Philippine War Letter Home a Treasure Discovered

I was going through my mother's writing files, and was floored when I found a portion of a letter my grandfather Harry Ozro Whitson wrote home to his mother, sister, brother, and friends in Oklahoma from the Philippines during the war. There is only the first page and a fourth page, but the first has a drawing he made of his surroundings at the top.  It is priceless.  I asked my mother about it and if she had the other pages or knew who did. She (she suffers from dementia) said I didn't have it, you must have.  I knew it wasn't me, as I would never have laminated it.
This find was exciting.  I have already had one journey in finding my grandfather's experience during the Philippines War and wrote it here on my blog.

Harry O Whitson 

Company B picture location was not written on the back, just Spanish American War

This letter gave me first hand experience from him where he was and some of what he did, albeit it is only part of the story. These are the two pages of the letter.  I believe that he wrote on the back of the paper, but it is hard to tell since it is laminated together.

Letter from Harry O Whitson to his family in Oklahoma from the Philippines 1900 in possession of Fran Ellsworth 

Page 4 or flip side of above of Harry O Whitson's letter in possession of Fran Ellsworth

The hand drawn illustration on the first page.

I had downloaded GenScriber before for transcribing some wills and documents, so I dusted it off and began my hand at transcribing what my grandfather had written.  It was not easy and obviously as I worked I saw he didn't know how to spell many of the place names, I was able to figure it out, but I did not change anything as I was transcribing.  NOW, I have another reason for posting, hoping some of my eagle-eyed genfriends will see what I have missed and let me know. Crowd sourcing. (smiling) Those of you just starting, this is an awesome FamilySearch Wiki page that helps tremendously Transcribing Historical Documents (National Institute)

This is my attempt at transcribing the above letter.

Marinduquie, Santa Cruz, Oct the 28^th  9100

The 38^th, , U. S. V. Inf. Co. B

Dear friends Mother Sister Brother and friends one and all I will Try and let you know what we are dewing and have been for the last 30 days, We left the Luzon the 25^th of last month for this place for the purpose of recapturing the 29^th the 58 men and th?ec (their?) captors it was T. Co. who were captured they were about 12 miles from there quarters and they were very for st?f ok they would of never ben captured   We went through the country a cupel of times and they thought they had better turn them in so they turned them over to us they looked very hard for they they  had no shoes and but very little clothing of any kind

[page 2 and 3 are missing]

Page (4)And the seconday on water there were some sick boys  I enjoyed the trip very well myself the 27^th of Dec ? disembarked at Minalea and this 1th day of January 1900 We left Minalea and landed at [Supor… Brxny] there […one word…]first on the firing line  The 1^st of Jan  We started in the advance to the south line with 20,000 trops in the skurmish line through the rice fields We landed at Balangas Jan the 16^th  and stayed there until Sept the 25^th and then We left for Marinduque Island Santa cruz and there we are know but I do not think We shall stay here long  I will have to get ready for drill so long I will write some more to night good by

Using his letter, I searched on some of the old newspapers and found the press coverage of the same events and online I found, a wonderful webpage about the Philippine War from their perspective (always good to have). 

My grandfather's company was under Captain Anderson who was the first to go search for the captured men. From the accounts of the press it appears that it was not an easy task. This war was captioned later as the first Viet Nam.  

One of several newspaper articles I found.

The Inter Ocean
(Chicago, Illinois)17 Oct 1900, Wed • Page 3

  When searching the Newspapers on GenealogyBank.com, Newspapers.com, and ChroniclingAmerica.com, I first put  Marinduque insurgents and the date 1900.  The articles came right up.  My grandfather's account was as accurate as he accounted it. My quest for information was satisfied.
On a side note I discovered a short article about their clothing on GenealogyBank which really made sense. This is just a snippet.  Those guys must have been miserable when they first arrived.

This War was not covered greatly in my American History class. It was lumped in the Spanish American war that featured Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders, so this has been a learning experience for me as well as a journey that has helped me know my grandfather a little better, probably better than my mother who was only 2 months old when he died.  See you all next month ~FranE

Journeying Back to Your Ancestor's Time; My Person Journey

The process of journeying back to your ancestor's time has been the discussion in many videos lately, which brought me post this.

First I started at home.  I was wanting to know about the pictures I saw in my mother's picture box of men on horses that were obviously military, but I did not know who or where. I started by asking my mom about this. She said they were her father's, he served in the Spanish American War and her mother received a pension from that. She emphasized that he died when she was 2 months old, and so he did, which was why she didn't have any stories.

Picture owned by Fran Ellsworth 

My second step was looking for his military pension. I did not find it in the Spanish American War files.  I found their pension indexes mixed in with the Civil War indexes from the NARA T289. Pension applications for service in the US Army between 1861 and 1900, grouped according to the units in which the veterans served.   This discovery was on Fold3. I now knew that he was in Company B of the 38th Infantry Battalion.  I also had his muster in and muster out dates, as well as his death date. He enlisted September 11 1897 in the U.S. Army Volunteer Infantry and fought in the Philippine American War,
If you are wondering about your ancestor and the Spanish or Philippine Wars this site Spanish American War Vs Philippine American War is a great one to read.

On Ancestry.com, I found him and his 2 brothers, Robert C Whitson, and Oscar Whitson on the 1900 US Federal Census at Battalion at Batangas, Philippine Islands, Military and Naval Forces in the same battalion.

Ancestry.com, Online image, Year: 1900; Census Place: Batangas, Philippine Islands, Military and Naval Forces; Roll: 1841; Enumeration District: 0191; FHL microfilm: 1241841

My next move was to go to my favorite newspaper sites, Newspapers.com ,  GenealogyBank.com , and Chronicling America to search the newspapers of that time to see what was being said.  Sad to say, the press was very negative about this war and coverage wasn't great, but the political cartoons were rampant.

Newspapers.com clipping Decatur Daily Republican
(Decatur, Illinois)25 Apr 1898, Mon • Page 1

Chronicling America, The Houston daily post., May 31, 1902, MAILABLE EDITION

The worse article to read was about a battalion being charged with atrocities. I breathed a sigh of relief that my grandfather was not in that battalion.  His service summary card said service Honest and Faithful.  A description I would not mind to have. Finally I found an article that told of the end of the volunteer army. It described when they would come home, and the transports that would be involved.

I also used Google search where I also found the book Annual Report of the Secretary of War, Volume 1, Part 3 US Gov. 1901.  In there was the chart that gave the exact ship ‘Thyna’ that his battalion came home on, the date in port and the date they were discharged on which matched his pension card.   I then searched for the names of the transports which gave me the dates and places that they arrived in.
Someone (there wasn't a name) had transcribed two Oregonian Daily articles that included the arrival of the ship.

THE MORNING OREGONIAN, THURSDAY, JUNE 13, 1901. Thyna And KINTUCK.

Two Big Transports Will Return to Portland From Manila.

“The United States transports Thyra and  Kintuck will both return to Portland
from Manila, and the former has already sailed for Portland with a company of
volunteers, which will be mustered out in San Francisco. The Thyra was turned over
to the Government in this city, and It is supposed that she Is coming back to Port,
land to be returned to her owners. Otherwise, she would probably go direct to
San Francisco with the troops. Just why the troops should not be mustered out In
Portland is a matter which is not easily explained, except that the San Francisco
pull is heavier than that of Portland. The Kintuck will probably bring a few
soldiers when she returns. She had excellent luck with her outward cargo of
horses and mules from Portland, losing but four animals on the voyage.”

THE SUNDAY OREGONIAN, PORTLAND, JUNE 30, 1901. ASTORIA:  June 29. Arrived at 8:50 A.M. and left up at 12:30 P. M.

 Norwegian steamer Thyra, from Manila. From San Francisco.

“The Norwegian steamship Thyra, which has been In the Government transport
service for several months, arrived at Astoria yesterday morning, and after a
short stay at quarantine, proceeded up the river. She brings 237 passengers,
nearly all, of them returning volunteer Infantrymen. The officers on board were
Captain D. F. Allen, Captain Ross A. Nichols, First Lieutenant A. J. Brown,
Second Lieutenant A. C. Davis, First Lieutenant S. Friedman and Captain W.
G. Fleischhauer. The present trip of the Thyra will be her last
 in the Government service, and she will probably drift back
into the merchant service.”

From this, I was able to see they had a long hard trip aboard a steamer.  They had to wait another
month before they were discharged to go home.  It was amazing to see they were transported to the upper North West of the United States to be able to get back to their homes.  The newspaper article said they still had to wait for their last 5 days of pay because of not being mustered out until 5 days after the expiration of the time the congress had set for the volunteer army.
I hope they got it. These men did not get a ticker tape parade or a pat on the back.

I know from my great uncle Ray Whitson, and from what my mother said, that my grandfather volunteered because he wanted to serve his country. During WWI, he couldn’t volunteer to go serve as a soldier, so he went and volunteered to drive a taxi at Fort Sill, Oklahoma to help the soldiers.  He apparently kept hitting his knee on the door. When his knee hurt enough, he went in to the doctors and they discovered he had cancer in his knee.  His service days were over. According to his Pension Index card, it was the 19th of June 1920 that they deemed him to be sufficiently handicapped to receive his military pension.  My grandmother, continued to receive this pension, thankfully, as a widow, It was a blessing because they had lost everything because of medical bills and she still had 6 children at home.

I close saying that I am grateful my grandfather was a man who stood for his country and desired to serve to help other’s be free.  He was a good man.  I made a scrapbook page to depict his military journey, from where he lived when he volunteered to where he returned to the United States.

Created utilizing facts found about his journey in newspapers, military records, Historical records of the time. by Fran Ellsworth

This was my journey. I love books on History such as Spanish-American war and battles in the Philippines that were written in the time period you are searching. The Internet Archive is a great source for all countries and wars. I also use Newspapers, and Military Records that give descriptions. All countries have their own newspapers that give their perspective of a war.  I even found articles written by other countries used by American newspaper companies.   By the time I was through, I felt I had had a moment to see what it was like for him, I am sure not his exact feelings but at least what the forces were that he was dealing with. 

Preserving the News from Home

I married a first generation American.  He is the only member of his family to live here in the United States, everyone else lives in Spain or Puerto Rico.  I remember years ago we used to write to family members because a long distance phone call to Spain was so expensive.  Later, the prices of the phone calls dropped and we could call more often.  In the 1990s we started emailing, and in the last few years we've used messaging and Facebook.  For the past year or two we have used Skype to make a video call to my mother-in-law.  Skype is free so we are able to do this almost every morning before my husband goes to work.  What changes I've seen in the past thirty years of our marriage!

While researching my family tree, I've seen many changes in correspondence over the centuries.  My background is almost all English, and most of my ancestors arrived in New England with the Great Migration, before 1640 with the Puritans.  I have no surviving letters, but there is evidence of correspondence in court records and town histories.  Some of these ancestors even traveled back and forth from England to Massachusetts many times.  At least one died on a voyage back to England when the ship disappeared (Reverend Thomas Mayhew (about 1620 – November 1657)).    How did the family, on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, learn about this loss? 

I’m sure that many immigrants never heard from their families again once they arrived in America.  But we can’t be sure of that, can we?  My ancestor, Peter Hoogerzeil (1803 – 1889), stowed away on a Rotterdam, Netherlands ship to come to America in the 1820s.  He married the ship captain’s daughter.  How do I know this? Because of letters he wrote home to his family in the Netherlands.  Since he was a mariner, he traveled back and forth to the Netherlands very often, and his letters survived into the 20^th century.  

My uncle served in occupied Europe after World War II.  When he was in the Netherlands he dropped in to visit his Hogerzeil cousins in Dordrect.  They welcomed him with open arms, over 100 years after Peter Hoogerzeil left Dordrect, because of the family correspondence that went on over all those years. 

2nd from left, Uncle "Buddy" Joseph Gilman Allen, 

in Dordrect, Netherlands with Hogerzeil cousins

In the 1824 in Boston, Massachusetts my 4^th great grand aunt, Mary Lambert Jones (1803 – 1889) married Captain John Dominis, a ship captain.  They decided to remove from Boston and from Schenectady, New York to Honolulu, Hawaii in the 1830s.  The correspondence between Mary and her sisters and family in Boston was carefully preserved in the Hawaii State Archives.  Most of this correspondence is spread out over the last forty years of her life, after the death of her husband in 1846, at sea.

Can you imagine how long it took for letters to arrive from Hawaii to Boston in the 1840s and 1850s?  There was no formal postal system, and letters were given to ships sailing to New England on an honor system.  Even so, I’m not sure when the first news of the death of Captain Dominis reached the family.  I did find this newspaper clipping dated 24 May 1847 from the Salem Register.    The ship had disappeared four or five months earlier.  

I wonder if letters from home were accepted joyfully?  Or were they dreaded because such rare and infrequent correspondence probably carried news from home of who had died since the last letter, or who was ill, or who had disappeared at sea (it was a family of mariners).   Some of the letters to Mary Dominis were from her sisters asking her to return to Boston, but she only came home once after she was widowed, and she died in Hawaii in 1889.  Here is one from her niece in Boston written in 1848, shortly after she was widowed. 

                                          Dorchester  Aug. 13^th 1848

Dear Cousin

I found looking over my letters the other day

that I am in debt to you for two.  I thought that I must

do my best to pay you by writing to you this opportunity

I am at Aunt Agnes’ visiting they have a very pleasant

place near Granite Bridge the house is old fashioned

but very good the fireplaces about two yard long wide

and a yard and a half long the panes of glass in the

windows about as large as a sheet of note paper.

I suppose that you have almost set up business for your

self.  How do you like the house  I should like to see it

very much as I understand it is the handsomest on

the Island.  Sarah Ann is in Boston visiting I suppose

she will write to you this opportunity  we miss her

and the children very much she has two very pretty

little girls  I know that you long to see them.

Aunt Lee has left Charter St. at last and gone to

Bridgewater to live they have quite a farm I believe

keep cows hens etc.  Uncle William and Aunt Agnes send

love to your mother and she will write if she has

time but she has such a family that if the vessel

sails tomorrow she will not be able to. Do you… 

Later in the 1800s letters were carried to Hawaii (the Sandwich Islands) with more frequency, and they tended to be light hearted and chatty, such as this one below from San Francisco in 1865 to Mary Dominis from her eight year old niece:

                  San Francisco, Jan. 22th, 1865

Dear Auntie,

I have got your letter,

you told me to tell you what I got on

Christmas, I got a doll, it was dressed like

redriding hood, a little wash tub and board,

a pair of gloves, a basket, and a pair of

gold sleeve buttons.  Mama has had a fire

ever since she has been here.  Mama has

a blue silk, with tails way down to the

bottom of her dress.  Mrs. Chase sent us

some pictures of our house.  On Saturday

I went to the circus.  We go to ride almost

every day.  I go to school.  I love some

friends boarding here.  Give my love

to Lydia, Jhon, Tom and Willie.

            Good bye from Annie B. Aldrich

Do you have letters from your immigrant ancestors? Or from your ancestors who removed from one city to another, perhaps moving West across the United States?

With the advent of the telephone, internet and video calling, how do we preserve these conversations now?

My Brick Wall Continues to Haunt me.

When I first started researching my family history, I asked my father, where did his grandfather come from?  His answer was "He came across the Mississippi River and he lost his wife and child while crossing.  My mother never talked about it."  I was also led to believe they were from Oklahoma...
How I began my journey back was written here on my blog.
Levi Edwin Gildon was my great grandfather.  His father was Charles R Gildon son of Charles Gildon born 16 Feb 1773 in Norwich Twp,New London,Connecticut to Richard Gildon and Issabelle.  I had found Charles R early on in Texas and found that he was born in Connecticut researching the censuses.  The birth I first found on the old FamilySearch.org IGI files.  The data is now found in the Indexed records "Connecticut, Births and Christenings, 1649-1906," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/F74M-P76 : accessed 17 Apr 2014), Charles Gildon, 16 Feb 1773; citing ; FHL microfilm unknown.
There are several researchers who think his middle name could be Rawles... no rhyme nor reason for this. Why not Richard after his dad?  Which brings me to my mystery man, Richard Gildon.
Richard Gildon, as I said above, was first found on Vital Records in New London County, Connecticut as father to Charles. The next record I found was in "Record of service of Connecticut men in the I. War of the Revolution, II. War of 1812, III. Mexican War", Connecticut. Adjutant-General's Office; Johnston, Henry Phelps, 1842-1923 Hatford, Connecticut 1889 Page 6.
Found now on Archive.org;  https://archive.org/details/waroftherevolution00recorich
Richard was a responder from Canterbury to the call for defenders at the battle of Lexington. He was one of the minutemen.

Fold3, Revolutionary War Rolls, Connecticut, Chester's Regiment of Militia (1776 - 77) folder 201 page 58 

Then in the book, "Old Houses of Antient Norwich" Mary E Perkins, Norwich, Connecticut, 1895 pages 331 - 332, and 462, Richard is mentioned again.  He had a shop/home which is later identified as Charles Gildon leather shop, making fine saddles, gloves, etc.  Many wondered where Charles apprenticed.
After the revolutionary war, Richard does not appear in any records found so far.  His wife is the head of household in the first census. No notation in the books as to his possible demise or where he came from. I have kept an eye open to Virginia and the possibility of him traveling north from the Northern Neck of the land where a Charles Gildon b about 1750  married a Mary Dixon in 1771.
I dug around in old newspapers and found a possibility in a Pennsylvania Newspaper on Newspaper.com; Page 63 Richard Gilding, John McIntire 12/15 1768, English 25 breeches maker 4 days, Sunday, 2 pounds, 5'4-5.The Pennsylvania Gazette.  Gilding is an alternative spelling for Gildon and the leather working would work.
Then I found an advertisement in 1766 for letters waiting in Annapolis, Anne Arundel, Maryland, USA for a Richard Gildon.
My hopes are up that I will be able to prove these are my Richard, but much work is needed for proofs.  It was hoped by first researchers that his son Charles would tie them to Charles Gildon the writer, who wrote against the Pope.  A possibility, but I have never seen any children for Charles Gildon and his brother, Joseph, became a priest.  I would say the connection would more likely be that my Richard was a dissenter too and wanted to honor the writer.
There is also the possibility that his beginnings are hidden by misspelling of the last name as Gilden or Gilding.  All these variables keep me going back every once in a while with hopes for a break through that will take me across the pond to tie Richard to the many Gildons in England.
I am traveling again. Hailing from Idaho, US this time.

My Favorite Media "Old Newspapers"

If I were to say where some of my most exciting discoveries have come from, I would have to say Old Newspapers.  

This last year, I made the discovery of the death of my Hero's great great grandmother that I had almost given up on.  A sweet lady had put her obit up on FindaGrave when she discovered there wasn't a memorial for her. She gave me the paper it was in, but there is only a transcription on Nebraska USGenWeb for the Columbia, Nebraska newspaper.  When searching to read the transcription, I found there was also a small obit for a child that the Heimbach family had lost when it was 18 months old. We would never have known this baby existed if it had not been for the small newspaper article.  

I also was trying to find what happened to my great great grandfather's first child. In an old newspaper article that told of him leaving Georgia, there was a mention of his wife dying and that he still had a new boy that he was very fond of.  

When he arrived in Texas, he met a lovely lady, and they were married. All the children I found on the censuses were her's.  I ask my dad about his great grandfather, and he said all he knew was that his great grandfather Gildon had lost his family when he crossed the Mississippi. His thought had been, that they had drowned or were killed.  It was a time when many were dying of Yellow Fever in Georgia, and this was apparently the cause of Frances Massey Gildon's death.  Other family members said the child was left with one of  Charles's sisters.  I could not find any evidence of this.  I turned to old newspapers again.  I found the article of Frances's death, but kept searching.  I found what I thought was another repeat of her death, but on closer study, found it was the son's death at 9 months of age. He was also named Francis and thus that was how I almost missed finding the truth.  

Another great great grandfather was said to have died in a gun fight. I searched books and gun fights to no avail.  Then, Wyoming opened up their old newspapers online in the Wyoming Newspaper Project. There I found in two different newspapers his obit and who handled his death. He died of pneumonia in his home. Nothing exciting there, except the evidence of truth. 

 These are wonderful finds, but I have also been able to trace the epidemics that took the lives of half of the Hero's great great grandparent's families in Chicago in the 1910s.  The Yellow Fever Epidemics of Georgia that had high reports of deaths in newspapers up as far as New York. The coverage of the fire in Savannah in 1820 that was documented all the way to Connecticut newspapers, and my ancestor's losses in the fire. I found and followed my mother's father's travels to and from the Philippines in the Philippines War. There was the discovered brother of one of the Hero's ancestors, who had died in the Mexican War, with not a clue as to who his parents were. Now I have a the day  that they both were the first volunteers in their town to step up to go fight in the Mexican War in blazing detail.

This is just a smidgen of the excitement of the browsing through old newspapers I have had the fun of doing. Chronicling America has a great sampling of old Newspapers. GenealogyBank.com has helped a lot. This is just two sites I have used. and I have also ordered old films, and gone to the libraries to search the films.  Ancestor Hunt offers information on many resources for old newspapers, and many State Archives have old newspapers online. I have only tried one in Great Britain, but I am sure there are serendipitous information to be had there too, just not quite over there yet.

Hope you have enjoyed this and if you haven't played a lot with old newspapers in your research, give it a try.