Sunday’s Obituary: Barney Robinault

Since I have neglected writing anything on this blog for over a year (until Friday’s post two days ago), I think I will attempt to get back into the habit by posting obituaries for the next several Sundays. This week it is for someone in my direct line, my 3-great-grandfather Barney Robinault. He was the father of my 2-great-grandmother Martha Robinault, whom you might remember as the wife of John Craig, who remained the victim of an unsolved murder in Omaha, Nebraska.

I am using the Robinault spelling of the name here, as that is the spelling used in this obituary. The name has a remarkable number of variant spellings including (but not confined to) Robbennolt, Robbenult, Robbinault, Robbinult, Robenolt, Robenult, and Rubenall. This makes doing newspaper searches for this family… entertaining. Fortunately, it is not a particularly common surname, so most results are bound to be relevant in some way. 

Barney’s obituary appeared in the Denison Review on 16 Aug 1906:

ANOTHER PIONEER GONE.

Barney Robinault Passes to the Great Beyond on Wednesday.

Barney Robinault, one of the pioneer residents and settlers of Crawford county passed to his eternal rest on Wednesday after an illness that has lasted for several years, at the home of Mrs. Lars Erickson who has taken care of him for the past three years.

He was a man of true Christian character and a friend well met, always jolly and jovial, and always endeavoring to do what was right and just with his neighbors, and by these manly traits had won to him a host of warm friends who will learn of his death with deep regret.

Mr. Robinault was born in Pennsylvania on July 31, 1820, and was 86 years old at the time of his death. He came to Crawford county about 35 years ago and has made his home here continually. He had been twice married and was the father of 16 children six of whom are still living, the remainder of the children together with his two wives having preceeded [sic] him to the grave. Of the six living children but one was present at the funeral and that was Mrs. Claus Hansen who is at present residing at Dow City.

The funeral was held this afternoon at 1:30 from the German Methodist church Rev. Gauger officiating and the remains laid to rest in the Denison cemetery. The family have the sympathy of the community in this sad hour of bereavement.

The obituary mentions that he had married twice. I am descended from his first wife, Julia Ann Kimmey, for whom, unfortunately, I have been unable to find an obituary. (His second wife will be featured next week.) It also says that he was the father of sixteen children. Only nine appear in my family tree, so it seems I still have considerable research to do on this family.

Source:

"Another Pioneer Gone," The Denison Review, 16 Aug 1906, p. 6, col. 3; digital images, Chronicling America (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov : accessed 3 Jan 2017), The Denison review. (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current.

Friday Funny: Oh! you naughty man!

Somehow over a year has slipped by since my last post. Since today is Friday, and I still have many post cards from my collection that I have not yet shared, here's a slightly risqué one from 1907.

 

It depicts an man and a woman seated on a bench in the park. The caption records their conversation:

What are you thinking about Tommy?
Same as you.
Oh! you naughty man!

The way they are looking at one another, it is easy to guess what their thoughts may be.

The back bears the address

Miss Marion Corelli
228 ½ Wash St
Portland
    Ore

and is postmarked 25 May 1908 from Astoria, about 95 miles away on the Oregon coast.

The message is signed with the initials "GWG" and reads

How are you feeling
today little lady,
Can't say when I will
be back to the city,
soon I hope.

With some cursory research, I have been unable to identify either Miss Marion Corelli or GWG. A Marion Correlli appears in Portland city directories in the early 1900s, with the intriguing occupation of palmist, but the address is not on Wash or Washington street, so the identification is uncertain.

Wade family from Kentucky to Ohio, part 2

Note: This series of posts deals extensively with the historical animosity between Native Americans and white settlers. Although the point of view of the Native Americans is underrepresented and deserves better recognition, my ancestors happened to be white settlers. Unfortunately, they participated in the historical travesties perpetrated against Native Americans. However, since this is a genealogical blog, it is primarily told from my ancestors' point of view, with an attempt to be sympathetic to both sides. The term "Indian" is used in reference to the indigenous peoples (when the nation or tribe is unknown) because it was the term most often used at the time, and because I have recently been informed that it is still the preferred term in many native cultures. I am not an expert in the subject, and humbly apologize if anyone finds it offensive. Although quoting racial slurs has been avoided as much as possible, one case of calling the Indians "savages" has been included in this post because of the strength of argument intended in the original. It is not intended to convey any approval of the offensive language.

 

 

Mefford's Fort, a cabin built in Washington, Kentucky, in 1787 from the planks of a flatboat.
Greg Hume, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The settlement of Limestone stood at the mouth of Limestone Creek where it emptied into the Ohio River and formed a natural harbor. It was located at the bison ford across the Ohio River, north of  the town of Washington, and the name was often applied to all of the larger area, including Washington. Today it is the site of the city of Maysville, Kentucky, although at the time of this narrative it was still part of the vast Virginia frontier.  After becoming a byword in the 1770s, Limestone was seeing a resurgence in settlement following Lord Dunmore's War and the American Revolution, both of which had bitterly set Indian against white settler. 

Near Limestone, frontiersman Simon Kenton had established a "station" in 1784, and there is confusion between various sources whether Limestone and Kenton's station were one and the same or whether they were separate fortifications. In either case, it seems the settlement originally consisted of a stockade of cabins adjoining one another, with a blockhouse on the corner, ready to welcome and afford protection to incoming settlers.

In addition to these shared habitations, settlers were beginning to erect individual cabins on their own personal claims, which could be a risky venture. As G. Glenn Clift, in his History of Maysville and Mason County, explains, "Barring the doors at night was not enough for these isolated dwellings. In the morning, the head of the house first climbed a ladder, always leaning against the left side of the door, and looked through the cracks for Indians.” He goes on to inform the reader that it was considered a “habit” of the Indians “to secrete themselves near the door and pounce suddenly on the unsuspecting pioneer as he greeted the sun.” (p. 49)

Even so, a mere two years later, in 1786, the population around Kenton's station had grown so much as to be considered a village, and a petition was written to the Assembly of Virginia to establish it as a town. Permission was granted, and the town was named Washington after the Revolutionary War hero George Washington, still three years away from becoming the nation's first President. As such, it was the first town of many that would eventually be named in his honor. According to a local tradition, which may be apocryphal, it was given the name of Washington in the hopes of one day becoming the nation's capital. The new town of Washington's nine trustees, "authorized to make such rules and orders for the regular building therein... and to settle and determine all disputes about the bounds of the said lots," included famed frontiersman Daniel Boone, who had recently opened his trading post and tavern on the Ohio River waterfront.

Washington and the larger area, still known as Limestone, were located at the time within Bourbon county, Virginia, and the county seat was a good forty miles distant. "To attend any form of court proceeding," Clift writes, "necessitated a long, dangerous journey to the seat of government." The petition to grant the settlers a town had been successful, so, riding on the coattails of their success, they soon sent another petition, this time for a division of the county. In this petition they dwelt on the difficulties of the journey, such as "the Intervention of a Mountainous tract of Barren Land running down on each side of the main branch of Licking Creek that cannot be inhabited," and the likelihood of being "surprised and murdered by the savages who frequently infest such places." This petition, however, met with opposition from elsewhere in the county and it took two more petitions and another year before a division of the county would finally be granted.

The third (and finally successful) petition, dated 25 Oct 1787 according to the Library of Virginia website Virginia Memories, contains nearly three pages of signatures, each page divided into three columns, and the petitioners are said to all "live in the Limestone Settlements near the Ohio River." One of these names is Josiah Wade. This is the earliest confirmed date of a member of the Wade family in Limestone.

Josiah Wade was a young man at this time, about 22 years of age. Perhaps he was the first of his family to arrive in the Limestone Settlements, or perhaps his family arrived with him and simply didn't sign the petition. At any rate, the family soon made their appearance. His mother had recently died, but his father William, at least five brothers--Zephaniah, George, Edmond, Joseph, and John--and at least three sisters--Margaret, Mary, and Abbie--are likely to have made their home in the settlement. Josiah himself may have been starting a family at this point; his probable son Joseph was born circa 1787. The exact location of the Wade family's residence is unknown at this time, but sources tend to place them somewhere in or near Washington.

Also in the area of Washington lived a surveyor named Nathaniel Massie, who would prove to be an important figure in the lives of the Wade family. 

Sources:

Bourbon, Virginia, Legislative Petitions Digital Collection, Accession Number 36121, Box 287, Folder 62, Inhabitants of Bourbon County: Petition (Division of County/New County), 25 Oct 1787; digital images, Library of Virginia, Virginia Memory (www.virginiamemory.com : accessed 10 Jan 2021).

David I. Bushnell, Jr, "Daniel Boone at Limestone, 1786-1787." The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 25 (Jan 1917); digital images, JSTOR (https://www.jstor.org/ : accessed 15 Jan 2021) 1-11.

G. Glenn Clift, History of Maysville and Mason County  (Lexington, Kentucky: Transylvania Printing Co., 1936), vol. 1.

Allan W. Eckert, That Dark and Bloody River: Chronicles of the Ohio River Valley  (New York: Bantam Books, 1995),  180. 

Neal O. Hammon and James Russell Harris, "Daniel Boone the Businessman: Revising the Myth of Failure," The Register of the Kentucky Historical Society 112 (Winter 2014); digital images, JSTOR (https://www.jstor.org/ : accessed 30 Dec 2020) 5-50.

Stephen Kelley, "The Founding of Manchester... Massie's Station," Ohio Southland 3 (Issue #2 1991); digital images, Adams County Public Library, Biblioboard Open Access (https://library.biblioboard.com/anthology/e552f221-42f0-4b9b-963d-32739ee859fd : accessed 24 Jan 2021) 19-25.

John McDonald, Biographical Sketches of General Nathaniel Massie, General Duncan McArthur, Captain William Wells, and General Simon Kenton: Who Were Early Settlers in the Western Country  (Dayton, Ohio: D. Osborn & Son, 1852).

James Rood Robertson M.A.Ph.D., Petitions of the Early Inhabitants of Kentucky to the General Assembly of Virginia 1769 to 1792  (Louisville, Kentucky: John P. Morton & Company, 1914). 

Eleanor Duncan Wood, "Limestone, A Gateway of Pioneer Kentucky," Register of Kentucky State Historical Society 28 (April 1930); digital images, JSTOR (https://www.jstor.org/ : accessed 14 Jan 2021) 151-154.