George Warren Granger

 Brother to Mary Granger Phillips, he had been referred to by their father in a letter to their sister Elizabeth, in Galveston TX in 1861.

Mary had just died and her children were in the care of Elizabeth, while Mary's husband William went and soon joined the Cavalry for the Confederacy.

But George W, was written of as having disappeared...I'll quote that part of his father (George T. Granger)'s letter.

 _______________

Grigsby’s Bluff             Dec. 9, 1861

Dear Elizabeth

        A few days after George left here for Galveston, (NOTE: George is assumed to be his son) I was shocked with a report of Mary’s (his daughter) being dead....."

"... I have been very well since George left.  I went down to the House and stayed there a week (this is probably the one room house where William and Mary Granger Phillips had lived) and...put things to rights and left for this place on the 8^th and I got George’s letter of the 17^th on the 5^th from Beaumont.

(Ah ha moment for me, he left their House and got to Grigsby's Bluff...I had it wrong, the House was not in Grigsby's Bluff.) He was there on Dec 8, wrote this letter on the 9th. received George's letter on Dec 5th. from George having been in Beaumont TX on Nov 17. I would guess the letter had been actually held for him at Grigsby's Bluff from the 5th till he arrived on the 8th.

OK, back to the letter to Elizabeth:

" If George is still with you tell him Mr. Mosley will move out of his house this week & move to Beaumont. (Note: George W. married a woman named Elizabeth Mosley in 1864)  And says you can on the can (?) have his house which belongs to Parvell (?) who ask $12 per month  Mr. Pemley and Mr. Mosley both say it is not worth much more than half that sum 5$ or 6$ is all its worth unless considerable is done to it.  It’s terribly infested with rats and leeks (sic) a good deal and is not so good as it looks but still with some small repairs it will do for us very well.  George knows the place well it is almost a new House, Painted outside but inside only half finished.

        My love to all.    I have not time to write more in (sic) I shall lose my chance to send the letter to Beaumont

                                        `      Your affectionate Father,

                                                        Geo T. Granger

(end of page 2)

(Page 3 letter from Grigsby Bluff, Dec. 9, 1861)

A. B.  Tell George Mr. Hughes has answered his letter & says he will pay the balance due on the $808 Debt deducting the amt paid by sale of Beaumont lots.   Allowing interest from Dec. 14, 1854 on the amount, i.e. provided the Boys wont (sic) pay it.  He will pay it himself.  This will give us something more perhaps $250 instead of $704               G.T.G

(end of page 3) (I haven't figured out who A.B might be in Elizabeth Granger's household.)

__________________________________

It actually sounds to me that George T (father) plans to live with George W. in Galveston. "with some small repairs it will do for us very well." But it must be remembered they were in the lumber business also, so had a lumberyard situated somewhere else in the city of Galveston.

What few documents remain of George W.'s life bring us this:

Born May 15, 1830 in Newburyport, Essex County, MA to Lucy Elizabeth Pulsifer Granger and her Lumber Trader husband, George Tyler Granger. There are 3 records of his birth.

In the 1850 census he's still living at home in Newburyport MA with his mother and father and 3 sisters, listing his occupation as a clerk, while his father was a Lumber Dealer. His brother Joseph is not on the census, so we can asssume he had died. 

I know they probably stayed in Newburyport MA until 1852, when daughter Elizabeth Granger finished her schooling (a school brochure lists her.)

By 1860 they all are living in the big port city of Galveston Texas. It was a boom town, so lumber was a good business. I don't know why else these norterners from Massachusetts would move to the south. They were certain to have had some troubles during the Civil War, though I'm sure they dared not speak publically in favor of Lincoln or the Union.

But remember his sister Mary H. Granger had married William Phillips in 1855. So they were in Galveston by that time, and probably a bit before that, so there could be some courting.

After his father's letter in 1861 missing George W. in either Galveston or Beaumont, or perhaps Sabine Pass...when do we next hear about George W?

In 1864, on Dec. 7 in Jefferson County TX (perhaps Beaumont or Sabine Pass) George W. married Elizabeth T. Mosely who was 20 years old, while George W. was 34. I did sigh in relief that he hadn't been drafted into the Confederate Army, which was probably happening before the end of the war.

In the 1870 census for Galveston, George W. and his wife are living with his father and mother, as well as his sister E P. Sweet and her 3 daughters, sister Lucy Granger Wakeley (incorrectly listed as Elizabeth Wakeley) and her husband.

George was a bookkeeper at that time, age 49, while the enumerator listed his father George T as age 45, and a surveyor. The enumerator made a note as to where they all had been born, but the transcription changed Masp abbreviation with the old fashioned way of writing an s to Mississippi, where in reality it was Massachusetts. George T. must have been 65 by then.

I just found an error on my Ancestry trees, in the dates of death of Lucy Elizabeth Pulsifer Granger, the mother, and her daughter Lucy Ellen Granger Wakeley. Someone had given them same death date. That always raises a red flag for me. So not true at all, the daughter died in 1888 while mother died in 1876.

So back to George. He and his wife Elizabeth T. Mosely Granger, had a son, George Washington Granger, born 23 Feb, 1877.  George Warren may have continued working with his father George T, and we don't know when father died. But the Galveston Daily News started listing George Granger in ads for lumber, cypress, and even selling a house. These listings lasted up until 1896. There are also Galveston Directory listings of his home address, always in Galveston of course.

He died in 1901. No burial is listed, nor details of his death.

 His widow Elizabeth kept house for her son, George Washington, and she is listed in the Galveston Directory as George Granger's widow for many years. Then Elizabeth and her son moved to Beaumont, and she died 3 Nov. 1923 in Beaumont, Jefferson County TX.   On her headstone she is listed as Mother, Elizabeth Granger, and next to her lies her son, George Washington, who lived until 1939. But their marker is in Old Hardin Cemetery, Kountze, Hardin County, TX.

It looks likely that son George Washington married and may have had children. But that's beyond the scope of this post.

HOwever, my next exploration will be into the sisters and brothers of George T. Granger, George Warren's father. And I already found a death date and place for George T., which has been bothering me for years. Well he was a Mason, and there's a notice asking all members to attend his funeral the day after his death!