Who was an outcast?

 Outcast is the suggestion for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks for this week.

Who should I consider an outcast in my ancestors? The  Captain of a Confederate ship that was imprisoned at the beginning of the Civil War? 

Dear old great great grandfather Alexander G. Swasey, the Captain of several ships out of Charleston, including transporting slaves to New Orleans from the caribbean and Charleston SC. I'm of course not proud of this information, but I refuse to delete it from my history. This is what happened. Several other ancestors may have also been involved in the trading of Afticans, but the documents have all disappeared, thanks to well meaning people who thought that they could feel better by denying that their ancestors did these things.

"Here's some verbiage based on what the docent at the Charleston Slave Mart told me.  I can't verify that my memory is totally correct, or the historical veracity of what he said without researching it more.  But this is my best recollection - feel free to edit however you want:

 

Captain Alexander G. Swasey was a ship captain as well as a Confederate blockade runner during the Civil War.  Although he was based for a time in Charleston, South Carolina (and ultimately died there), the historical record shows he made trips between Charleston, New Orleans, and the Caribbean.  According to information provided by a docent at the Charleston Slave Mart Museum, this was a common triangle for slave runners.  Once the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves took effect in 1808 (the earliest date permitted by the United States Constitution), slave states continued to smuggle slaves by claiming that any slave brought from Africa who even set foot in the Caribbean was no longer considered "imported."  Charleston and New Orleans were two of the most important slave ports at the time, so the triangle among those two cities and ports in the Caribbean would have been a common route for slave captains such as A.G. Swasey."

 

John Fitz Rogers

December 29, 2016

John F. Rogers is my first cousin, so has the same relationship to Captain Swasey.

Francis, age 30, slave transported from Charleston to New Orleans, as A.G. Swasey affirmed. 

A slave manifest from 1843 possibly. A.G. Swasey is "agent for F. M. Cotter."  My attempt at reading the initials of Mr. Cotter may be way off. I can however, read the ages from 50 down to 4 years old.

I also don't know anything about the Calluo, the ship for both of these trips. Captain Swasey was often in charge on ships owned by others, sometimes a group of merchants.

He also married and had 5 children in St. Augustine FL, from 1839 to at least 1853, when our great grandfather, Alexander John Swasey was born. Then he apparently moved and is listed in a census of 1856 in Newport, Rhode Island, where he had been born in 1812.

He was master (captain?) of the Ella Warley, a renamed sidewheeler originally the Isabel, that was a blockade runner for the Confederacy. The Union tried to keep the southern ports from sending or receiving goods with their blockade. Since the southern states had been the major source for cotton in Europe up till then, it sat in warehouses, and the Confederate families learned to live without imported items.

"The Steamship Isabel, Charleston, South Carolina, circa 1855 Oil on canvas 30 1/4 x 50 1/4 inches

This rendering of the steamship Isabel, which had a maritime career from 1848 to 1863, is a highly evocative representation of the maritime history of antebellum South Carolina and the Confederate States of America.

Commissioned by a group of Charleston business leaders, the Isabel was built in Baltimore, Maryland in 1847-1848. It was constructed specifically to serve the United States postal service, as well as coastal passenger trade, between the eastern United States and the Spanish colony of Cuba.

During the Civil War, the Isabel, renamed the Ella Warley, operated out of Charleston for two years as a blockade runner. Following its capture by the Union Navy in April 1862, the Ella Warley was purchased by a New York City shipping company. The illustrious ship’s career ended when it collided with another vessel and sank off Sandy Hook, New Jersey in February 1863.

Essay by the Charleston Renaissance Gallery.

(Note, this essay mistakenly gives the Isabel as the ship that rescued the Union Troops at Ft. Sumpter in 1861. At that time it was still a Confederate blockade runner until capture in April 1862.)

It's interesting to note that some military documents inferred that the Ella Waley had an opportunity to escape capture in Nassau.

"On the morning of the 2d inst. the ocean steamer Ella Warley, Capt. SWASEY, ran the blockade at Charleston, from Nassau, N.P. She was chased and fired on by the blockading squadron, without harm to her. Her passengers were all English and Scotch, except B.T. BISBIE, late a bearer of Confederate dispatches to Europe. The Nassau authorities forced the Flambeau out of the harbor to coal, which gave the Ella Warley the chance to escape."

SOURCE: NY Times printing of letters received at the Adjutant-General's office, from Brig.-Gen. SHERMAN, dated: HEADQUARTERS G.C., PORT ROYAL, S.C., Jan. 2, 1862.

Note again dates! This letter of Jan. 2 talks of the "2d inst" (meaning this month) when the Ella Warley ran the blockade. But General Sherman's missive to the Times was also dated Jan. 2nd. I wonder that it might have been any time from Nov. to Feb, since the Times could not receive messages even by ship in less than a few days. But apparently Captain Swasey did escape that time. But how did Sherman know the makeup of the passengers? Anyway, by April she was indeed captured by Union ships.

And my great great grandfather spent most of the rest of the next 3 years in a Union Prison, Fort Warren, on George's Island in Boston Harbor, MA. He somehow made it back to Charleston following release, and died a sick man on March 16, 1866.

Fort Warren

Shared with the FB group Generations Cafe' for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

Social Media and Ancestors

 I have had a blog with various postings of my ancestors since I retired in 2017. I had at that time, three separate family trees on Ancestry. That made my huge family trees more manageable for me. Only one grandparent didn't have any ancestors that I've been able to find...so these three represent my 3 grandparents.

Anyway, Three Family Trees had been publishing for about a year, when I received an email from someone who said her line of ancestry intersected mine.

That email led to many more as I learned that the younger sister of my 2nd Great Grandfather Captain Alexander G. Swasey was her ancestor. 

Ruth Ann Swasey married William Davenport James. And their descendent, Linda Clark contacted me in 2018. She's still updating her tree, because when she does, I get a notification by email from Ancestry.

Linda and I are 4th cousins. This internet is a place where we have shared our information on the lives that our ancestors lived. Who would have known how long this would have taken from all the old letters back and forth before 2000 or so. 

I'm linking this to 52 Ancestors 52 Weeks, Social Media

A  photo from a book publication Alexander G. Swasey (1812-1866) - describing how he had been Connfederate Captain of the early blockade runner Ella Warley from Jan. 1862 until her capture on April 25, 1862. He then spent the rest of the Civil War in a Union prison on an island in Boston Harbor.

Ruth A. Swasey James, (1828-1908) probably taken around 1900.

Sharing on FaceBook at Generation's Cafe. 

Oops

 The families I spring from have some strange proclivities. What can I say? There are women on both my mother's side, and my father's side of my tree who tended to marry a man named Rogers.

My mother obviously did so in 1936  to George E. Rogers Jr. But another possible reason for posting under the topic of "Oops" is the date my parents got their marriage license. Yep, Friday the 13th!

Clipping says: "When Mataley Munhall and George E. Rogers walked into county clerk's office for marriage license Friday they didn't know it was the dire Friday 13. Told of the date, they hesitated not one whit, flaunting the age old superstitions. Wedding is set for November 21."

But my mother's aunt Rowena, sister of her mother, had already married Robert S. Rogers in 1927.

No relation between these 2 Rogers men, though they both lived in San Antonio Texas at the latter date. 

My father's father (George Rogers, Sr.) had one younger sister, Annie Lou Rogers who married Patrick Henry Wilson. They had 3 kids, the youngest being a daughter named Elizabeth Marie Wilson. She would be a first cousin once removed, I think of mine, my great aunt's daughter. 

Elizabeth Marie Wilson married Frederick Funston Rogers sometime between 1937 and 1942. He was a doctor, and their first child was Frederick Jr. born in 1943. They lived in Galveston TX.

Elizabeth Marie Wilson Rogers and Dr. Frederick Funston Rogers

So there were 3 women who married unrelated Rogers men. But the women were related through me...my mother's aunt, and my fathers' cousin who's mother had a maiden name of Rogers. And my mother who married my father.

Not exactly an "Oops" but still I thought it was interesting.

My Great Aunt Margaret, a teacher

 For this week's topic - Education - I've chosen to share about one of my favorite people in my family. 

Great Aunt Margaret was my grandmother's sister, who never married and taught Junion High School Mathematics and Home Ec. almost all her life.

She was the youngest of the 4 daughters, Mozelle (my grandmother,) Rowena, and Dorothy came before her. They had been born in San Antonio, Texas, where their father called home as a railroad conductor...and their mother made a house into a home. 

Margaret was born on January 10, 1909 in Smithville, Bastrop County, Texas, a small town on the Colorado River (the one in Texas). I can only guess the family moved there because the railroad told the father that's where the work was. On the 1910 Census for Smithville, the family next door had the father also being a railroad worker.

By the time she was 11 the family had moved back to San Antonio in the 1920 Census, but my grandmother had married and left the family home. In the next census (1930) the three remaining daughters lived with their parents still but in the home that would be the parents' for the rest of their lives, 111 Davis Court. 

As my grandmother's first husband died in 1919 she was living with her husband's brother for the 1920 census. Then my grandmother remarried and then he died also, so my mother was back in "Grandma's House."

This photo is dated 1925, but I think my mother is a bit younger than 8 at that time. She's standing next to her grandmother.

Here my grandmother is, dressed up, and my mother dated 1924, when she would have been 7.

OK, back to Aunt Margaret!

In 1927 she was dressed fashionably for the times.  I would imagine by then she was teaching at the Jr. High School.

After my great grandmother (her mother) died Jan. 1, 1936, my great grandfather Charles Herman Miller, took Aunts Margaret and Dorothy in August for a trip by ship to Cuba and back. I tried to get a screenshot of the manifest, but my computer saved them in la la land!

Anyway, for the 1940 census Great Grandpa Charles was living with my grandmother (after my mother had married in 36) and Dorothy and Margaret...still on Davis Court. 

Great grandpa Charles died in 1946, after I'd been born in 42. But I never heard that he saw me, nor were there any photos in my family albums of him.

Aunt Margaret retired at some point. I last visited her on one of my cross-country treks in the 70s. It's a good thing I had a camper van, because her tiny one bedroom apartment couldn't have squeezed myself and my two sons on one trip, nor myself and my teacher boyfriend on another.

I had stayed in touch with Aunt Margaret through the years, sometimes sending photos of my family with Christmas cards.  She died June. 22, 1980.

I loved her open and positive disposition, always listening to others, answering questions truthfully! 

She had kept a few documents about the family, which she showed me. At the time I didn't take photos of the clippings, and so I only remembered one. But I've since been able to locate the information it contained. It was about my great grandmother's father who was killed in a shoot-out, and apparently the killer never was tried for that murder, but he was tried for another one.

But that will have to wait till there's a topic that talks about gunfights in Texas. Right!

Out of Place

 I thought the only thing that would be "out of place" would be a record that somehow was about someone or someplace wrong, under someone's Ancestry listing. I scanned through a few of the generations a couple back, the great granfathers etc. Nothing came to mind. There are frequently hints posted by others on Ancestry, having the same line, and maybe something different in their information.

This is rather lame, but one important ancestor, the son of a Revolutionary War Soldier, moved to South Carolina to Union District. And some of the records are listed under Union, Union County, South Carolina, and some under Union District.

Yep that seems pretty petty to me, as enough of the families occur with one or the other home places. Obviously (to me) it was originally just a district, before a town was formed, and the county named. And Union District was formed from "Old 96 District!"

James Gibbs and his youngest son, Hiram Gibbs, apparently received grants of land, 500 acres for his father in 1769 in "Old 96 District," and a land grant of 640 acres for James in 1772 in Fairforest near the Lower Fairforest Baptist Church. 

But here's the Lower Fairforest Baptist Church on a modern map, in Union County SC.

Just the passage of time.

This map shows a survey of a 374 acre platt of land for Hiram Gibbs in 1822, in Union District.

Sharing with 52 Ancestors 52 Weeks which is over on Facebook the Generations Cafe'.

Thanks for hosting this fun meme, Amy Johnson Crowe!

Favorite Photo

  I have 2 women's photos that are just about equally my favorites.

A studio photo of my mother, Mataley Mozelle Webb Munhall Rogers (1917-2003)

My namesake...but Eugenia had already been taken when I was born, so I was Barbara Booth. I guess I'm glad I didn't get Almeda (also spelled Almetta) as my middle name! Eugenia Almeda Booth Miller (1873-1936)  had been raised by her grandparents after being orphaned at a young age. She then helped greatly in raising my mother as well as her own 4 daughters.

Incidentally, her mother had the same name, Eugenia Almetta Whitty Booth.

For 52 Ancestors 52 Weeks

I’d Like to Meet

 Week 1 of 52 Ancestors 52 Weeks.

I’d Like to Meet

...my mother's grandmother, Annie Elizabeth Williams Webb. Her birth was recorded in Columbus MO, but she was probably born on a farm on June 20, 1862.

By the time she was 15 she had migrated with some family and friends to Texas, where she married 20 year old Leroy, (Larry, L.F.) Francis Webb, who had been born in Texas to a family from Maryland.

Their marriage on August 7, 1877 was recorded in the Goliad County records (microfilms now.) 

The Census for Goliad County in 1880 has L. F. Webb as a Retail Grocerer, and A. E. (Annie) at 18 is running the house for their first 2 sons, and L. F.'s 2 brothers and 2 sisters. 

The Grocery business had been handed down from L. F.'s father, Samuel James Webb, who had raised his little family in Goliad TX. L. F.'s mother had immigrated from New York, and his father had come from Maryland, and they also married in Goliad County, TX (1856).

Annie E. was born to William T. Williams who had come to Middleton, Missouri from Kentucky, and Dorcas White Williams also came from Kentucky. They had all their 8 children in Missouri. The 1870 census finds Dorcas working as a domestic and living in a boarding house under her maiden name, Dorcas White. Her husband may have already left for Texas where he bought land at least by 1877, then the family reunited by the 1880 census where William T. Williams was a farmer with the 3 youngest of their children still living with them. The Census has 3 other Williams' families listed next to them.  

Annie E. Williams Webb was living with L. F. Webb in 1880 in Goliad County. There's a photograph of the  Grocery/Feed Store, dated 1894, as if they are leaving Weesatchee, Goliad County TX. (That's the Anglicized version of the Spanish word, Huisache which is one of the trees in that area.)

By 1894 Annie had had 7 of her 8 children. The youngest to be born in Weesatchee was Albert James (Bud) Webb, in 1891, to become my mother's father.

They moved to Bexar County, which is where San Antonio is located! Her last son was born there in 1905.

I've already blogged about their life in San Antonio. See Here.

But I'll just mention in summary that my grandfather, Bud Webb, (at 24 years old) met and married 17 year old Mozelle Miller. Their daughter, Mataley Mozelle Webb was born in 1917, who grew up to be my mother.

But Bud didn't live to see his grandchildren. He was accidentally electrocuted in 1919 at 28 years of age. 

My mother apparently was raised by her other grandmother, and her mother's 3 sisters. She never mentioned seeing her grandmother Annie Elizabeth Williams Webb. Annie lived until July 8, 1942.

I've enjoyed finding out some details of this great grandmother's life, but am sorry that she had no contact with my mother. I don't know why that happened. Family histories often have these dangling situations. They knew why, but we'll never know.