn's son, William (1692-1713) had died in the meantime. All these titles became extinct when the younger Evelyn died without issue in 1773.

When Evelyn's wife died in 1796, Evelyn's estates passed to Charles Medows (1737-1816) who was a great-grandson of the first Duke (Evelyn) through the female line. Charles changed his surname to Pierrepont and was created Baron Pierrepont of Holme Pierrepont in 1796 and later Earl Manvers (*3) in 1806. The title of Earl Manvers passed down through his ancestors until the death of the 6^th Earl, Gervase Evelyn Pierrepont (1881-1955) in 1955.

The New England Pierpont Interest

Note that much of the below is taken from the seminal work on the Pierpont family, Pierrepont Genealogies from Roman Times to 1913 (*4).

The New England Pierponts are descended from a brother of Sir Henry, William (1547-1648). William's son was James (1580-1664), who with his sons John (1616-1682) and Robert (1621-1694) were the first of the Pierpont line to come to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1640s. John's oldest son who survived past childhood was the Rev. James (1659-1714) who moved to New Haven.

The Rev. James believed that he was an heir of his 3rd cousin – at that point Evelyn (1665-1726) who had inherited the Earldom a few years earlier. Because there were so few male descendants in the English branch of the Pierreponts, Rev. James believed that the titles held by Evelyn would eventually pass back up through their common ancestor Sir George. There were no other remaining male descendants from the intervening generations.

Note that even today, few of us have much knowledge of who our 3^rd/4^th cousins are and could accurately recount how we are related. So consider how much more difficult this would have been 300 years ago. Also, there was a good reason for the rift and lack of communication between the English and New England branches of the family. While Sir Henry and his descendants had remained loyal to the Church of England, his brother William was sympathetic to the Puritans and the center of that movement was only a few miles from Nottinghamshire in the town of Scrooby where William Brewster, William Bradford, and many of the Pilgrims came from. This “non-conformity” created a barrier between the descendants of Sir Henry and the descendants of William and all communication between the two halves of the family had ceased at that point.

The following is taken from an article in the magazine of the New England Historical Genealogical Society (*5), but this is based on the earlier work (*4).

Few colonial New England families were as attentive to their ancestral connections in England as the Pierponts, and for none were the stakes greater. Several generations of the American family considered themselves closely related to the aristocratic Pierreponts of Holme Pierrepont in Nottinghamshire, England. On various occasions throughout the eighteenth century, the New Englanders sought to clarify the relationship and establish a closer association with their titled English kinsmen. As the English branch teetered towards extinction in the male line, some of the New England Pierponts believed that they might be successors to the cousins' titles and estates, which after 1715 included the Dukedom of Kingston-upon-Hull.

The Reverend James Pierpont (1659-1714) was the first member of the American family to act upon his real or perceived relationship to the English Pierreponts. The New Haven clergyman recruited colonial agent Jeremiah Dummer in London to assist him in his investigations. In March 1711 Dummer advised Pierpont on progress in his research, stating that “if there be the least appearance of making you a title to any part of the Pierreponts estate in Darby or anywhere else, I'll take the opinion of counsel upon it and transmit you the state of the case.” Dummer further recommended that the minister establish contact with his presumptive cousin by writing the Marquess of Dorchester to congratulate him on a recent marriage in his family. In the meantime, Dummer was engaged to have a Pierpont coat-of-arms painted “by the best hand in London” for his New Haven client. Two months later, Dummer wrote again informing the minster that he had called upon the Marquess of Dorchester (otherwise known as the fifth Earl of Kingston and later created the first Duke of Kingston by George I) to introduce the subject of his American cousins and their shared ancestry. The nobleman, Dummer reported, was living “in great splendor” but was a “bad herald” and could not recount the family history any earlier than the reign of Charles I. Dummer promised to follow up with the nobleman's elderly uncle, perhaps the Baron Pierrepont of Ardglass, who was evidently a more capable family historian. The response to the Reverend James Pierpont's genealogical enquiries by this aged gentleman, if any, remains unrecorded.

The Rev. James died in 1714 without ever having established the link to his then living Pierrepont cousins. His oldest son, also James (1699-1776), tried in the years after his father's death to continue that pursuit of reestablishing connections to his English cousins. The latter years of his life were consumed in this pursuit. James' cousin, John, who was a descendant from another branch of the New England Pierponts also got involved, but that only muddied the water. John actually left his new wife in Roxbury, Massachusetts and went to England where he attempted to ingratiate himself with the Duke. During his several years there he was accused of forging the Dukes signature among other things. When he finally returned to New England he found that his wife had declared him dead and remarried and his creditors wanted to be repaid. After a short time, during which he was told that he was persona-non-grata, he left and returned to England and he was lost track of.

The final Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull died in 1773 without male issue, and James died a few years later, ending this 50+ year effort to prove the male descent which would have enabled James to sail to England and claim the title.

The story continues in (*5):

The Pierpont family in America did not let go of its ducal pretensions easily. Jonathan Pierpont was in 1767 captain of a brig call Duke of Kingston and another descendant, Joseph Pierpont of Boston, was in his lifetime nicknamed “the Duke of Kingston.” Whether guided by caprice or legitimate claim, the New England Pierponts were unsuccessful at every turn in their quest for the dukedom they so clearly coveted. In time, memories of the saga eventually faded, taking on the patina of an unlikely, if not fanciful, family legend.

It was reported that in 1878, [Munson] Edwards Pierrepont, a descendant (great-great-grandson) from Rev. James, went as Minister to England where he was entertained by the then Earl of Manvers (Sydney) in the ancestral home in Nottinghamshire. While there the Earl showed him the musty family records which documented the connection between the two parts of the family. If James, or his agent Drummer, had been able to see them 150 years earlier, then he could have relocated to England and in time perhaps have become the Duke of Kingston-upon-Hull and the Lord of Holme Pierrepont. But alas, the Dukedom had been surrendered upon the death of the last Duke in 1773 and it was a century too late!

Notes:

*1 - https://ramblinrussells.blogspot.com/2018/05/pierpont-genealogy-lords-and-sirs-in.html

*2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duke_of_Kingston-upon-Hull

*3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Manvers

*4 – Pierrepont Genealogies from Roman Times to 1913, R. Burnham Moffat, 1913.

**5 – D. Brenton Simons, “Dreams of castles: The 'lost' dukedom of the New England Pierponts,” New England Ancestors, 19-20, 24.

Investigating a Family Legend

A while ago I had noticed that my daughter-in-law’s grandfather had the middle name of Merril/Merrill. In looking back farther, as expected, I confirmed that his middle name was the maiden name of one his ancestors – in his case his maternal grandmother, Frances Merrill. Since the Merrill name is in my family tree as well, the mother of my maternal grandfather being Annie Merrill, I suspected that there was a family connection. Further research confirmed that my daughter-in-law was also my 8^th cousin.

Upon relaying this to her, she informed me that it would not be a blood relationship since there was an adoption in that part of her family tree. I initially just took her at her word. This past week I had the opportunity to spend a few days in Florida with my son, daughter-in-law, and three grandchildren. While there, I noticed on their book shelf a ½” notebook containing a lot of genealogical material that had been produced by her grandparents back in 1995. Included in that notebook was a two-page write-up about the “adoption” of Frances, who was reported to have been rescued from an Indian village and adopted by the Merrill family. In asking about it, my daughter-in-law also informed me that two family members had recently taken a DNA test and their results showed no Native American blood in them. So perhaps the adoption story was incorrect?

Below I have reproduced the two-page write-up about Frances and following it my investigation into the facts behind it.

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A few words concerning Frances F. Benton, wife of Dennis G. Benton, Sr.

Away back in the times of History when the white man was coming into the part of the “New World” now called Pennsylvania, there was a tribe of Indians that was called by some “The Penn Indians.” They were of the “Sac Tribe.”

In time these Indians were bought out of Pennsylvania and moved to the Mississippi, or what was called the West at that time. Then a more Whites came to the New World, they finally caught up with these Indian again and were having trouble with them.

This tribe was finally surrounded and real war broke out. They fought until they thought every Indian was dead. The Captain of the Whites called “attention” and gave the order that if you hear a groan out of any Indian to go and finish him off for they did not want even one to escape.

While standing at attention someone heard a little girl or baby crying. They followed the sound of the voice and found a little girl and her brother under a syrup vat or scalding vat used in butchering. They Captain came and started to draw his sword to kill these two children. But a man by the name of Mr. Merrill grabbed the Captain’s arm and would not let the Captain kill the children. “I have been married for 20 years and have no children. I want them and if you will let me have them and give me leave of absence long enough to take them to my wife, I will return to you and serve you as long as you need me.”

The captain granted Mr. Merrill his leave of absence and he took the children to his wife and then returned as per his promise.

After the war was over and the soldiers had returned to their homes, the cholera broke out and both Mr. and Mrs. Merrill died of cholera and these two Indian children were then adopted by an elderly couple by the name of Rachold.

They lived happily together until in their old age both Mr. and Mrs. Rachold passed away. Nobody seemed to want these Indian children who were big enough at this time to get work and everyone seemed to want to get rid of them.

About this time in History, new land was being opened up for homesteads in what was called Kansas. There were several families making up a train of wagons that were going to travel through together to Kansas and all take homesteads in this new land. So the people in general in the vicinity made up an agreement or purse and sent these children with this caravan and told them “when you get to Kansas, turn this boy and girl loose and let them go to the rest of the Indians and live with them.”

While on their way to Kansas, this caravan was overtaken by real winter weather and they pulled into a town in the state of Iowa and made camp for the winter. While there this Indian girl (maiden) met a young man, fell in love with him and married him. Later in life this couple with their children also went to Kansas to homestead. The brother of this maiden (wife of Dennis G. Benton) went along with them to Kansas. They homesteaded and built a house and set up a saddle post office for the community – Carmi, Kansas.

(Note by Harriet E. Walton: Charlie Benton was born in dugout while they were building the soddie. Harriet E. Benton Walton was born in the Post Office and lived in it until 7 years old. Her Mother died when she was 16 years old.)

The brother of this Indian girl obtained work on a farm helping with the farm. They also had another farm hand, at this place, who did not like Indians. But this Indian was a good worker and this farmer would not fire the Indian. There came a time one day when the farmer and his wife had to make a trip into town and would not be back in time to fix dinner for them. So they told the men, “When noon time comes, one of you take care of both teams while the other one gets the dinner. They drew straws to see who would get dinner and it fell to the Indian to get the meal. This he did and went to call the while man for dinner, but could not find him. But he saw the cattle all coming to the barnyard for a drink. He also notices that the corral wires had been clipped, and that all the cattle could walk right out into the standing grain fields and sorghum crops. The Indian tried to patch the fence but there was nothing to patch it with. So the Indian got in the gap and tried to keep the cattle from getting out of the corral. But there was a bad fighting bull in the herd and taking things in hand, charged the Indian and gored him to death.

When the farmer and wife arrived home, this is what they found. The Indian dead where the bull had killed him, and all the stock out in the growing grain. The white man was gone, both teams tangled in their harness – not having been fed at noon.

Now back to this Mr. and Mrs. Dennis G. Benton family, fighting their way through hardships of early pioneer life. They succeed in bringing up a family of seven children who grew to marriageable age and married.

This was written by Fred. B. Willard (grandson of the Bentons) from memory.

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Indian War – The tribe described in the first few paragraphs is the Sac/Sauk tribe (*1). This tribe was involved in the Black Hawk War and the types of incidents mentioned such as killing of the Native Americas by the Europeans really did happen that way (*2). It should be noted that this war took place in April-August of 1832. Following that war, the Native Americans had been pushed back all the way to western Iowa.

*1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sac_and_Fox_Nation

*2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hawk_War’

Merrill Involvement in the War – The “Mr. Merrill” mentioned in the legend is Lloyd Merrill (1804-1854). But there are a few problems with the legend as recounted. First, in 1832, while he was about the right age to be a soldier in that war (he would have been about 28), Lloyd was still living in NY (as evidenced by his having children born in NY in both 1830 and 1833). Secondly, there is no record of his ever having performed any military service.

Frances being an Indian Maiden – Frances was born in Ohio in 1840, eight years after the Black Hawk War took place. Also, the mention that Lloyd wanted to take the young children because he and his wife had been married for 20 years and had no children is false. In the 1840 census Lloyd is recorded as having four children – one boy 15-19, one girl 10-14, and two girls 5-9. In the 1850 census, when names of family members are recorded we can see that the boy is Hadger (born 1826), the older girl is Orello (born 1830), one of the younger girls is Lucilia (born 1833), one has apparently died, and the family has been supplemented with Frances (born in 1840 after the census was taken earlier that year). There is no record of a “brother” about the same age as Frances.

Rachold Family – Both Lloyd Merrill and his wife passed away in the cholera epidemic of 1854 when Frances was a young teen. I could not locate any family by the name Rachold or anything like it living in Ohio in the 1850 census, although it’s possible that the name of the family is enough different that I could not locate them. But Frances married in 1856, just two years later, so she would not have lived with them long, if at all. And since she was already “old enough to work” when her parents died, this element of the story is also a bit suspect, although it may be true.

Meeting Dennis Benton – While there is no issue with whom Frances married, the story about going west on a wagon train and meeting him in Iowa is unlikely. Frances and Dennis married in Erie County, Ohio, the same county where she was born and lived with her parents until their untimely passing. She and Dennis did move to Iowa early in their marriage (their first child was born there in 1858), but meeting in Iowa and then making the long trek back to Ohio (where they were both from), only to almost immediately return to Iowa, would not have been practical. It is far more likely that they met and married in Ohio, then moved to Iowa a short time thereafter.

Frances’ Brother – As noted above, there is no record of another brother in the Merrill family. There is a younger brother living with Dennis and Frances in the 1860 census, but the younger brother is Hiram Benson, a younger brother of Dennis, not of Frances. Thus, the story of the Indian brother, the white man, and the cattle is also quite unlikely or at least is not a story about Hiram. Hiram served in the Civil War in 1862 and was a casualty of that war.

Final Years – The remainder of the story, about Dennis and Frances living in Iowa but eventually moving to Kansas is correct. Based on census records and other data, it appears that they had a total of fifteen children but several of them died young: Loyd Burr (1858-1862), Laura Annette (1860-1904), Edward J. (1862-1876), Albert Henry (1866-1944), unnamed son (1869-1869), Clara Aretta (1869-1869), Fannie L (1872-1938), Esther Lucelia (1872-1872), Fredrick W (1873-1874), unnamed daughter (1875-1875), Flora Evaline (1876-1926), Dennis Goddard Jr (1878-1970), Charles Watson (1879-1952), Harriet Estella (1882-1976), and Minnie Ruth (1885-1918). The years from 1869 to 1875 must have been very hard ones with five of six children born in that period dying at birth or shortly thereafter. Frances died in 1898 and Dennis a few years later in 1903.

Where did the Legend come from?

The author of the above paper was Fredrick Burl Willard (1893-1982) who was a son of Laura Annette [Benton] Willard. Frances died when Fred was only 5, Dennis when he was 10, and his mother when he was 11. So as he recorded this story “from memory” late in his life it had been nearly 8 decades since he had heard the various aspects of it.

There is certainly no doubt that Dennis and Frances lived a hard life on the prairies of Iowa and Kansas. But it appears that Fredrick blurred several things together in his memory from when he may have heard them until they were recorded from that memory so many decades later. The story of the Black Hawk War and the result of the Native Americans being pushed out of eastern Iowa would have been an exciting one for a young boy to hear. And it is quite likely that he heard stories of the wagon trains of people who moved west from places like Ohio to Iowa and Kansas. Kansas had become open to settlement in 1854, just a few years before Dennis and Frances met (in Ohio), so it’s easy to see how those facts became mingled in Fred’s young mind.

Thus, while it appears that the “Indian maiden” story is only a legend, the real story is just as interesting and I have enjoyed the work of researching it. The bottom is that my cousin relationship to my daughter-in-law is in fact a blood relationship and the science behind the DNA that did not detect any Native American blood in the family can be confirmed.