Who, you might ask, is Eli Martin? I'm asking the same question. Usual on line sources are not giving me very many answers. So, if he's not a direct ancestor, and I don't know much about him, why am I writing this blog post? The answer is simple, to my mind. He served in the Civil War. He was in the same unit as his brother in law, David Wise, and David's brother, Philip Wise. All three men are from Lagro, a very small town in Wabash County, Indiana. Eli served with the other two men in the 123rd Indiana Infantry, company I. He was drafted in 1864 and discharged in Louisville, Kentucky in 1865, having served about 9 months. This was long enough that he filed for disability benefits in 1890. I would love to have the genealogy dollars to order his pension file, because that might shed some light on some of the many unanswered questions I have.
I briefly mentioned Eli in the recent blog post about the family of Andrew Wise, because Eli, the son of Timothy and Hannah Tilberry Martin, married Elizabeth Wise, the daughter of Andrew and Mary Serfass Wise. They had three children together. Normally I write at least a paragraph about each child, giving the spouse's name and the names of their children. However, I am at a standstill. Census records show that their children are John, Timothy, and John again, which leads me to believe that the first John, born in 1867, didn't live long. But what happened to Timothy and the second John?
I have no information about Timothy at all, and the John Martins that I've found don't seem to match what little we know about him. This family was one that was in the lower economic strata. They were farm laborers, so may have moved into another county. However, I've found no marriage records nor death records for either man, and that seems strange. Did they both die without marrying and without children?
Eli deserves more recognition than he has received so far. I apologize for not being able to answer the questions I have about him. Can anyone help?
No comments:
Post a Comment
Don't want to comment publicly? Feel free to email me: happygenealogydancingATgmailDOTcom. You can figure out what to do with the "AT" and the "DOT".