Alas

Alas, the trail of Jane Caldwell has become murky. What would you expect? There are Wallaces and Caldwells all over Pennsylvania, and the army of people trying to pin one of their ancestors on to one of the existing people serve to muddy the waters.

Jane Caldwell, I had thought, would be Robert and John's sister, born in Ireland sometime before John (1796), grew up in Cecil County Maryland for a spell (her father John was there from 1797 to 1810, when he allegedly died), and evidence in the western Pennsylvania area would make my case that she, John, Robert, and other siblings ended up up there after his death. Robert would enlist in the War of 1812 at the age of 16; John would marry a Pennsylvania woman and move to Ohio. What about other siblings? No proof of John's death has been found, or that of Geneva Jane, their mother - perhaps they went back to Ireland? Or she did, after he died?

So one Jane Wallace married a Robert Caldwell and settled in Armstrong County, east of Pittsburgh. He however was. from the Somerset area and several people pointed out that she was of the Somerset Wallaces, thus her father was John Joseph Wallace (also born 1750, but in PA) - mother Geneva Jane, excuse me, wrong John, I believe. But the Somerset Wallaces are numerous enough that there are lots of Janes, no problem. They are from Antrim, center of County Down, northern Ireland. But I'm curious if there could be crossover - as, for example, the Cecil County Wallaces could just come to Somerset because they are vaguely related or perhaps closer than I can find. Could our Jane have come up there and simply found this Robert Caldwell? Why not? But in the end I had to rely on the facts as birth and marriage records provide them, and here it's pretty murky. Let's just say there was a Jane Wallace who married a Robert Caldwell, and had at least one child.

Then there was a Jane Caldwell in New Castle, for years, with a couple of kids. New Castle is more like it because remember, Geneva Jane had a sister in Wallace Run (near there), and Uncle Hugh ended up there (it seems). With family connections you could expect Geneva Jane to bring young kids up there if John did indeed die in 1810 (though Robert, the youngest, would have been fourteen already) - but there is no trail of them, Jane, Mary, Adeline, or one other male - in Cecil County that we know. So I'm looking at New Castle carefully. But this Jane Caldwell seems to be Jane Courtney Caldwell, unrelated. Not a Wallace. Back to the drawing board.
There are Jane Wallace graves scattered around. And, Jane Wallaces of unknown origin, probably Irish, who married into various families. It's not surprising that a genealogist would snatch one and say, she's ours, she's the sister of Robert and John. We suspect that, anyway, but it makes me wonder if DNA will be the only conclusive result, or will provide it.

shadow of a sister

So my questions really are about Robert's family. Robert, born in 1796, in Ireland, youngest of seven, at least six of whom also born in Ireland, was with most of his family in Cecil County Maryland, where his father John and Geneva Jane Crawford Wallace brought the family in 1797. The famiy had connections in Pennsylvania; in fact, when John first came over he'd been in Carlisle, near Harrisburg, with his brothers and possibly a cousin who had been born there.

Pennsylvania was filling up with Wallaces and that's why, when the family moved up into Pennsylvania, it can be doubtful that it was really them. Robert, at the age of 16, enlisted in the War of 1812 but ended up in New Castle and Wallace Run, which is near there, in northwest PA. John married a PA woman and moved just across the border in Ohio where he farmed. Three sisters were just plain lost until yesterday, and the big question: what happened to John and Geneva Jane themselves? John is reported to have died in 1810, with no place given, Geneva Jane lived to a hundred (dying in 1844), no place given. They were already in their fifties when they came over. I try to do some geographical reasoning.

The sister I found, who could be the clue to everything, was Jane, who was born in 1786 in Ireland, would have been 13 when they arrived in Cecil County, and seems to have married a man, Robert Caldwell, and died in 1879. Robert Caldwell seems to have grown up in Washington County (southwest of Pittsburgh), but moved to Armstrong County (northeast of Pittsburgh) where they lived and died. They were farmers, and had one son, Samuel Smiley Caldwell, but that's very suspicious because that name belongs to other people in the area. I am not entirely sure of what I found.

Another suspicious thing is that Hopewell township, Wash County, was full of other Wallaces, which could either be a reason for Cecil County Wallaces to move there/visit there, or could have been a reason that this Jane is not ours. How do we prove that she is? If we just run with the possibilities, maybe we'll find more proof down the road.

The alleged child Samuel was born in 1831, which would have made her 45, and I find that suspicious too, though not impossible. Her father dies in 1810; they move up to Wash County or Wallace Run (where Geneva Jane had a sister); she meets this farmer and has a son but the farm is out east of the city a ways. I guess that's possible but I'm still looking.

Still to be found are Mary, Adeline, and one other brother, besides the oldest brother William, who seems to have been born in 1774 or 1772. There are many Williams who could have fit the bill. That William would have been at least 23 when they made the passage and may not have come at all, or may have been born here and already integrated into the Wallaces of the Carlisle area.

One thing I'll say is that it was pretty easy for a Jane Wallace or a Mary Wallace to be in Pennsylvania at that time, marry and fit into the woodwork, with no one really knowing where they came from or who their family was. Although the pioneers kept track themselves, some of what they knew never found its way onto Ancestry.com; some of what they knew is "private," which means I'll only get it, if at all, with more extensive digging. Still it's interesting to see these early settlers of the Pittsburgh area.

One feature of the pioneer era was that lots of people had no assurance of survival. For example, if John died in 1810, Geneva Jane, Mary, Jane, and Adeline were endangered. Robert too, at 13, was in trouble. One would expect them to find their relatives and join them, as they could be helpful but most of all would need help themselves. The cousin Hugh up in Pennsylvania, Carlisle or perhaps New Castle, where he may have died, was at least assured of survival, having a Revolutionary War pension. So one of my guesses is that the family went up there, with some staying with Hugh, and some perhaps staying in Wallace Run (where Geneva Jane's sister lived), or staying in one, ending up in the other. Another working theory is that they simply went back to Ireland, where Geneva Jane's familyl had a place and a consistent income from the sea. And where we would never know if there was an extra Jane, Mary or Adeline around. Some, with lack of any other trail, have said that John and Geneva Jane died in Cecil County, but I don't buy it. There would be a better trail for the kids if that had happened.

 

Taking a little break from fanatic checking of birth records of old Scotland, I am reflecting on what actually might have happened to John and his family in Cecil County Maryland.

They arrived there in 1797, apparently, when Robert was only one. There is some doubt about this but a Cecil County census shows him with a full house of kids in 1800; his oldest son William (who could be 1772 or 1774) would likely not even be included in this census.

One remarkable thing about his family is how thoroughly everyone disappeared, when in pioneer Maryland/Pennsylvania people actuallly kept pretty good track of deaths and burials. Really only John and Robert were well tracked after they grew up, John marrying a Pennsylvania woman and ending up in Ohio, while Robert married a New Castle woman, had ten children, and became a scion of Wallace Run. What happened to the rest?

We can start with John. Some say he died in 1808 in Butler, but that's the wrong John; another John Wallace was from Butler, and that was probably him. A family account says he died in 1810, probably in Cecil County, but there doesn't seem to be a record of it. The family seems to have broken up before then, because there's no record of any of those Wallaces in Cecil County after that 1800 census. I'm willing to buy that family account date of 1810 and then say that maybe he died in obscurity, either in Cecil County or up in Pennsylvania where he seemed to have relatives.

Then what came of Geneva Jane? Some say she lived until 1844, at which time she would have been 100, yet again there's no record of her death in Cecil County or anywhere else. A reasonable place too look would be Wallace Run, where her sister was, but I can find no Jane Wallaces up there who lived to 1844, or who died at any time in obscurity or otherwise.

I have a working theory on Geneva Jane: she died or went back to Donegal early, like 1805, or soon after John's death in 1810.

In that era she would have had to have a son working a farm successfully. We can assume she may have had unmarried daughters, as I have found no record of any of her three daughters marrying, but they would be less help in her surviving, especially from 1810-1844, if that were even possible. Both John and Robert end up up in Pennsylvania, Robert being the youngest, and I suspect he was living with his uncle when he joined the War of 1812 at the ripe age of 16. He was already in the uncle's hair, an extra mouth to feed. His father was dead. But what came of mom? She may have left him with her sister in Wallace. Run, or his uncle in. New Castle where he would meet Margaret Hendrickson. But all this wasn't playing out in Cecil County.

There were seven children altogether, with general agreement on John and Robert, and an older William, born either around 1772 (to an unknown, unnamed first wife) in Pennsylvania, or around 1774, after their marriage, in Londonderry or Donegal. When he went back, he. married Geneva Jane in Port Glasgow; as a fisherman's daughter, she perhaps visited there to sell her catch. But being attached to Donegal/Londonderry culture, perhaps she never quite liked Cecil County and simply came back with two or even three daughters, and perhaps another older son besides William; though there were six kids in the house in 1800 there's a possibility that one of the older brothers never came over at all, or returned before they could really marry or settle.

All three daughters seemed to fade into obscurity. No record of Adeline, Jane, or Mary and it seems somewhat speculative that they even existed. at all. Did they die in Cecil County as some have suggested? I think they were more likely to slip into the woodwork up in Pennyslvania where there were unknown Wallaces all over the place.

I am still mulling over the story of Michael and William, which has stuck in my craw for some reason. Michael Wallace was a guy in Sinking Valley, just up the road from Carlisle and Huntingdon, whose house burned down in 1806. People said he was from Maryland or somewhere. But here's the thing: his older brother William died as a result of the fire, trying to go in after some valuable property; the beams of the house fell in on him. Now Michael mooved after that fire, and came back to the area, but not to the town of Sinking Valley. He had a family and so has some descendants who have been looking into him. For them "from Maryland" is incredibly vague and "possibly Ireland" (where he would have een born) also not helpful. I think about him frankly because of William, and because I think a William (1774) could very well have been in the United States around 1806, and could have visited his brother, and died. We can call this the Sinking Valley theory - that these two boys are ours. And another thing, there is a grave for a John Wallace, otherwise unreadable, in Sinking Valley.

There is another grave, John Wallace only, no dates, back in Craigie, Ayr.

I write this all out to help clarify where and how I should be looking next. I'm beginning to suspect that Pennsylvania, with its deep hills and forests, may be a place where these particular Wallaces faded into obscurity.

update

Here is my thinking based on what I now know. Most of what I know comes from Ancestry.com or Geni and most other Wallace genealogists have been where I've been and made similar conclusions.

I do consider personal accounts strongly, but I notice from the way they contradict each other sometimes that wrong ideas get passed down through the generation as family lore. In Wallace Run they felt that John had married and had a child in Carlisle, but the other family account says he waited for William's second child before he went back. As if he was helping William and his wife? That William ended up in Goshen New York with a lively family, but the question is whether John had William in Pennsylvania or back in Northern Ireland after he returned and married Geneva Jane. I'm now betting that John's oldest child William was born in Northern Ireland. That's because the trail in Carlisle is so dead.

Some relatives have said that Hugh was born in Pennsylvania. I like that theory as it explains a lot. Hugh was well established in Cumberland County and ready to fight in the Cumberland County militia when the Revolution arrived, four or five years after the boys showed up. There is some disagreement about where this particular Hugh came from; I'd like to think he was a relative of our three boys William, James, and John. It would explain why they landed in Carlisle: people go where their relatives are, to stop over, get adjusted, and decide where they wanted to end up. I think they knew Hugh and came to Carllsle because he was there already.

The trail back from the Hugh Wallace of Carlisle is very muddy. He seemed to have a father, also Hugh, in the area, but I am not sure of that. I have also found a link, I believe, to Nathaniel in that it's been claimed that at least one Nathaniel in our picture is a brother to ne of the Hughs. I haven't pinned this down. Nathaniel would be important, though, and could even be the fourth boy to arrive in 1774. Nathaniel would end up out by New Castle (Fox, Ohio) and so wold be a reason for any of the boys or their kin, like Robert, to end up in New Castle.

It would help to get the actual passage record but I haven't found it yet. 1770? When? Also, John turned around and married Geneva Jane in Port Glasgow in 1773 - what's up with that?

There are claims about John's death - that he died in 1810 in Cecil County. Plausible but I wait for other evidence. And Geneva Jane - she lived to be 100? D don't think so, but if she did, it was in Cecil County probably, with no one but her two daughters to help her get old. They seem to have stayed single, and stayed there in Maryland, for all I can tell. Trail wears thin. Can't tell what really happened to John and Geneva Jane. I doubt she lived to a hundred though.

It turns out she was a little more obscure than I thought. Both boys named some Janes and Geneva Janes down among their descendants but that doesn't tell you how long she lived or where. She could have gone back. One relative knew she was a Crawford but not that she was Geneva Jane. If they had a reunion, she wasn't the life of it.

More digging is necessary for Nathaniel. There is some contradiction in portrayal of who he was, who his parents were, etc. It is possible I think that he was a cousin too, perhaps came over with John, James and William. And he ended up in Fox, OH, not far from New Castle. When you get reasons for Robert, or Hugh, to move to New Castle, investigate them. One more cousin won't overload the system.

 

Still reflecting on the personal account (see previous post) and its implications for my study of the four brothers. It came just in time, by the way.

First, it casts doubt on Charles' account that John actually married in Carlisle, and abandoned his oldest son William in Carlisle to be raised by his grandparents. In this account he was watching his brother William, and was around to meet both of William's new babies, but was back in Londonderry in time to have his own William, who would then be born after he married Geneva Jane, and would have Geneva Jane as a mother.

This is a relief in the sense that I have scoured Carlisle records for any sign of John marrying and having a child in that small window, 1770-1772, to no avail. There is no sign of him marrying before going back.

Second, it casts doubt on the idea of Hugh being one of the four brothers who arrived in 1770. People in Hugh's family claimed that he was born in Pennsylvania, yet some Hugh was born in Scotland to be considered one of the four brothers. Now this is a quite interesting mystery. In the years after the Revolutionary War the soldiers who were buried, like that Hugh 1742-1820, were all given special credit and noticed. People made a big deal out of his grave even though they couldn't quite read it clearly. Several lines of Wallaces claimed him including us, because we were looking for a Hugh based on family legend, and because he ended up in New Castle where Robert met his young bride Margaret Hendrickson. We would love it to be Uncle Hugh that introduced them, especially since we now suspect John and/or Geneva Jane were dead and/or gone.

That brings me to my last point, which is that this account is clearly the origin of the 1810 death date for John, and it also says that he died in Cecil Coounty. Fair enough, but there's no record. And what came of Geneva Jane? That mystery is still hanging in the air. This particular writer didn't even know her name.

Meanwhile I have been scouring Scotland for evidence 1) that there was a plausible Hugh character that could have been born there in 1742, in whatever family which I would then study to see if he had brothers (many families had a William, James, and John), or, a family with a nearby year, hopefully in Ayr, that he could have been born in. I'm not entirely convinced that all these boys came from a Cairnhill William Wallace although that seems to be the general consensus. But any combination such that a Hugh could be their cousin, even a distant one, would work. The Cairnhill Wallaces had more Hughs than most.

What about the last possibility, that he was born in Pennsylvania? If he was a relative, and ended up in New Castle, or gave them a reason to move to Cecil County, this could be because he knew the terrain, having lived here all along. In this scenario perhaps another brother or cousin, Thomas or Nathaniel, comes over on the fateful passage and history obscures it because 1) both Thomas and Nathaniel are more obscure by nature, having hidden out a bit, and/or 2) everyone loved Hugh, and knew him, and followed him to New Castle, and ultimately confused him with one of the brothers that was on the actual passage. This would have happened over time; they knew there were four; they knew James, William and John were among them; Hugh was a fourth brother or at least a cousin; eventually they put him on the passage instead of one they'd entirely forgot. In this country, it didn't take long before history had covered everyone's tracks.

Hugh did have descendants, though, and they kept pretty good track. They are more on top of it today than, say, William's descendants, though I could be wrong about that. We in the John camp are doing our best. Still no birth date, no place of birth (I'm still not entirely buying Craigie, though it's as good a guess as any), and though the 1810 date has just been given a boost in my book, there's no solid evidence for that either. Any old John Wallace grqves around Cecil County? And what happened to Geneva Jane?

One last idea. Based on records I've found, there was a Hugh around Carlisle and Cumberland County when the boys arrived in 1770. This Hugh would have been born in Pennsylvania but very likely could have been part of the family. What would be good about this theory is that it would give the boys a reason to show up in Carlisle, as opposed to any other place. I've always wondered how they could have picked Carlisle off the map and said, we'll start here, then fan out, or go back as the case may be. I think there's a good argument that that Hugh was there when they arrived, and stayed there quite a while (making the "Carlisle Wallaces?" until everyone recognized him as one of the brothers. If Nathaniel or Thomas were among them and disappeared, that would be understandable. Maybe not provable. And though almost every William back in Scotland had a son William, a James, and a John, only a few of them had Nathaniels, or Thomases. Maybe that's where the cousin thing came in. Six in total moved, I'm pretty sure.

Here is a personal. account, a little confusing. It appeared as "Notes on Hugh Wallace" in Ancestry.

 In the 1955 DAR magazine, it says John Wallace came from Ireland with three brothers. William settled in Goshen, New York, James settled in Philadelphia, Hugh in South Carolina, and John in Carlisle Penn. After the birth of William's son and daughter, John went to Londonderry, Ireland and married ? Crawford. When his youngest child, Robert was 6 years old, in 1798 they returned to Cecil County, Maryland where John died in 1810.
Hugh's application for the French and Indian War says he was born in Pennsylvania. Also his daughter, Elizabeth lived to be 100 and stated that both her parents were born in Pennsylvania.

Dorothea Wallace Silbert, a descendant visited his grave. The stone is now unreadable but a Revolutionary War marker was in place also. 

general musing

Excuse me for using this post to just muse about some of the stuff I've found in investigating mid-18th century Scotland.

It is said in the family that they were from Ayrshire, but there are several of these towns south and west of Glasgow that would do, and I'm not sure if the borders of Ayrshire are the same now as they were then. So I'm looking into towns like Eaglesham, Kilmarnock, Craigie (Ayr), but even Cambusnethan and a few others.

Obviously it would be best to find a family with all six: William, James, Hugh, John, Thomas and Nathaniel. If we find a family with two or three we can make the other ones cousins or we can say that Thomas and Nathaniel just appeared to be family, landed nearby, but perhaps were more distant cousins like the hundreds of other Wallaces landing in Pennsylvania at the time. I'm banking on the idea that they're picking places to settle (Cecil County Maryland, Carlisle, Wallace Run) based on whether they have family already there, and I'm trying to find that family; that's why I'm suspecting Thomas and Nathaniel's involvement. Plenty came over before them and plenty would follow.

It was said by more than one genealogist that John was from Craigie (Ayr). That's certainly plausible, but when I reconstruct a family, it's a little inadequate. It makes me wonder where they got their information. Was it something someone said, in the family? Was it a document? Craigie is plausible and there are various ways to make it work, but I'm curious about the source of someone's information. And I have no doubt that it was copied and recopied.

There are three stated possibilities for his death: 1808, 1810, and unknown. The 1808 date belongs to anoother John and is usuallly accompanied by Butler PA which is that same other John. Not ours. The 1810 one is like other information: one wonders where it came from. It's not accompanied by any proof or a gravestone. I have found two relatively unmarked gravestones that attract me and make me suspect it is our John. By unmarked I mean they say John Wallace, but don't have a birth date, or death date, or any information about who they were. One is in Sinking Valley PA. If you've been following this blog you'll know that that's where a William (who would be his son) died, saving things out of a house that was on fire, the house of his younger brother; perhaps the brother and father ended up back in Sinking Valley. But the other one is in Craigie. Perhaps he went home one more time, not to Northern Ireland, but to Scotland. Went home, died, and was buried, but the marking on the headstone was either too faint, or not there at all.

I like the Auchinleck family, if only because I like the name Auchinleck, but alas, that's not a good enough reason to stick with one family. I am finding myself doubting that any family would register five babies at the courthouse, and then simply neglect to register John. In otherwords, I'm leaning toward explanations where John was born later, but at lleast born and registered like two or three of his older brothers. Most of these families have another William, a James, a Robert, possibly a Thomas. Very few have Hughs. Very few have Nathaniels too. But plenty of Williams were having. babies all over Ayr/Glasgow at the time and we will have a significant number of choices. In rural Scotland at that time they didn't register the mother's name which means we can make assumptions. Mary, Margaret, Helen, or Mary Margaret Helen, it had to be one of them. We can assume that if we have six or seven kids born in seven or eight years, there we have a family. And our odds are going up.

I definitely have enough to write a boook.