Womble, Wamble, and Wormble?!

So, if you’re a regular reader of my blog you may know that I’ve been trying to learn more about the Womble family’s Civil War experience.  The family story is that John Washington Womble spent the Civil War working in Nashville, Tennessee as a tailor and left his children to fend for themselves in Hardin County, Tennessee.  I’ve already reported about finding an interment record for who may possibly be his first wife, Mary Jane in the Nashville City Cemetery.  I also located what I believe to be interments for two of his three children that were listed in the 1860 Hardin County, TN census, but no records seem to exist for them afterwards, until I found the cemetery information. 

1860 U.S. Census, Hardin County, Tennessee, John W. Womble household

While working at a genealogy conference last week in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, I took the opportunity to visit the Allen County Public Library and do some work on this family story.  Whenever I’m researching the Womble family I keep in mind to be on the lookout for varying spellings of the family’s name.  One of the spelling variations I’ve come across is Wamble. 

At the Allen County Public Library I discovered another variation—Wormble—yes that’s right—Wormble.  I was looking through a book that was an index of interments in the Nashville City Cemetery.  I didn’t expect to find anything new, but I came across a Wormble, Frank.  The other two Womble children I found listed in a Nashville City Cemetery interment database were just listed as infant Wamble.  No ages were given for them except for the notation son and child of J. W. Wamble.

This notation gave me the impression that those listings were for the youngest two of the three “missing” Womble kids from the 1860 census.  So my thought was where is the oldest of the three youngest kids, Franklin?  I wondered if perhaps he died before John W. and Mary Jane relocated to Nashville.  However, based on my finding it appears that Franklin died that same summer of 1861 along with his two youngest brothers.

I can’t believe that the family would’ve taken only the youngest children with them to Nashville when the war started.  It was a different time back then and kids did grow up and take on adult responsibilities even when they were teenagers or pre-teens.  However, leaving even teenagers to essentially fend for themselves in an uncertain era and a potentially dangerous environment coupled with the fact that I’ve found evidence suggesting that John W.’s wife and some of their children were in the city with him makes me think that the story isn’t true. 

More research will have to be done on this to see if I can find anything else that may disprove my theory and prove the validity of the story.

Using Collateral Research to Verify Womble Civil War Story

Previously, I posted about wanting to find out if a family story was true. This was posted on this blog March 23, 2013. I’ve spent much of the summer trying to confirm the story’s validity by researching the H. F. Myers who co-signed John Washington Womble’s marriage bond to his 2nd wife, Rhoda Caroline Richardson.

My thought had been that by finding out more about this Myers guy, I would either learn some connection between him and John’s 2nd wife, or uncover a connection between Myers and my John W.

Census records revealed that H. F. Myers would’ve been a contemporary of John’s, since he was 36 in 1860 and John was about 42. Nashville city directories showed that Myers was a merchant and more specifically owned a tailor shop on Cedar St. in the city. The 1866 Nashville city directory lists John W. Womble’s profession as a tailor. His occupation is further backed up by other census records, city directory listings, and family lore.

However, I’m sure that there were many other tailor shops in Nashville in the early to mid-1860’s that could’ve employed my great-great grandfather. Yet, if John didn’t work for him then why would Myers co-sign a marriage bond for a man that he didn’t have any connection to?

I viewed land records that H. F. Myers purchased around the point in time when John would’ve been living in the area thinking that he might be listed as a witness. However, John wasn’t a witness to these records or at least that detail wasn’t recorded.

Shortly after the Civil War ended and after John and Rhoda married, H. F. Myers died. He left a will, but the will doesn’t mention John. Nor, is John mentioned as having witnessed Myers writing the will when it was presented in court. I still haven’t been able to view the court case of Robert Carter for stealing a coat from Myers’ store in May 1865. It may be that John didn’t witness the theft, because it occurred after he and Rhoda married, he may have been on his honeymoon or have left the city.

As a way to further my research I got a book via inter library loan on the occupation on Nashville during the Civil War. The book makes mention a few times that when the Confederate military was vacating the city and the Union troops were moving in that so many businesses were closed. The city streets were so void of people as if it were a Sunday.

Reading this made me wonder how John could’ve continued to live in the city without being able to go to work. However, the fact that he married there in 1865 seems to give evidence that he somehow was able to eke out an existence. Myers could’ve lost many employees as people enlisted in the military or vacated the city at the start of the war or later when the Union army took over. John could’ve decided to stay on in the city, because by the time that the Confederates were losing their hold on Nashville, his wife might have been too ill to travel back to their home in Hardin County. By sticking it out in the city, John could’ve shown his loyalty to Myers. This might have led Myers to co-sign John’s marriage bond to show his appreciation or gratitude.

There’s also the idea that when John initially worked as a tailor in Nashville that he didn’t work for Myers, but did later because his previous boss decided to close up shop and leave the city before the Union forces arrived.

From The Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Frank B. Cudworth

The information on this piece of paper is amazing, but how accurate or true is it?  It is from John Womble’s file at the DAR in Washington, DC.  It is the only piece of paper in the said file on him.  Some of the children listed that John Washington had with his second wife Rhoda Caroline are children that I’ve never heard of, and haven’t been mentioned on a census.  In the 1900 census, Caroline says that she gave birth to 7 children and 5 are living.  This would correlate with why I had no knowledge of Mary or Almedia.  That part can be verified by another document.  The birth years in the birth dates of her siblings don’t match the information that I’ve found about her siblings from other information.  What’s funny is that the birthdays tally with other information that I have on John W. and Caroline’s kids.  I can’t figure out why the years are so off, but maybe that’s just how Maude was.  Maude gives her birth year as 1874, but that’s not possible because she’s listed on the 1870 census as being 1 year old.  This would mean she was born about 1869.

In regards to her half-siblings, no birth information is given and she doesn’t list the last three children, Franklin, Ruffin, and Jesse.  This makes me think that they died before she knew about them.  Maude doesn’t mention the death date for her dad’s first wife, Mary Jane and this makes me think that she didn’t know this information.  Perhaps, she didn’t list out her half-siblings birth dates because they weren’t something that her family celebrated.  I sort of had the impression that those children may have been old enough to live on their own after their father remarried.  Maude and her siblings may not have had much if any contact with the children from their father’s previous relationship.  This scenario breathes life into my previous notion that John W.’s first wife and three youngest children died during the war or that the youngest children died soon after the war or at least before 1870.

There is the possibility that John W.’s 1^st wife divorced him while he was in Nashville and that she took the 3 youngest children with her when the marriage ended.  However, I really doubt that they divorced.  I know that I will probably never know for sure, but I really feel that his first wife died and that the younger children soon followed her. 

In the 1860 census, Mary Jane’s youngest child, Jesse was 2 months old when the enumerator visited the family on 29 September 1860.  That means that Jesse may have been born 29 July.  The war started in April 1861 and the child would’ve been under a year old.  During that era, I believe that a child that age would be more vulnerable to illnesses and so it’s wouldn’t surprise me if they died before the next census.  Jesse’s older brothers, Franklin and Ruffin were a little older, but I still feel would’ve been susceptible to the same childhood illnesses.  I think that the other children survived because they were older.  Mary Jane was about 35 in 1860 and was of childbearing age so it’s possible that she may have died during childbirth or from complications afterwards. 

If that happened, then perhaps it’s more likely that John W. would’ve had a photograph taken of his wife Caroline before he went off to work in Nashville.  Perhaps he regretted what happened when he left his first wife and their kids behind during the Civil War and wanted something to remember her by.  So maybe that tintype I have of the lady is really Rhoda Caroline Richardson Womble after all.

The other issue that I have with the information about her half-siblings and her dad’s 1^st wife is that some of the names are wrong.  I may be wrong in my own data on this family, but it’s my understanding that the children that John W. had with his first wife are:

Joab

Ellen

Adolphes Winfield

Martha

Tranquilla Blanche

Franklin

Ruffin

Jesse

It’s perfectly understandable to me that the names Joe, Mattie, and Blanche may be nicknames for Joab, Martha, and Tranquilla respectively.  However, it makes no sense that she would refer to Adolphes Winfield as Winifred, unless it’s a typo.  Maude also refers to John W.’s 1^st wife as Jane when I’ve typically seen her name as Mary Jane, but then I’m probably being nitpicky. 

The birth information about Maude’s mother may most likely be accurate.  The family would have celebrated her birthday and she probably knew what year her mother was born in and the general area.  It’s possible from the vagueness of the birth location of her mother that Caroline really did move away from Indiana when she was young and so didn’t know the town or didn’t remember.

The story about the family Bible being lost in a tornado is possible.  This varies from the story I had heard that it was lost in a flood and I just assumed it was destroyed in one of the floods that Paducah had.

Maude states information about her grandfather, John Womble’s Revolutionary War experiences and injuries he sustained during those years.  She also makes mention of some of his children and a person named Josephine, who she believes was his daughter. 

There is absolutely no way that Maude could know anything about her grandfather’s experiences during the Revolutionary War or injuries that he had from his service.  This information wouldn’t have come from her grandfather because he died in 1820 and she wasn’t born until the late 1860’s.  She must have heard these things from her father, John W.  However, I even wonder just how accurate that information would’ve been.  John W. was born to his father when his dad was quite old.  Not only that, but his father died when he was about 5 years old.  Granted he would’ve been around his father every day, so it’s possible that he would remember things his dad told him about his life.  I still find this rather unlikely.  In my own life, I have only vague memories of people that I knew when I was that young and I certainly wouldn’t have paid much attention if they told me about their war experiences.  It’s my belief that John W. didn’t know his father very well and only had a few memories of him.  The information he may have had would’ve come from his mother and siblings who knew his father for a longer period of time.  I don’t know how accurate that information would’ve been coming from his mother or siblings to John W. and then to his children. 

The last bit of information mentioned is that she states that she has a certified copy of a land grant for her grandfather’s service in the Revolutionary War.  I don’t know if I should believe this or not.  The reason being is that John Womble sold his bounty land to a William Anderson in 1799, Anderson did sell the land back to John Womble, and later John said that he never received the deed back when he petitioned Anderson’s daughters later.  While it’s possible that Maude could’ve obtained such a document, since she lived in the area where this bounty land was located maybe she had better access to the records then someone else that didn’t live there.  However, she says a lot of things in this report she wrote that I find far fetched and unproven.  If she has this certified copy of this grant why didn’t she supply a copy of it with this report that she wrote to the DAR.

The first page of Maude Womble Cudworth’s DAR application from 1934 lists the lineage of her family from herself to her grandfather, John Womble.  I believe the information for her birthplace; even though, I know the family didn’t live in McNairy County, TN because it’s possible that her mother was staying in another town with a relative until she gave birth.  Maude’s father might have been working in Nashville around the time that his wife was due to give birth and a relative may have been the only person around who could’ve been there for her.  I can’t see that her husband would’ve wanted to leave his wife alone in that condition, so he may have seen to it that she was visiting with relatives for an extended period of time. 

Maude would most likely know her father’s birth date because the family would have celebrated that day and she may have known how old he was too.  The marriage date information for her parents isn’t correct.  Their marriage date is actually 18 May 1865.  I think this may be just a typo on Maude’s part because her mother died in November, so I can see that this isn’t really a sign that she has misinformation. 

The information about her grandparents, John and Catherine is less detailed than that for her parents.  Most of the dates could’ve come from or been calculated from her grandfather’s pension application file.  However, I haven’t been able to calculate John’s birth year to 1756 if he’s a 60 year old in 1818 when it seems that the application was written.  It seems to me that he may have been born in 1758 instead of 1756 that appears to be claimed everywhere.  An argument could be made that at the time when John Womble existed people didn’t really know when they were born.  I’m not sure when celebrating birthdays became a regular activity.  It is possible that Maude could’ve gotten some of this information from the pension application, or from her father who may have remembered them.  It makes sense that the death dates are more complete than the birth information since Maude’s father would probably remember when his mother died, but his father’s death may have been a faint memory to him. 

Maude could’ve gotten John Womble’s place of death from the pension file or remembered it from information her father told her.  Again, this may have been something her father remembered about his father.  On the lineage form the birth place for John Womble is N.C., which is interesting because that means he could’ve been born anywhere in the state.

The second page gives an account as to John Womble’s service to the United States during the Revolutionary War.  The only way that Maude could’ve known about these details is either from reading her grandfather’s pension file or remembering details her father told her about her grandfather.  I find it a bit unlikely that her father would remember much about his father.  Although, John W. could’ve told Maude stories about his father that he remembered his siblings or mother telling him. 

The last page of Maude’s DAR application shows a little more information about John Womble’s wives, Unknown and Catherine and the children that he had with them.  Again the marriage information for John marriages is incomplete.  There’s a bit more with his marriage to Catherine, but not much.  Because this information is so incomplete, I think that the source was the pension file.  In the file John’s son, Benjamin F. says that his parents got married in Edgecombe County, NC in 1798, so it must have come from there.  The pension file at NARA makes no mention of another wife that John Womble was married to in the past or other children that he had with another woman.  This doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, but it does make me wonder why it wasn’t mentioned and what happened with them.  If it did happen how is that Maude knew about this marriage, births of those children and their wives names?  Where did she obtain this information about John’s first wife and his children?

The date of this marriage is 1781 and the location and name of the first wife is unknown.  I’m a bit skeptical of this first marriage because I haven’t found any information to support it happening and I think the date comes to close to John’s service in the Revolutionary War.  In his pension application, John says that in 1780 he helped in defending Charleston when it was under British attack.  He was captured and while held by the British met a Doctor Lee.  The doctor concocted a story that John was his servant and the two were paroled together.  John traveled with the doctor to Washington, NC where they split up and John spent the remainder of the war on the banks of the Tar River.  The Tar River begins near Washington, NC, so it’s possible that John stayed in that area or traveled up river to Tarboro where it appears he lived near from 1798 until his death around 1820.  I don’t see how John could’ve gone through all of this and been able to get married so soon after his ordeal with the British, unless of course he knew the woman beforehand.  According to the pension file on John Womble, he enlisted in Halifax, NC.  This city is some distance from Tarboro, so it seems unlikely that he would’ve been familiar with it.

According to the application, John and his first wife had three sons, Thomas born in 1783, William born in 1785, and John born in 1788.  The older sons both married.  Thomas married a woman named Eliza Gray and William’s wife was named Drusilla. 

Again, I’m skeptical of this information because it doesn’t jive with the information that I have on John Womble.  I don’t know what happened to John’s first wife, but if she died soon after the birth of their son John in 1788 it would have left him free to marry Catherine in 1798.  I did find a John Wombel listed in the 1790 Federal Census for Edgecombe County, NC.  He is the only person listed in his household.  If this is my John Womble then where are his children or is this just a person with a similar name?  If my John Womble had been married before he married Catherine then he would’ve had two or maybe three children ranging in age from 15 to 10.  There aren’t any additional people listed in their household in the 1800 census, so that’s why I question whether or not these children are really his.  It is possible that if his wife died that he sent the children to live with a relative.  This would explain why they’re not listed as living with him in the 1790 and 1800 census.