First Families of Cincinnati, Ohio

The Hamilton County Genealogical Society encourages amateur genealogists to research their families and try to trace their history in Cincinnati.  Two years ago, I was able to get an award for documenting that our family was in Cincinnati before 1860.  The recognition everyone wants to get is one for "First Families" -- those who can prove their family was here before December 31, 1820.  During this past year, I was able to prove to the satisfaction of the reviewers that William Wainright, his wife Ruth Wright, and their son, Britton, were here in 1819.  They are even listed in the City Directory.  Britton was born here. 

Today I was honored at a luncheon held at the Hilton Netherland Plaza downtown.  It was really a nice honor.  I received the medal with the blue and white ribbon pictured above.  Two years ago I received the medal on the right.



On the left is a copy of the narrative in the program.
One of the reasons I'm so interested in submitting our family history to the Genealogical Society is that they will eventually digitize the entire record and donate it to the Historical Society.  This would mean that even if all of my records were lost, they would be available for our ancestors should one of our descendants want to research our family.

Not all of the recipients were present to be recognized.  One lived as far as California and another in Florida. Pictured above are the Settlers and Builders and First Families recipients who were able to attend.

Bill attended with me and photographed most of the pictures.  He was able to capture this one as they gave me a framed certificate and a medal. 

They've started a new recognition for families that were in Cincinnati more than a century ago.  This will enable me to submit the Ryans and Vonderheides in the next couple of years.  I hope I represented all the Joneses and Wainrights well.

Ohio University Archives - Athens, Ohio

Cover of Loah Dow's Photo Album

Loah was the granddaughter of Ann Eliza Wainright


Yesterday my family history companion, Julie Jones, traveled with me to Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. As part of the Alden Library, there is an archives collection that I've linked to this post. I discovered about six months ago that they had housed in their collection scrapbooks, diaries, photo albums, etc. that had been put together by the Broadwells and related families.

Ann Eliza Wainright, sister of Britton, married Henry Broadwell from Mt. Carmel, Clermont County, Ohio. I discovered that both the Wainrights and Broadwells had come from Morristown, New Jersey to Ohio. The families probably knew each other there.

Henry and Ann Eliza Broadwell had as many as many as 11 children. Married in Cincinnati in 1834, the family is listed as living in Canaan, Athens, Ohio in the 1860 Census.

Although Ann Eliza is not in my direct family line, as a sister of Britton, I was interested in what I might find. IT WAS A GOLD MINE!

In one of the diaries I found an entry written by Ann Eliza Wainright Broadwell on her 50th wedding anniversary. She is saddened by the fact that this is the second year she's had to celebrate the anniversary without her husband.



The photo album had quite a few surprises. The first was a picture of Henry Broadwell and his wife Eliza Ann Wainright. They were the parents of Amanda Broadwell and grandparents of Loah. Loah had quite a photo album.

Loah was a child of privilege. The archives had a scrapbook from her time as a student at Ohio University. I think she graduated in 1915. It held rent receipts ($7.10 for three weeks of board), dance favors, tickets, sorority items, etc.

There was also a "sewing book" that she had created for her sewing class at OU. It had neat samples of various types of stitching, hemming, button holes, pockets, etc. She was very talented, but it made me wonder what her major was.


There was a priceless picture of Henry Broadwell's parents, John and Phebe Lindsley Broadwell. Boy, does she look happy. We photographed the back of it where it listed their names and the names of some descendants.
















The photo album identifies this as a picture of Ruth Broadwell Bean. Ruth was one of the children of Henry and Ann Eliza. I'm sure she was named after her grandmother, Ruth Wainright.










Which leads to the best find of all. In the album was a picture of "Grandma Wainright." I believe it is a picture of Ruth Wright Wainright, wife of William and mother of Britton and Ann Eliza.
The notes on the back were not very clear, but also described her as the Great, Great Aunt of someone whose name I cannot read. I made sure to copy the picture with the handwritten identification in view.

If you follow the link attached to this post, you can read in detail about the materials they have housed in the archives. Luckily for us, someone had the forethought to donate these materials.

Note: You can click on the title of this blog entry and be linked to the information re: the files held in the archives at Ohio University.

Wainwrights in the United States

In earlier posts I mentioned that the Wainwrights in the United States originally spelled their last name with two "w's". One record says that it was William Wainright (father of Britton) who dropped the second "w". I also stated that William Wainright was the son of Vincent, our family's connection to the Revolutionary War.

When I first started researching our roots in the United States, there was more than one record online. I try to document any individual that I include in our family tree. This is one instance where I accepted someone else's documentation.

There are three sources of information for the family pedigree outlined above. The first is Genealogy of the Family Line of Thomas Wainwright published in 1957 by Edith Wainwright and Halstead Wainwright. The second, and most important source is correspondence I have had over the last year with Rodney Wainwright of New York. He took a copy of the above publication and compared it page by page with the documentation he had. The vast majority of information was supported. The third source was the website for the Wing Family in America, Inc. http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?db=mewingnut Jane Wing was the maternal grandmother of Vincent Wainwright. All of this documentation seems to agree when it comes to the basic facts. Rodney Wainwright provided me with the majority of the information listed in the pedigree, especially in the maternal lines.

It became apparent that there was a lot of documentation from the time of William Wainright back, but little existed coming forward. Even the Wing Family site only listed Britton and Eliza Ann as children of William Wainright and Ruth Wright. I have spent the last year trying to find additional children with a fair degree of success.

As near as I can tell, William Wainright and his wife Ruth Wright had seven children. There may have been more but these are the ones I have been able to document.


William (2-23-1809 to 4-23-1834) -Listed in the 1831 City Directory as William Jr., a blacksmith, in business with his brother, Vincent. The Cincinnati Daily Gazette states in a death notice that he died of small pox at the age of 25.

Ann Eliza (1-4-1813 in New York City, died 1-12 1890 in Broadwell, Ohio near Athens. Married Henry (Harry) Broadwell in 1834 and relocated to Athens, Ohio and had many children.

Vincent - (abt. 1-10-1810 to abt. 7-19-1849) Married Mahitable Morrow on May 2, 1843. They had a son, Britton in 1848. Both the father and the son died in July 1849 in the cholera epidemic. As mentioned above, Vincent was a blacksmith in business at one point with his older brother.

Britton (9-26-1819 to 7-9-1863) -- Our gg-grandfather -- plenty was written about him in earlier postings.

Rachel -- married James Lusk in 1843 in Cincinnati. James was a ship's carpenter according to one of the Census documents. Ruth Wainright was living with the Lusks in Newport, KY when she died.

John -- married Elizabeth Raney on 12-22-1836. He also died abt. July 1849 making me speculate that he, too, could have been a victim of the cholera epidemic. I have a copy of John's will written July 1, 1849 naming his wife Elizabeth and children William Henry, David R., John B., and Jane Elizabeth as beneficiaries.

Daniel -- married Prudence Grapevine on November 6, 1842 in Cincinnati. Daniel's occupation was listed as a "drayman" in several City Directories. His marriage license states that he was married by Wesley Rowe, a minister who was listed as the officiant for several of the Wainright weddings. I do not know when Daniel was born, but he may have been one of the older siblings since the City Directory for 1839-40 says that he was born in New York.


There are a couple of other candidates for Wainright siblings, but the documentation is not strong enough to include them in this list. I leave it for future researchers.


Several Wainrights and Darbys fought in the Civil War. At some point I may post what I know about our family's participation in the Civil War. The participation was not limited to men. Some other time . . .

William the Wanderer

When you begin to research the Wainwright family, it becomes doubly difficult because they, like so many families of their time, named their children in honor of beloved brothers and sisters. Thus, certain family names are often repeated from generation to generation. As mentioned earlier, I found the information of Steve Wainwright of California and Rodney Wainwright of New York to be invaluable. Without their help, I could never had as much success as I did.

In speaking with Steve, he refers to "our" line as the "Daniel/Vincent Line" because those names are found in almost every generation. Thomas and William are also used quite frequently. The challenge then becomes that when you've found records for William Wain(w)right that you do everything you can to insure that it is the "correct" William Wain(w)right -- not the brother, father, or nephew.

In an earlier posting, I discussed the evidence for William in Cincinnati -- but he didn't seem to stay put. William was the son of Vincent Wainwright and Elizabeth Williams of Monmouth Co., New Jersey. We are fortunate that we are connected to the Wing Family through marriage and they have documented a lot of the Wainwright earlier history. Go to this link:

http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=mewingnut&id=I2021919

William did not stay put. He was born in Shrewsbury, Monmouth, New Jersey on February 26, 1780. He was the 8th of nine children born to Vincent Wainwright and Elizabeth Williams. His father died in 1783 of small pox leaving his widow with nine children with two of the boys ages three and under.

William married Ruth Wright and eventually relocated to New York, New York. One of his daughters, Ann Eliza, was born in New York in 1810. About 1819 the family relocated to Cincinnati, Ohio where Britton was born. He worked as a blacksmith. That same year William bought property in Clermont County, Ohio. Here is a copy of the deed. He did not move immediately as he is still listed in the Cincinnati City Directory as a blacksmith living on Broadway near 2nd Street in the year 1831. Two of his sons, William Jr. and Vincent are also listed as blacksmiths living on E. Front St.




William is also listed in the index for property transfers in Clermont County along with other Wainwrights. According to the Genealogy of the Family Line of Thomas Wainwright cited earlier, William's brother Daniel brought his large family to Clermont County in 1828. Many of the records in Clermont County are from Daniel's family. Hopefully, I'll be able to post the exact locations of these properties before too long.

Property Transfers in Clermont County, 1791-1830
Note that Daniel, Vincent and William all bought property in Clermont County between 1819 and 1826. William bought property first followed by Daniel and Vincent. I do not know if Daniel and Vincent are the sons of William or his brothers. Daniel bought property in 1825.



Somewhere around 1839, William moved his family back to Cincinnati where he again worked as a blacksmith. He is listed in the Shaffer's Advertising Directory for 1839-40:

Wainwright, Wm (N J) Blacksmith, res, E Front n Corp line

The Cist Cincinnati Directory for 1843 has the following listings:

Wainright J. & B. wagon makers and blacksmiths, cor Front and
Washington
Wainright John, (J. & B. W.) Front bet Washington & Collord
Wainright Britton, (J. & B. W.) boards Wm Wainright
Wainright William, blacksmith. Front bet Washington & Collord

I believe that "J. & B." stands for John and Britton, two of William's sons. I know that Britton got married in Cincinnati and was still here in 1850 as he appears with his family in the Census.

Before Britton got married, however, it appears as if the wanderlust had struck him, too. He purchased 40 acres of land in Gallatin Co., IL. Shortly before he married Mary Elizabeth Darby in Cincinnati, he sold the 40 acres of property to his father -- a recent finding.

This land purchase took place in 1846. William was listed as living in Gallatin Co. in the 1850 Census. It says in the Census that he was married, yet Ruth is not listed in the Census with him. I found Ruth living in Cincinnati with her daughter Rachel Lusk in 1850. Her last name is misspelled and listed as "Wenright" in ancestry.com. Rachel's husband James' occupation is listed as a "ships carpenter".

This was not to be his last move, however, because as cited earlier, William died in Athens Co., Ohio and is buried in the family plot of his daughter, Ann Eliza Broadwell. At some point after 1850 the Lusks and Ruth (William's widow) moved to Newport, KY. Ruth was living in northern Kentucky when she died and was buried at the Evergreen Cemetery.

I do not know what motivated William to move so often, but I've been able to track him in the following locations: Born in New Jersey, one child (at least) born in New York, son born in Cincinnati in 1819, lived in Clermont Co. from at least 1820 - 1839, back to Cincinnati in 1839, bought property in Gallatin Co., IL in 1846 and was there for the 1850 Census, and died in Athens Co., Ohio. I'm glad for the information I have but wish I understood more about his willingness to move so often.

Cemetery Surprises

When I started doing research I had some underlying assumptions. For instance, if a grave marker said someone was buried there, I assumed that meant they were buried there. How naive! As stated earlier, Rachel Wainright Jones (Pop's Mom) is buried at Evergreen Cemetery in Southgate, Kentucky. Interestingly there are grave markers on the plot for her father Britton, mother Mary Elizabeth, her brother Thomas, and her grandparents, Ruth and William Wainright. The people that run the cemetery office tried to help me out. They keep pretty good records. They told me that they had no record for the burial of William. They even had a sketch of the plot showing who was buried where -- still no record of William.



By the time I found Rachel, I had substantial information about her father, Britton. He had an interesting history I'll discuss in another posting. I knew he died "in defense of his country against the rebel John Morgan" of Morgan's Raiders fame. I knew he died of heatstroke near New Albany, Indiana in 1863. I had a copy of his Civil War Pension Index. I knew his widow, Mary Elizabeth, brought the family back to Cincinnati. I wondered how someone's body from the Civil War who died in Indiana made its way back to Cincinnati. The plot sketch says that Britton was buried in Evergreen in April, 1864 (a year after his death). I've read of families spending quite a bit of money to recover the bodies of their Civil War dead, but I wondered if Mary Elizabeth actually brought his body to Cincinnati when the family returned. The Cemetery Office could not locate a card for Britton in their file. But there was the grave marker -- spelling out all of the details about Britton's life.

Then there was William -- Rachel's grandfather. They had a record for the burial of Ruth, but not William. Again, William had a grave marker. Ruth was living with her daughter, Rachel Lusk, in Newport at the time of her death. Apparently, William and possibly Ruth had been living with another daughter in Athens, OH when William died. It wasn't until October 2008 that I was able to find William buried in the South Canaan Cemetery outside of Athens on the family plot owned by his daughter, Ann Eliza Broadwell. There was a wonderful verse engraved on his marker, yet his wife was not buried next to him when she died a few years later. Lesson number one: Sometimes it's not a grave marker, it's a memorial to a loved one they would have liked to be buried near.

Then there is the mystery of Charles Jones monument in the Walnut Hills Cemetery. I was fascinated from the first time I saw it. There was a symbol on the monument that referred to the "Golden Lodge" and "70". I've scanned in a copy so you can see the crossed swords, ivy, etc. I could not seem to identify a Golden Lodge.













A couple of years ago I found the Death Notice for Charles Henry. There was my answer! Again I found it interesting that the notice would acknowledge that he was a "Member of Golden Lodge, K. of P." but not mention that he was the father of Fred, Leo, and Edith. I guess Alwilda placed the Death Notice.

Further research allowed me to find out what the "K of P" was. It stands for the Knights of Phythias, a fraternal organization established by an Act of Congress in 1864. You can read more about the organization by following this link http://www.pythias.org/about/about.html The organization was devoted to international peace. If only their goals had been achieved. It gives me one more clue as to who Charles Henry was. He obviously valued friendship and service. Wish I could learn more.