More to Learn:

William Calvin Cheatham, part 5 

So far what we have found for W. C. Cheatham doesn't really tell us a whole lot about who he really was as a person.  It's amazing how finding little tidbits about a person's life in the newspaper can give you insight into their character.  Unlike the census records, which I presented in chronological order, I'm going to give you the newspapers in the order that I found them - that means starting in Arizona first, then moving back through time to New Mexico, and then to the (sort of) beginning, in Texas.

The earliest newspaper article that I have from Arizona that mentions W. C. is from 1908.  If you remember, we first found the family in our state in the 1910 census, but the oral histories say that he moved to Duncan between 1900 and 1905.  So we won't clear up the question of exactly which year right now, but maybe as we continue along we will find more clues.

Some notes on the articles before we get started:

Some of the articles had long lists of names, which I didn't think everyone would care to go through.  When possible, I included as much of an article as I thought was necessary to understand the reference to our ancestor. Some of the articles are just brief little paragraphs; in some of those cases I chose to include portions not related to the Cheathams, not only because they are interesting, but also because they give a nice picture of what life was like in the area at the time. Also, there was a wide range in the quality of the original newspapers, which is why some of these are harder to read than others.

All of the newspapers articles in this post came from the "Arizona Memory Project" newspaper database on the Arizona State Archives website. Because they were put online in a pdf format, the only way to snip out just the article was to take a screen shot of that portion - this means that if the entire article wouldn't fit on my screen, I had to "cut it" in multiple pieces and put it back together here.  (It also means that if the article was very long, I had to make a choice of whether to clip it less zoomed or in more pieces - less zoomed means harder to read.)  If you click on the date in the heading, that will allow you to view and download the entire page of the newspaper.  Clicking on the article itself will allow you to download that individual image.  If you would like the link to the web page where you can view (much larger in high quality) and download the entire edition for that day, you can go to the Newspaper Links pages in the side menu (over there on the left).  And finally, when I have finished posting all of the articles on this blog (I think there are close to 100 of them!), I will combine all of the images into one pdf that you can download.

Well, let's get started then!

Oh wait!  Before you read these, I want to point out that, although Duncan did have a newspaper during the time W. C. was living there, apparently it is not a popular enough research item for anyone to have taken the time to digitize and put online.  The articles presented here come from the nearby towns of Clifton and Safford.  This map shows the proximity of Clifton (top) to Duncan (bottom) - 28 miles away, but populated for the entire stretch.  Safford was in a different county starting in 1909 and so is not on this map, but the town is east of Duncan, 39 miles away.

Survey Map of Greenlee County, Arizona - 1914 (enlarged portion)

Now let's get started for real!

1908

The Graham Guardian

(Safford, Graham County, Arizona)

2 Oct 1908
                                                                       

Here we see that W. C. was elected as a Democratic party delegate from Duncan to the upcoming convention. So now we know that he was not only involved in local politics, but maybe also a well-known and/or well respected member of the community.

And that was it for 1908.  Maybe because the newspaper wasn't published in Duncan itself, it didn't have too much to say about the residents there.


1909

The Copper Era
(Clifton, Graham County/Greenlee County, AZ)
 25 Feb 1909

So this one is pretty interesting.  It tells us that W. C. was "one of the old-time citizens of Duncan," which means he had been living there for some time already in 1909, which suggests that he left New Mexico soon after the 1900 census.  It also tells us that he was "an old member of the order" of the Knights of Pythias (a fraternal service organization/secret society).  Now don't you all feel like you know W. C. better after only reading two articles about him?

The Graham Guardian

(Graham County, Arizona)

28 May 1909

Unfortunately, this doesn't really tell us anything about W. C. except that he was doing his civic duty and serving on a jury.  There are a lot of articles like this.

The Copper Era

(Clifton, Graham County/Greenlee County, AZ)

3 Jun 1909

This one pretty much reiterates what was in the one above.

(The following snippet doesn’t name a Cheatham, but it was published in the same edition as the previous article and I thought it was interesting, so here it is.)

The Copper Era

(Clifton, Graham County/Greenlee County, AZ)

3 Jun 1909

I liked this article, not just because it was kind of funny that they were convicted of "smuggling alien women across the border," but also because it reminds us that Arizona was still a territory at this point in time, and these were the kinds of things going on around our ancestors.

The Copper Era

(Clifton, Graham County/Greenlee County, AZ)

28 Oct 1909


You'll notice that I included a large portion of this that is totally unrelated to W. C.  This is so you can see how these early newspapers had a "Minor Mention" type of section, where they just tell a brief fact about something or someone (like what they were up to - it's like an early form of facebook or a gossip column where everyone's business is up there for the world to see).  Also, reading the whole thing gives a great picture of what things were like at the time, and some of these are pretty funny as well.  Oh, and I wasn't the one to cut off the edge of these; whoever originally owned them or the person who digitized them is the guilty party.

As for W. C., this article is four months after he was telling the Knights of Pythias group in the neighboring town of Clifton that he was going to be starting a chapter in Duncan.  Here we see that he indeed did so, and that he and his oldest son (A. D.) were members.

The Copper Era

(Clifton, Graham County/Greenlee County, AZ)

28 Oct 1909

This article also doesn't mention W. C., but is pretty informative nevertheless.  First, it reminds us again that Arizona was still a territory.  It also causes us to consider the fact that, because most of the southern railroad lines were laid between 1880 and 1900, when W. C. and his family moved from Texas to New Mexico, and again to Duncan (which was on the line from Lordsburg to Clifton), it is possible that they made the move by train.  (I don't know about you, but that is an entirely new picture in my head.)  This snippet from the newspaper also reminds us that Halloween was the same 100 years ago as it is now!

The Arizona Republican
(Phoenix, Maricopa County, AZ)
9 Nov 1909

If you are paying attention, you'll have noticed that this article was actually taken from a newspaper in Phoenix.  That leads me to believe that, after attending the Knights of Pythias "local lodge" back in the middle of October, W. C. made a trip to the "grand lodge" in Phoenix as the representative for the Duncan lodge.  I included the entire article, even though it is long, so you can see what kinds of things they were doing (you know, like hazing their novitiates). 


1910

The Copper Era

(Clifton, Graham County/Greenlee County, AZ)

5 Aug 1910

This is all I found for 1910.  It tells us that W. C. visited the neighboring town of Clifton periodically, but this one doesn't tell us what he did when he was there.  It does tell us, however, that it was apparently quite popular to vacation "on the coast," and that it is probably not a good idea to try to ford a river in a milk wagon.


1911

The Graham Guardian

(Graham County, Arizona)

18 Aug 1911

If you remember, Duncan was a part of the new Greenlee County by 1911.  I guess because they were a part of Graham and remained so close, they figured they might as well continue to participate in their county fair.  Either that, or the population of their new county was too small to make it worth the trouble to organize one yet.  This is actually a bit funny that W. C. is taking charge of the agricultural exhibit when he stated on the census for the previous year that he was a carpenter and not a farmer. 

The Copper Era

(Clifton, Graham County/Greenlee County, AZ)

13 Oct 1911

Here we see W. C. doing more politicking, this time looking to get elected to the state legislature. (I'm assuming for once Arizona became a state, which wouldn't actually happen until February - four months later.) 

The Copper Era

(Clifton, Graham County/Greenlee County, AZ)

13 Oct 1911

This is just showing us the list of everyone who was running for office.

The Copper Era

(Clifton, Graham County/Greenlee County, AZ)

13 Oct 1911

This is just more about W. C.'s political campaign.  But read the last paragraph of this clip - too, too funny!

The Copper Era

(Clifton, Graham County/Greenlee County, AZ)

20 Oct 1911

More about W. C.'s political aspirations!

The Copper Era

(Clifton, Graham County/Greenlee County, AZ)

10 Nov 1911

Here are the election results.  Out of the five men running for State Representative, W. C. brought in the least votes overall.  He did bring in the second most votes from Franklin, Duncan, and Sheldon (just north of Duncan), and it looks like the two men with the most votes overall took in a lot from Clifton and Morenci, which both had much higher populations than Duncan (Clifton - 4,874; Morenci - 5,010; Duncan - 738 .... see what you can find out with a little bit of research?), so as far as name recognition and popularity goes, he probably didn't stand much of a chance.  W. C. is mentioned again at the bottom, in the returns for precinct committeemen.  It doesn't look like he did very well there either.


1912

The Copper Era & Morenci Leader

(Clifton, Graham County/Greenlee County, AZ)

5 Jan 1912

Finally, something that isn't politics!  This is from early January of 1912, and it tells us three things:

     W. C. had sold his house and lot (not land or farm, mind you, which matches what it said in the census - that he was living in a house, not on a farm).
     W. C. was moving to the Phoenix area, probably quite soon because there was going to be a farewell party for him in a few days. (This would explain why he had sold his house.)
     W. C. had been the Sunday School Superintendent for the Presbyterian church in Duncan.  (If you remember, the family history mentioned this.)

I'm soooooo excited, because now we know exactly when W. C. left Duncan for the Phoenix area!  Let's review:  The family history said 1917 or 1918, the Laveen Centennial History said before 1918, and the voter registration document told us before May 14, 1914.  Now we know for sure that it was at the very beginning of 1912!  I think another Woohoo! is in order here. 

The Copper Era & Morenci Leader

(Clifton, Graham County/Greenlee County, AZ)

12 Jan 1912

This is just reporting on that farewell social that they threw for W. C. before he left for Phoenix.  Apparently, those Morris chairs were just like the "recliners" my great grandfather Harry Goldie made.  They are actually quite expensive ($5 then is about $370 today) so it was a pretty big gift.  They must have thought very highly of him!  Here is a picture of a Morris chair of the time:

The Copper Era & Morenci Leader

(Clifton, Graham County/Greenlee County, AZ)

23 Feb 1912

This was published (by my reasoning) shortly after W. C. moved away.  It is showing us that he either transferred or sold land to his oldest son before he moved, and that he didn't owe any debt, including taxes on that land.  (Maybe this was the land that was listed on the agricultural schedule of the census.)

The Copper Era & Morenci Leader

(Clifton, Graham County/Greenlee County, AZ)

23 Feb 1912

This is just showing payroll for the government.  It tells us that W. C. was a "clerk of election" during the previous year.  I'm guessing that this is saying the pay was given or approved on Dec. 12, 1911, since the election was held in November.  Notice how he was paid $6.00 (just over $150 today), even though $3 was the allowed amount.


1913

The Copper Era & Morenci Leader

(Clifton, Graham County/Greenlee County, AZ)

9 May 1913

This is another notice of filed documents, this time for the land and house that W. C. sold to that guy from Oklahoma way back in January of the previous year.  I guess government agencies have always had a backlog!  


So that's what I have for W. C.'s time in Duncan.  What did we find out about him?  Well, he was active in politics and in the Knights of Pythias fraternal order.  He was the Sunday School Superintendent for the Presbyterian church.  He was chosen to be in charge of Duncan's farm products exhibit at the county fair.  Overall, it seems like he was a well-liked and respected leader in the town of Duncan.  Cool.  Now isn't that better than the information we got from some dusty old census records and a death certificate?

Next time we'll take a look at the newspaper articles I've managed to find of W. C.'s time in the Phoenix area.

                                                                                                                                            - Therese

A Little Bit of This, and a Little Bit of That:

William Calvin Cheatham, part 4

Everything we know so far about W. C. Cheatham has come from the family history book, the census records, and a couple of old photographs.  This is what I had when I started putting all of his information into my family tree on Ancestry.com.  But I still had some nagging questions.  Where in the world was he in 1870 and what was he doing? What year did he leave Texas and go to New Mexico?  When did he leave there and head over to Duncan?  When did they call it quits there and move into the Phoenix area?

I was also wondering about his wives - what was the deal with that annoying wrong initial in the Texas marriage index? - when exactly did his first wife die? - when exactly did he marry his second wife?

I started looking for new primary source documents to see if they could answer any of these questions.  The first one I came up with was his death certificate.

(I found this on the Arizona Genealogy Birth and Death Certificates website.  They have quite a few online, but it's really hit or miss whether you will find who you are looking for.)

Death certificates are fantastic for telling us when and where a person died (and of course, why they died).  They can be a great way to pin down who a person's parents were, but where those parents were born or how their name was spelled, not so much.  They can be a great way to find out where someone was born, but not always, and they can be a great way to find out when someone was born, but also, not always.  Take this one for example.  It tells us:

William Calvin Cheatham died on May 5, 1926 in Phoenix, Maricopa County, Arizona.    He was born on January 19, 1852. (So now we know the day of the month! The year matches the family history, but it does not match the 1900 census, which says 1853.)

He was born in Alto, Texas. (The family history says he was born in Angelina County, but Alto is in Cherokee County.  To try to figure out the truth of things, I looked at the records I have for his father.  The U. S. Census show that the family lived in Angelina County in 1850 - 2 or three years before W. C. was born - and the Texas County Tax Rolls index shows that W. C.'s father owned land in Angelina County from 1849 through 1852.  He owned land in Cherokee County in 1855 and 1859, then Angelina County again in 1860, and in both counties in 1862.  So they could very well have been living in Alto during 1852 and 1853 -since we now don't know for sure in which year he was born.)

His father was E. C. Cheatham (good thing, because that's whose tax records I was looking at!), and his mother's maiden name was Springfield.  (These both match the family history.)  

W. C. was a farmer.  (Which makes sense since the 1920 census showed him farming six years prior to this.)

He died of entiritis as a result of chronic appendicitis.

He was buried at Greenwood Memory Lawn Cemetery.

So after looking at this, I was really scratching my head about the birth date thing.  The first thing I did was look to see who the informant was for the death certificate, because I've found through my research and my own personal experience, that sometimes the informant takes their best guess.  Well, it was A. D. (his oldest son Armon D.) and E. L. (Is this supposed to be Elmer with the wrong middle initial or someone else?  Does anybody know?)  You would think that W. C.'s sons would know this information, right?  I mean, it's not like they are the daughter-in-law or something (I was the informant for both of my in-laws, and I didn't know the answers to every question I was asked.)  So I would think that the date and place of birth should be correct on this.

But wait!  Have a look at this:

Why does the death certificate say 1852 and the grave marker say 1853?  Wouldn't you think the same person would have been filling out all the paperwork at the time?  (You know, if anyone has answers to any of my questions, please leave a comment below!)

So which date should we believe?  This is where I really wish I had a copy of the birth, marriage, and death pages from that old family Bible mentioned in the family history.  Because I would think that people would mostly write those things in there right after they happened, so they should be accurate.

Well, I am inclined to accept what the death certificate says, but I'm going to try doing the math based on the date the censuses were taken and the age reported for him.  I'll be back in like ten minutes to tell you if that helped or not. . . . Okay.  I'm back, and this is what we have:

All of the censuses were taken after he had had his birthday for the year.
    1860 - 8 yrs old - puts him born in 1852
    1880 - 27 years old - puts him born in 1853
    1900 - 47 years old - census specifically asks year of birth - 1853
    1910 - 58 years old - puts him born in 1852
    1920 - 67 years old - puts him born in 1853

death certificate
    1926 - 74 years old - puts him born in 1852, as reported

I'm starting to think that W. C. might not have known how old he really was.  Do we trust what his mother (presumably) reported when he was only eight years old?  We don't know whether he himself or his wives were reporting the information on the other ones, but I don't think it really matters because the same wife would have had to have given different answers.  My husband says who cares, it doesn't really matter, but apparently he doesn't understand that you have to put something on the data sheet, which everyone else then takes as gospel.  I might just have to put an OR in there (unless someone wants to throw that page from Delilah Springfield's old family Bible at me to help clear things up!)

Let's move on, shall we?  I tried to go online to see if there was an obituary for him.  I didn't find one, but I did end up at the Arizona State Archives website.  I found some of the probate documents from when W. C. died.  Here is a sampling of the 49 pages:

(I combined all of the images into a pdf document for you (you're welcome!) and you can download that by clicking here:  William Calvin Cheatham Probate Records.)

These are part of the final settlement papers filed at the closing of probate.  For those of you who might not know, when a person dies "intestate," meaning that they have no will, and if they own a certain amount of property, their "estate" has to go through the process of probate, in which property value is evaluated and debts paid off before the estate is distributed to any heirs.  Probate documents, like wills, are a fantastic way to sort out family relationships and get clues to the socio-economic standing of an ancestor.  It can also help you pin down when other family members did or did not die, as I will show you when I finally get to the Blackshear branch of the family.

Lucky for us, we already had access to enough sources that we didn't need to rely on the probate records to answer those questions for this ancestor, but the records do confirm a lot of what we already "know":

W. C. died on May 5, 1926 in Maricopa County, Arizona.

His wife was Mary, living in Laveen, which means that W. C. also lived in Laveen, even though he died in a hospital in Phoenix.

He had five children: A. D., a son; Elmer V., a son; Shelton, a son; Lila, a daughter; and Leonard M., a son.  (Incidentally, it also implies that this is the birth order, since Leonard is listed after Lila instead of with the other boys, and it tells us that Armon D. liked to go by his initials.)

W. C. still owned property in Duncan, Arizona in 1926, even though he hadn't lived there in approximately ten years.

The property he owned in Maricopa County had a much higher value than the property in Duncan.  (Just a fun fact - $12,500 in 1926 is roughly equivalent to $172,000 today.)

I don't think we learned anything about W. C. that we already didn't know, except how much his land was worth.  But that's okay, because it's always fun to look through these old documents anyway.

After I downloaded all those pages, I found a database on Ancestry with school census records.

It doesn't show it on this particular page, but according to the Ancestry database, this was filled out on March 13, 1920.  Now, when I first found this I hadn't looked through the census records in a long time, so when I saw that W. C. Cheatham and M. M. Cheatham had a seven year old son in school, I was like, wait a mintute!  Did they adopt someone?  (Because, you know, W. C. was 67 and Mary was 59, so it was highly unlikely he was really their kid.)  So I looked back at the 1920 census and saw that Calvin Cheatham was their grandson, and that he and (his father?) Shelton lived with W. C. at this time.

Then I found the database with voter registration records.

1910 Voter Registration, Greenlee County, Arizona

Here we see W. C. ten names down.  This document tells us:

In September of 1910, W. C. was living in Duncan, Greenlee County, Arizona.  (We already knew this because that is where we found him on the 1910 census.)

He was born in Texas.  (Nothing new there either.  It is the kind of information, though, that helps you know you are looking at the right person.  The fact that S. C. Cheatham, presumably his son Shelton Conroy, is on the same list also helps confirm his identity. Crazy bit of info here - While looking for the missing W. C. in newspapers from the 1870's, I found one living in Red River County, which is over there by Angelina.  I thought I had the right guy until I happened across an article saying he was killed in a hunting accident before 1880, which is when our W. C. turns up again!  Just saying - you can never be too careful!)

He reported that he was 57 years old at the time.  (See what I did there?  In the 1910 census, taken one month prior, he reported that he was 58.)

Lets's see what the next one shows:

1908 Voter Registration - Graham County, Arizona

Yeah, I know, these are out of order.  Sometimes you find them that way.  This one doesn't really tell us anything new, except that W. C. was still going with the 1853 birth date.

1914 Voter Registration - Maricopa County, Arizona

This one is especially cool because it has the actual signature of W. C.  It tells us:

On May 18, 1914, W. C. was living in Maricopa County.  (I am so excited, because this helps narrow down the answer to one of my previous questions - when did W. C. leave Duncan?  If you remember, our oral histories placed it around 1917, but now we know it was earlier than May of 1914. Woohoo!)

He was a farmer.  (Not a carpenter this time around!)

He was born in Texas.

He was 5' 11" tall, and weighed 135 pounds.  (So I guess we could call him lanky!)

I just love those documents that tell you what a person looked like!

1916 Voter Registration - Maricopa County, Arizona

The only new information we get from this one is that:

In 1916 W. C. was ranching (as opposed to farming).

He was a registered Democrat. (No surprise there - it just so happens that every place he had ever lived in before this had been primarily populated by Democrats.)

1918 Voter Registration - Maricopa County, Arizona

This one also helps answer a previous question.

On May 15, 1918, W. C. was living in Scottsdale.  (This means he did not move to Laveen until at least the second half of 1918.)

He was a farmer (as was his son Shelton, seen five names down on the list).

Now W. C. only weighed 130 pounds.  (Wasn't his wife feeding him?!)

He had brown eyes, and light colored hair.  (Funny, because looking at the two photos we have, I never would have said "light colored hair.")

1920 Voter Registration - Maricopa County, Arizona

It looks like these voter registrations were good for two years, huh?

On June 12, 1920, W. C. was living in Laveen, but we already knew this from the 1920 census and probate records. 

He listed his occupation as "General Store," not farmer or rancher this time.  (This matches the family history which says that he began buying farm land in about 1922.)

He did not get any shorter, but he did manage to put on about five pounds.

1922 Voter Registration - Maricopa County, Arizona

Here we see again that W. C. was living in Laveen.   He was a rancher once again, but now he only weighed 120 pounds.  (It doesn't seem that he was in very good health at this point.)

1924 Voter Registration - Maricopa County, Arizona

This document doesn't really show any changes from 1922, except that W. C. gained a bit of weight again.  He is still in Laveen, still a democrat, and still a rancher.

I don't have any more voter registrations for the Cheathams in Laveen until 1932, so this is the last one that W. C. appears in. 

I originally found these because the Arizona State Archives website directed me back to Ancestry.  So once I had gone through every database specific to Arizona without coming up with anything else, I went back to the archives to see if there was anything else to find.  I discovered that they had digital copies of historic newspapers, so I thought maybe I could find him there and see if I could clear up exactly when he arrived in Scottsdale.  In my next post, we'll see what those newspapers have to say about W. C. and what he was up to.

                                                                                                                                            - Therese

Coming to Arizona:

William Calvin Cheatham, part 3

Today we are going to explore what the census records tell us about William Calvin Cheatham's time in Arizona. We'll get started with the 1910 census:

William Calvin Cheatham U. S. Federal Census - 1910

(You can download a blank form to see the questions asked here.)

Is it just me, or can we read this one a little better than the others? Here is what we can learn from it:

W. C. was 58 in 1910, living in Duncan, Graham County, Arizona.  (Funny, the Greenlee County website says that on March 10, 1909, Graham was split into two counties, and Duncan was in the newly created Greenlee.  So I'm not sure why, a year later, the census taker wrote Graham on the form.)

W. C. was a carpenter, in the 'building' industry, and not 'working on his own account.'  (The other choices on the census were employer or employee, but I don't understand the census taker's code.  I'm guessing employee.)  

He owned his own home, which was a house, not a farm, but it does say he was listed on the farm schedule, so maybe he also had some land.  I think, if I'm reading this right, that he owned his home free and clear.

He was still married to Mary, his sons Armon D. and Elmer were no longer at home, but the other children were:
Shelton, now age 22 was farming.
Delilah, now age 20 had no occupation and was not attending school.
Leonard, now age 18 also had no occupation and was not attending school.

Here we see once again that W. C. is reporting that he is a carpenter. So I think we can be pretty confident now that, although he did spend time farming/raising cattle in Texas, he also knew how to build structures. I guess that is why he was able to build those two, two-bedroom wood-frame houses mentioned earlier! And that is pretty much the only really interesting fact that isn't already included in the family history.

(And speaking of farming, on a totally unrelated side note, do not buy this protein bar: It tastes like chocolate covered alfalfa. Lucky for me I didn't waste my money on it because they were giving them away for free.)

Aaaaand, back to W. C. You know I love my maps, so here is one showing the Arizona counties. I couldn't find one showing Duncan (go figure), but it is south of Clifton and east of Safford, along the river and right on the border with New Mexico.

Here is a survey map from 1914 showing the portion of the county around Duncan:

You can see how the town is pretty much split in half by the river and railroad line.

I absolutely could not find a good article on the history of Duncan, so here is a little bit of information for you:

The first white settlers in the Duncan area arrived in the 1880's and engaged in numerous battles with the Apache Indians.  The land is extremely fertile, so a great place to farm, but also has a lot of mineral deposits, so it was also a great place to mine. Because Duncan was a stop on the new railroad to New Mexico, it became a marketing center and shipping point for farm goods, cattle, and ore.  

I can't tell you exactly what it was like in 1910, but it did have a lot of farming and a lot of mining going on. So, I guess it was a lot like the other frontier towns W. C. had lived in during his lifetime. From reading this, we would think for sure that W. C. was farming, or even mining, but no, he was carpentering. (Yes , I know that is not a real word!) Maybe he was building houses for all those farmers and ranchers and miners coming into town.

Here is a picture taken around this time:

I really like this one, much more than the one I shared before, because it is so informal. It's almost like you can get a glimpse into their personalities and everyday lives. (By the way, I am looking for the original copy of this photo, without the names on it. If you have it, or know who does, please let me know!)

The family didn't stay in Duncan for too long. If you recall, the family history said that they arrived between 1900 and 1905, and left in 1917 or 1918. A family history compiled by Betty Accomazzo says the family arrived in Duncan in 1903, and her compilation, Laveen Centennial History, has them moving from Scottsdale to Laveen in 1918. The next census record is for 1920, so it probably won't solve that mystery, but you never know, it might have a question asking how long they lived in their current residence. Let's find out.

William Calvin Cheatham - U. S. Federal Census 1920

(You can download a blank form to see the questions asked here.)

Here we go:

W. C. was living in Laveen, Maricopa County, Arizona.

He was 67 years old, still married to Mary, and had only one of their children living with them:

     Shelton C., age 30, who was a single farmer working on his 'own account." Shelton's son, Calvin, age 8, was also living with them. (I am assuming, then, that Shelton's wife had died.)

W. C. owned his own home, but it was mortgaged.

His occupation was farming, and he employed six people.

That's what it tells us. I guess this is why everyone always just "knew" that he was a farmer. (By the way, on the same page you can find his son Armon D. with his family, and his daughter Lila with her family.)

You know, it's kinda funny how, up until about two weeks ago, whenever I thought about the first settlers in Laveen, I just sort imagined them driving their Model T's or wagons up a dusty dirt road and saying, yep this looks like a good place to farm. (Only the future farms would be a bunch of desert scrub, so their imaginary comments wouldn't make a lot of sense in my mind.) Now that I have a better picture of W. C. and his family, I can imagine it all a little differently!

So that's it for the census records. Next time we'll look at other documents and see if they can shed any new light on W. C. Cheatham.

                                                                                                                                            - Therese

Making Sense of the Census Records - or Not:

William Calvin Cheatham, part 2

So now let's look at the census records and see what they say.
(Hint: If you can click on a subheading, doing so will take you to the page where you can download and/or view the document larger.  If an image does not have a linked subheading, clicking on the image will allow you to do the same thing.  Assuming, that is, that I set everything up correctly!)

The earliest census in which W. C. Cheatham shows up is 1860.

William Calvin Cheatham  

U. S. Federal Census 1860

Cherokee County, Texas

(You can download a blank form to see the questions asked here.)

I know, this is very hard to read. Even when you click on the image and view it larger, it is still hard to read. Sometimes they are just like that. (I guess the census takers couldn't be bothered to refill his pen with ink.) (Here's a hint: if you go to the Family Search website and create a free account, you can search through individual census records. So you could go to 1860 Census, Texas, Cherokee County, Beat 10. Their site, unlike Ancestry, allows you to adjust the picture quality for easier reading!) Anyway, here is a detail:

The family is shown on two separate pages. I don't know how the transcribers even read this. I would never have found this if I were searching through the records on my own. W. C.'s father is much easier to read:

So what can we learn from this document? Well,

In 1860, Wm C. was eight years old, meaning he was born around 1852.
He was born in Texas.

In 1860, the family was living in Cherokee County, Texas, in the area served by the Rusk post office.

He was attending school.

His father was a farmer, and there was another farmer living with his family.

He had a brother who was one year younger than him.  (Since the family history says he should also have an older brother, I am guessing that he passed away as a child.)

His father was farming and the family's land was valued at $600 (I think I'm reading this right), which is equivalent to just over $18,000 today.  (Do with that what you will.  I have no idea if this was rich or poor or average for Texas at the time.  Anyone?  I am sure, however, that it tells us that the family owned land, and were not tenant farmers or sharecroppers, so I guess not that poor.)

Hmmmm. Well, we're getting a little better picture here, right? So now I'm wondering, where is Cherokee County, and what was it like in Rusk?

See, there it is way over there on the right, which makes sense, because W. C.'s dad was born in Tennessee. Oh! It just dawned on me that the family history said that W. C. was born in Angelina County. If you look at the map again, you'll find it just southeast of Cherokee County. So the family didn't move too far then.

Now I'm wondering what life was like in Cherokee County, and Rusk in particular, in 1860. Here are some excerpts from the Texas State Historical Association website:

CHEROKEE COUNTY. Cherokee County is located in central East Texas, bordered on the north by Smith County, on the east by Rusk and Nacogdoches counties, on the south by Angelina County, and on the west by Anderson and Houston counties. It was named for the Cherokee Indians, who lived in the area before being expelled in 1839. 

Rapid settlement began in 1834. The Houston-Forbes treaty of February 23, 1836, seemingly assured Cherokee neutrality, but the rejection of the treaty by the Texas Senate and the increased encroachment of settlers on Indian land led to violence. On October 5, 1838, Indians massacred members of the Isaac Killough family at their farm northwest of the site of present Jacksonville. This led directly to the Cherokee War of 1839 and the expulsion of all Indians from the county. White settlers quickly occupied the abandoned Indian farms, and the communities of Pine Town, Lockranzie, Linwood, and Cook's Fort developed. Cherokee County was marked off from Nacogdoches County on April 11, 1846, and was organized on July 13 of that year, with the town of Rusk as the county seat. Only one family lived at Rusk then.

The county's settlers were mostly from the South and brought with them the economic and social traditions of that region. The 1850 population of 6,673 was the third largest in the state. By 1860 the population had grown to 12,098, of whom 3,250 were slaves, two were free blacks, and fourteen were Spanish surnamed. Of the white families, 29 percent owned slaves, although only thirty-two plantations had twenty or more slaves; seven slaveholders in the county owned more than forty slaves. Cotton was important to the local economy, and in 1860 local farmers produced 6,251 bales of the fiber. The area's principal crops, however, were corn and wheat. County farmers produced more than 496,000 bushels of corn in 1860, and about 21,000 bushels of wheat.

Cherokee County voters strongly supported secession, and twenty-four companies from the county entered Confederate service. The Confederate Army maintained two training camps, a prisoner of war camp, a large commissary depot, and conscription and field-transportation offices in the county. War demands allowed the development of two iron foundries and a gun factory.

                                                                                       
Okay, so, very Southern, then. As far as the town of Rusk goes, I had a surprisingly hard time finding anything.  I finally found something about it on the Texas State Historical Association website. Here are some excerpts:

RUSK, TEXAS. The town was established by an act of the Texas legislature on April 11, 1846, which defined the boundaries of Cherokee County and called for the county seat to be named for Gen. Thomas Jefferson Rusk, one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence. At the time only John Kilgore and his family lived on the site; but within two years most of the families in and around Cook's Fort had moved to the new town, and by 1850 Rusk reportedly had 355 residents. A post office was authorized on March 8, 1847, and the town's first church, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, was organized by Rev. J. B. Harris in May 2, 1847. The first Masonic Lodge in the county, Euclid Lodge 45, was chartered on July 15, 1848. 

Like many early Texas towns, Rusk was laid out on a grid pattern based on the Shelbyville plan with a courthouse square in the center. The county court originally met in a crude log dogtrot cabin, but in August 1847 a contract was let for a two-room frame building with brick chimneys. The town's first jail was built the same year, and a larger frame courthouse was erected in 1849. A larger jail was built in 1855, and a brick building to house the county and district clerk's offices was constructed on the northeast corner of the square in 1859; the latter structure stood until it was razed in 1941. Most of the town's early businesses were clustered around the courthouse square. A city charter was approved in 1850, and a second charter was adopted in 1856 when the town's first mayor, E. W. Bush, was elected. The town's first school was taught by the Presbyterian minister J. B. Harris; in 1848 Cherokee Academy, a private subscription school, was chartered; and in 1851 another private school, the Stephens and Carter Academy was established. The latter institution, housed in an impressive two-story structure on Henderson Street, eventually developed into the Rusk Male and Female Academy, which survived into the latter portion of the nineteenth century.

During the 1850s Rusk grew rapidly, swelled by immigrants from the old South and Europe, including the British Isles, Germany, and Norway, as well as a sizeable African-American population. The town's growth slowed during the Civil War and early post-war years but rebounded in the 1870s with the coming of the railroads.

Okay. So a typical frontier town.

Now let's find out what the 1870 Census can tell us . . . Unfortunately, I couldn't find him in the 1870 census. He would have been 18 years old at the time, so a young man. Maybe he was out on his own, or maybe the whole family had moved. Maybe they were in the process of moving when the census was taken. Who knows. All I do know is that the family history says that W. C. married his first wife, Amelia Virginia, in 1871, in Robertson County, Texas. I actually read through all of the pages of the 1870 census for Robertson County looking for either of the future newlyweds or their families and didn't find them.

Speaking of this marriage, I will have to say right now, that I wish I knew what sources were used for which bits of information in the family history. Did this date and place come from the family Bible? Oral history? Other documents? Here's my problem: the Ancestry.com website has two indexes of Texas Marriages. Both show a W. H. Cheatham marrying A. V. Blackshear on July 2, 1871. Neither index has images of the original documents to see if this is a transcription error. Who knows, maybe when he told the clerk his name was William Calvin, they heard William Halvin. I'm pretty familiar with Copperscript, the handwriting style of the time, and I don't know how anyone could mix up an H and a C when reading things. Maybe the indexes were compiled from lists, which were compiled from the original documents, providing more opportunities for mistakes to be made? There were actually several William Cheathams of around the same age in the same areas as ours, all cousins from what I can tell, because the Cheathams seem to have always been big on giving family names.

Anyway, I guess that means we have to move on to the 1880 census:

William Calvin Cheatham 

U. S. Federal Census 1880

Taylor County, Texas

(You can download a blank form to see the questions asked here.)

Here is a detail; it's a little easier to read than the last one:

Let's see what we can learn from this one:

In 1880, W. C. was 27 years old and living in Taylor County Texas.  (This matches the story that the family lived in Buffalo Gap.)

He was married to A. V., (Amelia Virginia), and had two children, a boy named C. D., age 2, and a girl named A. L., age 1.  (I'm assuming that C. D. is supposed to be A. D. and the census taker was hard of hearing or something - I haven't come across any other Armons so maybe he was unfamiliar with the name and thought he heard it wrong.  The same for the daughter, Erences - he must have thought it was 'Arences.'  Anyway, the ages match and the names mostly match, and they are in the right place at the right time, so it is probably safe to assume we have the right family here.)

It shows that both of his parents were born in Tennessee.  (This does not match the information in the family history, but the census records get this wrong more than you would think - sometimes reporting different places for several records in a row for people you have no doubt are your ancestor.  So I'm still going to say we have the right family, even with all the problems we're seeing.)

His occupation was stockraising.

He could read and write.

Okay. So now we know that he raised animals of some sort, I'm guessing cattle.

That didn't really add too much to the story, did it? Although I must say, I always love finding out what our ancestors reported as their occupation.

And here's our handy dandy map of Texas again, so we can see that Taylor county is further west, closer to the center of the state.

And another one showing Taylor County specifically:

There we see Buffalo Gap, right near the center, just south of Abilene. So what was the area like at the time? Here is a compilation of what the Texas State Historical Association website has to say about it: (Funny thing, I compiled the following information by cutting and pasting pieces together from two separate articles on the same website and it has some inconsistencies. I didn't care enough to try to track down the correct bit of information, but if you do, by all means, go right ahead!)

TAYLOR COUNTY. Taylor County is in west central Texas. In 1858 the Texas legislature established Taylor County, named for Alamo defenders Edward, James, and George Taylor, from lands formerly assigned to Bexar and Travis counties. Taylor County was attached to Travis and Bexar counties for judicial and administrative purposes until 1873, when these responsibilities were assigned to Eastland County. Partly due to the presence of Indians, the area remained largely unsettled.  The earliest group of European settlers in Taylor County were buffalo hunters and bone gatherers, who arrived during the 1870s.

As more people moved into the area, the county was organized in 1878, and Buffalo Gap, a small settlement near the center of the county, became the seat of government. The first general public election was held with eighty-seven voters. By 1880 Buffalo Gap had 1,200 people, a drugstore, a carriage and blacksmith shop, a big hotel, a jail, three or four grocery stores, and a saloon. In 1883 the cornerstone of Buffalo Gap College was laid, and documents pertaining to the times were sealed within the rock. Later, vandals tore out the stone and removed the contents. This Presbyterian college, the first formal attempt at higher education in Taylor County, opened in June 1885. Buffalo Gap called itself the "Athens of the West." 

By 1880 there were 917 people living in the area, and ranching completely dominated the local economy. Settlement accelerated when the Texas and Pacific Railway built through the area in the early 1880s. Buffalo Gap was bypassed by the railroad, which was routed instead to pass through the northern part of the county to the site of a new town, to be called Abilene. In 1881 the railroad connected the area to national markets and encouraged immigration. While Abilene began to develop into a shipping center, Buffalo Gap declined in population, and, after an election held in 1883, Abilene became the county seat. Attempts by the people of Buffalo Gap to challenge the election results by force of arms were quickly suppressed.  By 1884 Buffalo Gap had decreased in population to 600. Presbyterian, Methodist Episcopal, Baptist, and First Christian churches were established in the community, which also had a newspaper, sixteen businesses, and a high school. In 1890 the population had dropped to 300 and the number of businesses to seven. In 1892 Buffalo Gap had a population of 400, eleven businesses, Presbyterian and Methodist churches, and Buffalo Gap College. 

Though the climate and land of Taylor County were hostile to agriculture, hopeful farmers experimented with different crops in the 1870s and 1880s, cultivating peaches, corn, wheat, and cotton. The spread of crop cultivation led to disputes between the cattlemen who favored the open range and the new farmers who sought to fence in their crops. This fence-cutting war was on the brink of an armed exchange until the late 1880s, when the legislature passed new laws to regulate the sale, ownership, and fencing of land. By 1890 there were 587 farms and ranches in the county, encompassing 196,000 acres, and the population had increased to 6,957. 

Here is a picture I found online:

I think this all gives us a much better picture of what life was like for W. C., even if we don't know an awful lot of specifics about him.

Moving on . . . There are pretty much no 1890 census records because they were destroyed by a fire, so let's skip to the 1900 one:

William Calvin Cheatham 

U. S. Federal Census 1900 pg.1

Lincoln County, New Mexico

William Calvin Cheatham 

U. S. Federal Census 1900 pg. 2

Lincoln County, New Mexico

(You can download a blank form to see the questions asked here.)

Okay, so I know this is also hard to read. I couldn't figure out how to show three separate parts on two separate pages all at once, other than to snip screenshots and stick them together. Even if you click on the picture and then enlarge it in the new window, it just gets blurry. So I would suggest opening the link for the full forms and enlarging them in the window that pops up.

This census form is a bit more interesting than the last one. It tells us:

W. C. had moved his family to the town of Gray in Lincoln County, New Mexico.  (Getting closer to Arizona!)

He was born in January of 1853, and was 47 years old. (Hmmmm.  January is a new bit of info.  But didn't the family history say he was born in 1852?)

His father was born in Tennessee and his mother in South Carolina.  (This matches what our family history says.)

He was married to someone named "Lizzie." (At first guess one would think this was Amelia Virginia's nickname, but it says her father was born in Holland, which is way farther off than just listing the wrong state - someone's not likely to get that wrong.  Then we remember that the family history says that W. C.'s first wife died around 1885, so this must be his second wife, Mary Brookreson.) 

He had five children, all of whom could read and write except the youngest:       
     D., a son age 22, working as a day laborer
     Elmer, a son age 16, also working as a day laborer
     Shelton, a son age 12, attending school
     Lillie, a daughter age 11, also attending school
     Lee, a son age 8  (The census did not say he is attending school, nor that he could read and write, but it also didn't say whether he could speak English, so I guess the census taker was just slacking and forgot to fill his info in.)

His wife had had four children, only three of whom were still living.  (This accounts for the story that their son Early, born in 1893, did not survive.) 

W. C.'s father, E. C. was living with them.

They had four male boarders (all in their 20's) living with them, three of whom were coal miners and one a day laborer.

They rented their home, which was a house and not a farm.

W. C.'s occupation was a carpenter.  (At this point I'm going whaaaaaat? because before, he was a stockraiser.  Also, there was another Wm Cheatham back in the 1880 census who was living in Robertson County, Texas who was born in almost the same year who was a carpenter.  But his wife and kids were even more different than what was reported on the 1880 census we have chosen as being our ancestor.  So I guess we have the right guy in all of the records so far, but you can see why the census records sometimes leave as many questions as answers!) 

What we don't know is what year the family moved here, which means we don't know how long they stayed.

Here is a photograph of W. C. and his family (probably taken sometime around 1897 or 1898, because Calvin Malone is not in the photo, but Leonard doesn't look older than seven - if anyone can pin down an exact date, let me know!):

Standing: Shelton, Elmer, Armon D. (Dee), and Delila (Lila)
Seated: Edmond C., W. C., Leonard (Lee), and Mary.

Now, doesn't having a picture of him make you feel like you know him a bit more? Aside from seeing what he looked like, we can see that he is following the hair fashions for a man of his age of the time, and that the family is nicely dressed, so not poor, although the two younger kids are not wearing shoes, so probably not all that well off at the time, either. (Since this is obviously a formal portrait that they dressed up for, you would think they would have put on shoes if they had any that fit!) They all look pretty serious, but as we all know, that's what everyone looked like in those early photographs!

So here we go again with the maps. Personally, I think history makes a whole lot more sense if you can see exactly where things are happening. (If you don't agree, I guess you can just scroll right on past them!)

So there is Lincoln County in the middle. I have yet to find a website as nifty as the Texas Historical Association site, so I'm going to give you the best I could come up with about the county and town of Gray, and I'll update it if and when I find something better.

Excerpts from the Encyclopaedia Britannica about Lincoln County:

It is a rugged region with green hills and large plains surrounding and separating high mountain ranges. The town of Lincoln was settled in 1849 and became the county seat when Lincoln county was established in 1869; at that time Lincoln was the largest county in the United States, covering one-fourth of New Mexico. The town was the centre of the Lincoln County War (1878), fought between rival merchants for economic domination. It began with accusations of cattle rustling and escalated to murder and a five-day gun battle at the courthouse. The teen-aged killer Billy the Kid (William Bonney) figured prominently in the carnage, killing a sheriff and escaping from jail. Gold was discovered at White Oaks in 1879, leading to development of the county’s mineral resources.

Here is a map of the southwest portion of the county:

Yes, I know this map is horrible, but it is the only one I could find showing the towns that I'll be talking about! And here is all I could find on Gray (other than that it is a ghost town today).

From the AccessGenealogy website:

Gray (Capitan), New Mexico

On the SouthWest side of the Capitan Mountains in New Mexico sits the mountains namesake, the small town of Capitan, the home of “Smokey Bear”.....Capitan was actually known by a different name in it’s infancy. Seaborn T. Gray would take up residence in 1885 and begin mining the Capitan or Solado coal field. The town was known as “Gray” until 1899, when the Carrizo to Capitan spur of the EP & NE Railroad was built, after that point, the railroad changed the name of Gray to Capitan. The coal produced by the coal field was sold to the railroad until 1905 when that same spur which brought prosperity to the town was abandoned. From that point, coal produced by the mines was consumed locally.  One can imagine the political scene of Capitan in 1905 after the spur was abandoned. The only newspaper being published in town at that time was the Capitan News, a Democratic newspaper, published, edited, and owned by John A. Haley.

(I guess nobody told the 1900 census taker that the town's name had supposedly been changed a year before.) I'm assuming that this town was pretty frontier-like as well. So it seems that up until this point, W. C. Cheatham had spent his entire life living in newly formed towns! According to the family history, W. C. only stayed in New Mexico between one and five years before moving on again. Since we'll see him in a new state on the next census, I think this is a good place to wrap things up for now.

Whew! This post took hours and hours to put together! When I see you all next time, we'll take a look at what the census records can tell us about W. C.'s time in Arizona.
                                                                                                                                            - Therese