The Peppers

As you may or may not remember, my great great grandmother was Anne Pepper.  According to her Death Certificate, she was born on 15 Nov 1848 to Patrick Pepper and Marcella in New York City, NY.  Ann aged quickly, in the 1850 Federal Census she is listed as 10 years old, living in South Cass Twp, Schuylkill County, Pa with her parents and at least 5 siblings.  This makes more sense because her eldest daughter, Susan, is born in 1863.  But that doesn't really matter for our purposes today, because today I am going to talk about her family a little bit.

So I was looking on ancestry.com and checking on my DNA matches, when I saw a new match.  It is for John E Pepper, (there is a second match further down my list of 4th - 6th cousins with the name T. P., both are managed by the same person.  I am guessing that T. P.'s surname is also Pepper (I was a detective for awhile you know).  This match also says that there is a common ancestor - Patrick Pepper and Marcella M Reilly (Anne Pepper's parents).

I started hunting around on ancestry.com and Newspapers.com (which has several titles from Pottsville, including the Pottsville Republican). I learned from this that Anne Pepper was not an only child - not by a long shot. She had nine siblings - eight brothers and one sister.  The best I can figure is that she had brothers named Francis, Thomas, Michael, John, James, William, Charles and Ainges.  She also had a sister named Mary, who married a man named Hugh Tye, and they had seven children: six boys and one girl, but I am getting ahead of myself.

Apparently the Peppers were a pretty prominent family in Schuylkill County, Thomas Pepper was a businessman, a distiller in Ashland.  Thomas also held the office of County Treasurer, a post he held from 1891 to 1894.  He also was a member of the Ashland town Council for two terms and a director of the Citizens National Bank.  He was married to Elizabeth McDonald and had five children: one daughter, Hannah and fours sons: Frank, John, George and Thomas.

I found an ad for the distillery on Google:

I kinda remember reading that the business was originally a soda bottling company and changed over to a distillery later.  This ad may be after he turned over the business to his sons.  I thought this ad was a great find.

Before I stop for the night, I wanted to mention one other sibling of Anne's, and that is her brother Ainges.  I have never heard that name before and I assume it is Irish, but I have no idea.  The other thing about him is that in 1922 he lived in Scranton, PA.  I know this from a newspaper article that says he was struck by a car, and suffered a compound fracture of the left leg and other minor injuries, according to the article.  The article also says he was an aged man, more specifically 62 (younger than me and I'm not aged) and he lived on North Hyde Park Ave. The worst part is that he was struck by the car on 28 Mar 1922, and I found his death certificate indicating that he died 3 Apr 1922 and the cause is listed as a fracture of left tibia (automobile accident).

When I find some more about her family, I will let you know.  But I do plan on doing this more often.

James Bradley, MInersville, PA

I have been researching on Newspapers.com and I think I mentioned in my last post (I don't remember, it was quite awhile ago) that they now have Pottsville newspapers, including the Miners Journal, the Pottsville Republican and the Republican and Herald.  They cover from about 1884 to present, so I have found quite a bit about my family in that area.  

Tonight I am going to concentrate on my Great great grandfather James Bradley and a few of the articles that I found about him.  I really don't know much about him, just that he was born in Ireland in about 1835, married Annie Pepper and had eight children (six girls and two boys - one of whom is my great grandmother). I am guessing he married Annie somewhere around the start of the Civil War in 1861 (no pun intended).  He died sometime around the turn of the century in about 1900 or so. You may recall that I once posted a picture of his grave marker, and I'll show you again.

It just says;  J BRADLEY, nothing fancy, no dates, not even a death date, I like it.  This is a church graveyard and the parish used to be St. Vincent de Paul, but Catholic churches have been merging all over the country and the new parish is St. Michael the Archangel, just in case you want to look it up.

Anyway, it appears that J Bradley was just a working man taking care of his family.  I could not even find any newspaper articles about his death, but I did find a couple of articles that were interesting.

The first one was in the Pottsville Republican, on the front page, on 20 Apr 1887.  It talks about a Hungarian  man living in a warehouse at the south end of the Palo Alto Bridge (I have no idea where that is, but it must be important) He had apparently rented a house in Minersville and hired a teamster to haul his household effects to that town, where he had gotten a job at the Marion furnace.  He paid the teamster $1.50 to do the work (slightly less than the $15.00 / hour minimum wage they are working on passing today).  The Huns ( that is what the newspaper called the Hungarian and his family) were upset when the teamster demanded an additonal $.50, and and argument and brawl ensued, with the teamster dumping the goods and keeping the money. The "Hun" went to the Squire to have the teamster arrested.  In the second article, the next day, we find out that the teamster was none other that James Bradley.  The newspaper describes Mr Bradley as an honest, hard working, upright citizen, and apparently the "Huns" were having some "adult beverages" at the time, and they were found at fault.  The best part is that James Bradley is described as be about five feet high with a light complexion.

The last article is also from the Pottsville Republican  from 3 Jun 1893 on page 4.  This article describes how during the night someone entered the stable of James Bradley at the Delaware, near Minersville, and stole his horse.  James was suspicious of a group of gypsies who had been "plying their trade" near Doudentown.  James went off to find the gypsies and get his horse. He found their encampment near Pinegrove.  The horse was surrendered and the case was dismissed.

Pretty good stuff, he sounds like a decent man trying to make a living and take care of his family.  He was only five feet high, but apparently was not about to let anyone take advantage of him.  Took care of the situation on his own.  You gotta admire that in a man.

Frank E Brady 1889 - 1961

I recently found that Newspapers.com has added a few new newspapers to their database.  The best part is the location:  Pottsville PA.  That's right! Right in the middle of the Brady spawning grounds in Schuylkill County PA.  As you may well imagine, I have been a researching fool lately, finding births, weddings, and obituaries of ancestors.  Or, as we like to call it, hatch, match and dispatch - always like to add a little genealogy humor.

I will get to the Pottsville Republican later, because it will come in handy while researching Frank Edward Brady, born in Gordon, Schuylkill County Pa in 1889 to John Brady and his wife, Annie Butler Brady.  Within a few years the family moved to Scranton, PA.  I had previously found the announcement of Frank's marriage to Mary Regan in Scranton on 15 Sep 1914.  Sometime in 1915, Mary gave birth to a daughter, Helen.  Tragedy struck in April of 1917 when an obituary for Mrs. Frank Brady (Mary) appeared in the Scranton paper.  It says that Mrs Frank died following a few weeks' illness, she was just 26 years old.  It goes on to mention her husband is Frank Brady, a well known insurance man.  After the death of his wife, Frank and Helen live on Ripple St with his parents, and in 1918 Frank registers for the draft for WWI, as do three of his brothers, Raymond, Paul, and Thomas.

On 27 Oct 1921,  31 year old Frank marries 17 year old Agnes Goff in Scranton, PA.  They will have two more children, William is born 4 Dec 1922 and Jean is born in May 1926.  This brings me to the Pottsville Republican.  I found an article saying that Frank is named Asst. Superintendent of the Pottsville office of the Prudential Insurance Co.  So, between children, they move back to Schuylkill County.  Shortly after the move, his brother, Raymond, becomes a widower when his wife dies.  Frank and Agnes have his daughter live with them in Minersville, and an interesting article appears  in the Pottsville Republican 8 Oct 1929 (weeks before the stock market crash).  The article is about a birthday party for Mary and it lists the decorations and guests, and says that Mary is visiting from Scranton.  I like the guest list, it may mention aunts, uncles, and cousins, and Mary's father is not among the listed guests. 

It's funny what they printed in the newspaper back then.  The newspapers published a list of local residents admitted to area hospitals.  This was slightly before HIPPA regulations.

I cannot locate Frank, Agnes, or his daughter, Helen, in the 1940 census, but I did find William and Jeanne (this is the spelling in the census record) living in Scranton with Agnes' parents on Stafford Ave.  According to the census, they both lived at this address in 1935 also.  On 4 Dec 1940 (his 18th birthday) William enlists in the US Navy.  He will be stationed at Pearl Harbor the following December, and survives the Japanese attack, and continues to serve through March of 1946.  William died 1 Dec 2005 in Ormond Beach, FL. The 1940 census is the last record that I can locate for Jean and I don't know what happened to her. 

Unfortunately, the next thing I found was Agnes getting married 17 Sep 1941 in Delaware.  The certificate of marriage says that she is divorced.  It also gives her residence as Scranton, PA.   My first thought was that the age difference may have been too much, but then you check and see what is going on the world at this time.  The Great Depression!  I wonder if work was not steady, or a paycheck was not steady.  There is no way of telling at this point, but it just seems sad.  Our ancestors lived through some tough times.  This is the last record that I can locate for Agnes also, so I don't know what happened to her either.

On 28 Apr 1945, Helen Brady, aged 29, dies of tuberculosis in Ransom Township, at the Lackawanna County TB Hospital  She had been employed as a stenographer for the Scranton School District and lived on Ripple St.  She is buried in Cathedral Cemetery in Scranton and Frank was the informant on her death certificate.  He was also living at the Brady compound at 522 Ripple St, Scranton.

Frank was living in Philadelphia, where he dies on 31 Jan 1961 at the age of 71.  His sister Agnes Sipple is the informant on the death certificate.  He is buried in Cathedral Cemetery.  That's the other thing that sticks out, is that no matter what happens, they always turn to family for help.  If you are widowed, family helps out with the children, if you are out of work, or just fall on hard times, there is usually a family member who will take you in and help you out for as long as it takes.  That's the good part about any sad times that I come across.

Fortunately, my cousin Peggy from Scranton gave me a photo of Frank, which I will end with:

Raymond Aloysius Brady 1886 - 1953

Remember in one of my last posts, I spoke about the Bradys in the Iron and Steel business.  I said that I had not really done much research on Raymond A Brady, who was in Buffalo for a short time in 1907. I decided to do some work on him for this post.  I have to say, for some reason I get Raymond mixed up with his brother Frank.  I don't know why, it's not like I knew either one of them, although maybe that is why.

Raymond was born to John J Brady and Annie Butler in Gordon, PA and moved to Scranton with his family.  I found this article in the Scranton Truth from Fri 18 Mar 1910:

In the 1900 Census, Bessie Heffron is identified as Bridget Haffron born Aug 1887 to John Heffron and Ellen Walsh, and depending on the document, she was born in  either Ireland or Scranton.  Although sometimes I think Scranton is a county in Ireland. 

Raymond and Bessie marry and have six children: John, Raymond, Mary, Robert, Paul, and the last child is listed in the 1920 census as "Dustum", a male child born in May of 1919.  I have never heard this name, so I don't know if the census is correct.  After some more research, I accidentally found Augustus J Brady born 27 May 1919.  This is the mystery child formerly known as "Dustum".  After looking at the census, I think the enumerator had some poor handwriting.

As for Raymond, in 1910, his occupation is listed as Round House, in the Locomotive industry, 1920 he is a laborer for a contractor, in the 1926 Scranton City Directory his occupation is "painter", and it remains that way until his death in 1953.  I have not located him in the 1930 or 1940 census records. 

I did find a newspaper article which may somewhat explain the change.

This is from the Scranton Republican Wed. 9 Mar 1927.  Her death certificate says that she died from complication during child birth on 7 Mar 1927 at age 32.

After the death of Bessie, a lot of changes take place.  Changes that would not happen today because of all of the social agencies that have been put in place.  Back in the 20's there was no welfare, food stamps, or Division of Youth and Family, or anything of the sort.  When you are a single parent due to a death, you depend on the generosity of family, friends, and maybe your church or other charitable organization. Raymond was a single parent now, not by choice, but through death.  He has six children and the oldest is 17.  So now the children get split up with other family members.

In the 1930 census, I cannot locate John, the 17 year old.  I assume he may be on his own and working.  Mary is living in Minersville, PA with her uncle Frank Brady and his wife and their three children.  Augustus is living with Bessie's sister, Ellen Farrell with her husband and children in Scranton.  Robert and Paul (the two youngest) are together with Bessie's other sister Mary and her husband Martin McDonough in Scranton. But what has become of Raymond, Jr.?

In the 1930 census, I did find a Raymond Brady, age 16, which is about right, living in Newton Township, Lackawanna County at the Hillside Home (Insane).  That is how the census record lists it.  I cannot be certain that this is him or why he is living there at age 16, but I do know that he is still there in the 1940 Census.  The record says Newton Township, but it is actually on the border with Clark Summit, near my sister's home. I drove over there, but I was too late to talk to anyone but Security.  He gave me a phone number for a social worker, but when I called him, he said that the records are no longer available and had been destroyed.  At this point I am at a dead end, but I may try the Pennsylvania State Archives. 

I wrote this last night, but did not post it, I wanted to read it over before posting it.  I thought about it when I went to bed, and it dawned on me.  Maybe (just maybe) Raymond had Special Needs and no one else in the family had the time or knowledge to care for him.  So he went to this institution where he could be cared for.  Remember, this was not the most politically correct era in our history.  If you were not "normal", you may end up in an Insane Asylum because no one knew what to do for you.  I can't believe it took me so long to think of this, since I have a son with Special Needs.  I don't know how I am going to prove this, but I am pretty confident that this is the answer.

I also happened to find out that Raymond passed away in September of 1984 and is buried in St. Joseph's Cemetery.  His sister Mary took care of the arrangements.

Cathedral Cemetery- My Davis ancestors

I know that it has been awhile, again, but the good news is that I have gathered a lot more information over the past few months. All I have to do now is to categorize all this stuff into several coherent posts.  So I thought I would start out somewhere familiar: Cathedral Cemetery, Scranton, PA.

You may recall me talking about the Davis connection that took me years to figure out.  Sometimes all it takes is one or two little tidbits of information to find the connection, and then the landslide of info that makes you wonder why you did not figure it out a long time ago.  I am not going to go crazy telling you the story again, but the Davis family has lived near my Brady family since the 1860's in Gordon, Schuylkill County, PA.  Then they turned up in Scranton and I was able to figure out that Mrs Davis (Catherine) and Mrs Brady (Bidget) were sisters (Convey).  Pennsylvania Death Certificates on Ancestry.com really helped out making the connection. Some of the Davis children died in Scranton.  Delia and Mary E Davis lived at 1392 N Washington Ave at the time of their death.  That address is now Andy Gavin's Pub and Eatery, and is allegedly haunted. One of the sons, James also died in Scranton, as did his 10 year old son, Carl. They were all buried in Cathedral Cemetery, unfortunately Carl was the first to be buried there.

On one of my visits to my sister, I drove to the cemetery on a Saturday morning and checked at the office for burial locations.  They were extremely helpful, to the point where I felt bad that they spent so much time helping me.  My goal was to locate the Davis plot.

The lady in the office actually made a copy of the file card and a map so that I could find the plot, and I walked out to search for the plot.  I was walking around for awhile and the only Davis headstone that I saw was huge and was marked with just "DAVIS".  Story of my research.  But I kept looking and that is when the familiar pick up truck went by.  It belongs to the cemetery and is used by employees to get around the cemetery because it is huge and would take forever to walk through.  The truck is also used to help wandering people find what they are looking for.

The man got out of the truck and said "Did she give you a map?" He walked over and I handed him the map.  Within a minute, he walked past the huge "DAVIS" headstone and pointed to a smaller, acid rain eroded stone and said "here it is."

The small animal on the stone depicts a lamb (he said this was popular then when the decedent was a child)  I assume this represents the innocence of a child.  But it was so worn that I couldn't make out the name on the stone.  Until I looked from an angle, then you can barely make out the name "DAVIS".

Actually, I don't know how much this picture helps, but if you enlarge it a little bit, you can make it out.

There is no way that I would ever have found this, if it hadn't been for the man in the pick up truck.  I returned to the office with a Brady to find, but this was the find of the day.  So buried in this plot are James Davis, his son Carl, and his two sisters: Mary E. and Delia Loretta Davis, but no other names were added to the stone.  I guess that says it all.

Iron and Steel

I remember when I was a kid, my dad used to say that his parents were in the iron and steel business.  He said "My mother irons, and my father steals", then he'd laugh.

 Remember this article that I posted before?

I found this in the Scranton Republican 14 Aug 1907.  In my post I was wondering what he was doing in Buffalo, NY, why and with whom?  Well, I recently read a book around the history of Scranton, Pa.  In about 1840, the Lackawanna Iron and Coal Co. started and business was not real good until about 1846 when the company made a deal with the New York and Erie Railroad to produce "T" rails.  This brought the railroad industry to the area.  The success of the industry grew, and by 1894 the company produced 500,000 tons of steel rails.  Then came labor strife, and in 1902 the company up and moved to a suburb of Buffalo, NY.  By the way, the suburb is now known as Lackawanna.  Sound familiar?  So I am thinking that August Brady was working in the iron and steel business and moved to Buffalo because that is where his work went.

I found an additional article in the Scranton Republican, from 22 November 1907, just three months after the death of August:

Just a simple one line in the Scranton Republican tells me that perhaps Raymond, his brother, also went to Buffalo to work for the steel company.  It's funny how these little articles in the paper that you never knew anything about can give you more insight into where your family was, when and why.  I have to be honest here and say that I really haven't researched much about Raymond, but I do know that he ends up back in Scranton, where he dies in 1953 of coronary disease at age 64.

There is one more part of this story.  August and Raymond had another brother, Thomas A. Brady.  Thomas shows up in the 1910 census in Lackawanna, NY working as an electrician in the Steel Mills.  He lives with his wife, Florence and two children.  Also living with them are Florence's two brothers.  In 1920, Thomas and Florence live in Gary, Indiana with their three children and minus Florence's two brothers.  You may be scratching your head and thinking "why Gary, Indiana?" (I did the same thing for while, until I googled "Gary, Indiana")  That is when I found out that Gary Indiana was founded in 1906 by the United States Steel Corporation as the home for its new plant, the Gary Works. The family stayed in Gary and is still in Indiana.  I am not exactly sure where, but I think it is in Indianapolis. 

So maybe my dad wasn't joking after all.  His mom and dad were not in the Iron and Steel business, but apparently some of his ancestors were.

Brooklyn

Last week I was checking on my DNA connections on ancestry.com and I saw a new cousin connection.  I recognized the surname as soon as I saw it.  I came across this name about a year and a half ago while researching my great grandfather, Edward McConville.  I accidentally found his brother, John living and eventually dying in Brooklyn in 1936.  I contacted my new found 3rd cousin through ancestry and got a reply a couple of days ago.  So this got me thinking about Edward McConville and his soon to be wife, my great grandmother Hannah Sullivan.  They both lived in Brooklyn when they arrived in the US.  Edward arrived in 1868 from Manchester, England, and Hannah arrived between 1871 and 1880 from London.  This also explains the 18% of my DNA coming from Great Britain.

I started wondering what Brooklyn must have been like when they got off the boat in New York.  I know that Edward arrived in 1868.  This was just in time for the Orange Riots.  I never heard of them either, but apparently back in the old country in about 1690 there was a battle between the forces of deposed King James II of England and the forces of Dutch Prince William of Orange, who had risen to the throne of England and Scotland, along with his wife.  The battle took place near the River Boyne and the army of William was victorious, which helped with the rise of Protestants in Ireland.
The Orange Riots pitted the Irish Catholics against Irish Protestants (called "Orangemen" because of William of Orange) in New York City.  On July 12 1870, the "Orangemen" had a parade to celebrate their victory 200 plus years before.  The parade route came upon a group of Catholic laborers, who were upset by the chants of the Protestants.  Stones were thrown at the marchers, and a riot broke out, gunfire was exchanged with three people killed and several more injured.  The following year, the parade had been banned, but the Governor overturned the ban and the parade was on.  This time, the State Militia was in attendance.  The "Orangemen" marched to about the same area and encountered Catholic laborers, a shot was fired, and the riot was on.  This time sixty civilians were killed and 150 wounded.  After this, the parade was banned for good.  No wonder you shouldn't wear orange on St. Patrick's Day.

Hannah and Edward were married in Brooklyn (Red Hook, according to Aunt Florence) in June 1888, and at some point before 1900, they moved to Jersey City, NJ.  The Brooklyn Bridge, which was under construction when Hannah arrived, was finally completed in May 1883.  Maybe Roebling's erection led them into Manhattan and on to New Jersey.  Can you imagine what it must have been like to watch the building of the Brooklyn Bridge for over 13 years, and to see it completed.  When the only traffic would have been on foot or horse and wagon.  They probably could not imagine the masses walking across the bridge on September 11, 2001 to escape the collapse of the Twin Towers.  By the way, according to Wikipedia, more that 120,000 vehicles, 4,000 pedestrians, and 3,100 bicyclists cross the Brooklyn Bridge every day.  The bridge is owned and operated by DOT and there are no tolls on the bridge.