Mark Twain in Kalamazoo

In December 1871, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) came to town to give a talk before the Young Men's Library Association as well as an assemblage of the public from Kalamazoo and the surrounding area. His proposed subject was Artemas Ward, the assumed name of a humorist by the name of Charles Farrar Browne. However, Clemens decided to change the program and spoke a little about his experiences as recounted in his recently released book, “Roughing It.” He had been on the lecture circuit and was probably tired of the old Artemas Ward schtick by then.

This image is available from the United States Library of Congress's Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cwpbh.04761.  It was taken by Matthew Brady in Feb 1871.

Opinions differed as to whether the audience got their money's worth or should have had their admission remitted. The Kalamazoo Gazette [Kalamazoo Gazette, 12-22-1871, P3] described the spectators as being rapt, on the edge of their seats one moment and rolling with laughter the next. The Kalamazoo Telegraph [Kalamazoo Telegraph, 12-18-1871, p4, col.1] correspondent, on the other hand, felt that the audience had been imposed upon for having such a disjointed collection of stories fed to them as a “lecture.” Ironically, a Google search for the Artemas Ward speech of Mark Twain came up with one newspaper article in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle [11-22-1871] that described it as follows: “On the whole, the lecture. . . was actually nothing but a discursive and pleasant bundle of stories, bound together by a cord of quaint fancy.”

Union Hall, where the lecture was held, was packed, even including the aisles. As there was no reserved seating, many arrived early to secure a seat and according to the Gazette, “it became a grab game.” Both news outlets stated that no lecturer visiting Kalamazoo had drawn a larger crowd except for John B. Gough, a noted temperance orator.

The Gazette described the mix of stories adding “these, interspersed with a description of the country, so minute, so picturesque, and yet no doubt so true, that one could almost imagine himself standing where the narrator had stood, and gazing across the sandy and forsaken plain, or with him peering into the clear and placid waters of Lake Tahoe. One moment he would be dealing with a description of scenery that would rise to the loftiest heights of grandeur, the next, his humor would break out as it seemed, involuntarily, and instead of the listening, wrapt, [sic] enchanted audience of the moment before, would be one swayed in the convulsions of laughter.”

The Telegraph railed that “the substitute for a lecture which Mr. Clemens foisted upon his audience was an insult to their intelligence and capacity” and that “no lecturer we regret to say, ever more completely disappointed his hearers.” The Telegraph continued that “Mr. Clemens had no right to impose upon his hearers any such desultory trash as they were subjected to.” The Telegraph correspondent must have known that his sentiments were not shared by the Gazette reporter and ended his diatribe saying Mr. Clemens “should have given the lecture he contracted to deliver, or something equally good, in its stead, and not put us off with a rambling, disconnected talk about a hackneyed subject, sans wit, sans information, sans sense. It is the duty of the press to expose such impositions, and if other journals remain silent, we shall not.”

Mark Twain's visit certainly drew a large crowd, but whether his lecture left his audience wishing to obtain a copy of his latest book or wanting a refund seems open to debate. One thing is clear of the opinions of the Telegraph and the Gazette, never the twain shall meet. It is possible that the Telegraph reporter was expecting an informative lecture. Though he stated he had read and enjoyed Twain's books I doubt he would have appreciated the Artemas Ward “lecture” any more than the one he heard. I suspect those that merely wanted an entertaining evening, without a preconceived notion of what a “lecture” should be, were rewarded.

The Kalamazoo Valley Museum

There is a little something for everyone at the Kalamazoo Valley Museum. It is part children's museum, part Kalamazoo history museum, part repository of historical artifacts. And with both permanent and temporary exhibits as well as a planetarium, it is difficult to know where to begin. If you live in the area and have a free afternoon, I recommend that you take a look. Best of all, admission is free, though the planetarium show costs $3 per person.

You may first want to visit their re-vamped website to get an overview of their offerings and to see what temporary exhibits are currently there. As of February 2012, a new exhibit just opened entitled Disease Detectives that will stay at the KVM through May 28^th. There are usually four to six temporary exhibits per year between their two galleries on the 1^st and 3^rd floors.

If you remember the mummy that used to be located in the little museum above the library, you can visit it again at the KVM and see the X-rays done on it in recent years.

Behind the public face of the KVM are scholars who are working hard to collect and make available photographs (through a collaboration with the Kalamazoo Public Library) and documents from our city's past. Through blog posts, segments of letters (from a Civil War soldier) and diary entries (from a young woman starting in 1909) are being shared with the public.

Free monthly lectures (the Sunday History Series), from September through May, are also held here on various topics, some of definite interest to those conducting research into family history, and thus Kalamazoo history.

For those of us who don't live in the area, there is still one thing that the KVM can offer us: their online magazine. Formerly entitled Museography, but just renamed museON, it is more than just an advertisement for the current exhibits in the museum. The magazine is published three times per year. In every issue there are articles relating to Kalamazoo history from prominent citizens to neighborhoods to industries in the area (like automobiles, and I mean before there was ever a GM plant in town). Better yet, all past issues are available for download through the KVM website.

The Kalamazoo Valley Museum has a lot to offer and I encourage you to take a look.

John Harrigan: Who Done It?

For those of you who read my blog post about the death of John Harrigan (found with his throat slit), you may have noticed that I mentioned John's son, Henry Harrigan, a couple of times. While I didn't exactly point the finger at him, I would be lying if I told you that I didn't consider him the primary suspect.

Before I go further, let's take a step back. The household at the time of John's death consisted of: John, age 45, his wife Mary (41), and their children, Mary (18), Henry (17), Charles (15), Frank (7) and George (3). I think we can safely eliminate the two youngest children from suspicion. As far as I can tell from newspaper accounts (and the Ross Coller file), all of the family led unremarkable lives with the exception of Henry and possibly Charles (who cheated his elderly mother out of some money, or tried to until she sued him, but that's a story for another blog post).

So why have I focused on Henry, you may ask? Well, for one thing, most murders are committed by a family member. And in cases in which a child kills a parent it is most often a teenage son. [1] In the U.S. from 1976-2005, 4950 cases were reported in which a father was killed by his son. Of those, 53% were killed by a son aged 15-25. Seventeen-year-old sons topped the list with 353 patricides (7%). Henry Harrigan just happened to be seventeen when his father died, though this hardly proves his guilt.

One thing I would like to submit into evidence are the signatures of Henry, Charles and Daniel (John's brother) Harrigan from the coroner's inquest. Keep in mind that the inquest was held at the Harrigan home mere hours after John's body was found by Charles in a blood-spattered room. While thankfully I have no personal experience here, I can only imagine that I would be quite shaken if I were asked to give testimony under these circumstances, especially after seeing the room and body. Before I go any further, take a look at the signatures.  Click on the image to see a larger version.

Did you notice anything interesting about Henry's signature? Unlike Daniel's which appears shaky (especially for a man of 36), Henry's looks almost like calligraphy to me. Ask yourself this: is this the signature of someone at all disturbed by the bloody death of his father just a couple of hours previously? Even if they didn't get along I find it difficult to believe that Henry's signature could look so, well. . . perfect.

As I am hardly a handwriting expert, I decided to consult Paula Sassi (a certified graphologist) to get an informed opinion. For those of you who listen to Lisa Louise Cooke's Genealogy Gems Podcast, you may recognize the name from episode 116. If not, you can watch Paula analyze a handwriting sample for Lisa here.

I sent Paula a copy of the coroner's inquest statements which included the signatures of those questioned. Beyond this, I did not provide her with any other information about Henry or John.

Paula's analysis is as follows: “The signature represents the public self-image of the writer and does not provide a full representation of the personality as seen in the handwriting.

Henry's signature, considering the circumstances and timing of this signing, appears to be very controlled with little emotional upset. His writing shows intelligence and an ability to maintain secrets as seen in his retraced “e.” The first capital “H” also has a beginning hook at the bottom which can be an indication of someone who has acquisitive tendencies. He wanted to acquire wealth for himself and this is further evidenced by the full lower loop of his “y.” This can be seen as a money bag, and along with the full “g” loop, shows that he had strong material and physical desires. Becoming wealthy and well connected was probably important to him. He had a good intelligence for a young man and could be logical and analytical in his thinking along with having some intuitive ability. His i-dot indicates that he had a good eye on the future and was moving forward in a steady and controlled fashion. The flourishes at the top of the H's may just be an affectation of the writing style of the time period, but also indicates some cover and self protection.”

The personality traits Paula discerned from Henry's signature actually fit quite well with what I know about him. There is too much to include here so I'll present it in a future post. As for Henry's signature, it is obviously not sufficient to say whether or not he killed his father (or was even capable of cold-blooded murder), but once I actually looked at his signature in context, it certainly made me think twice about the possibility of his guilt. Stay tuned for the rest of the story.  You can view John's gravestone and see if you can decipher the inscription.

To learn a little more about Henry Harrigan and his brushes with the law read my post here. 

1. Homicide Trends in the U.S. FBI Supplementary Homicide Reports, 1976-2005. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Released Jan. 2007

On The Right Track: Street Name Changes

I don't know about you but I just hate it when I'm driving down a street in an unfamiliar place and the street name changes every five blocks. OK, perhaps every five blocks is an exaggeration, but the point is that it can be difficult to determine if you are still on the right track, unless you have a GPS.

Unfortunately, this phenomenon can also affect genealogists. I can think of three examples off the top of my head in which a street name change could put you on a wild goose chase after your ancestors. Two examples from Kalamazoo are Oakland Drive (formerly Asylum Avenue) and Riverview Drive (formerly Seminary Road). While I imagine that most people with roots in Kalamazoo know about Oakland/Asylum, there are probably other street name changes that we are not aware of. Even if it has not caused you problems in Kalamazoo, it could affect your research in other cities.

Another related issue is if the street numbers changed. According to the Kalamazoo Public Library site this happened twice in Kalamazoo, first in 1883 and later in 1925. In 1883 street numbers were changed so that they began from a central point (the intersection of Burdick and Michigan Avenue (formerly Main St). Prior to this change the numbers were based on proximity to the Kalamazoo river.

While numbering buildings from a central point makes sense, I have no idea why the numbering was altered in 1925. Again, I take my information from the KPL (see above link). This time “street numbering changed city-wide. Some house numbers didn't change at all. Others changed a few numbers, usually a little higher than the old one.” Keep this in mind if it appears that your family moved a couple of doors down the street. They probably didn't. A look at old maps may clarify this. Even a careful examination of census records, in some cases, may be helpful. By looking for when an enumerator turned down a cross street you may be able to determine that your relative lived on Village two houses up from Oak St, for example.

Once more I will borrow information from the KPL to provide you with their list of street name changes in Kalamazoo. There may be others, but this is a good starting place.

• Cork used to be St. James. (The tradition is that so many Irish paper mill workers lived there that it was nicknamed after County Cork in Ireland. In some directories it is listed both ways. Eventually St. James fell out of use altogether.)
• Main Street east of the river used to be East Avenue.
• Michigan Avenue used to be Main Street.
• Oakland Drive used to be Asylum Avenue.
• Riverview used to be Seminary.
• South Street east of the jog at Henrietta, was Cherry.
• Vine used to be Rice.
• Westnedge was West Street north of Lovell, and College south of it.

Some street name changes that I have uncovered in my research include:

Gibson St. used to be Grace.

South St (at least a short stretch of it east of Henrietta) used to be Cherry.

Village Ave was for a few brief years after it was built called Potts Ave. (the houses built in this area were in Potts Addition).
East Walnut (east of Portage) used to be First Street.
East Crosstown Parkway (east of Portage) used to be Third Street.
Fourth Street used to have a short branch just east of Portage (but not connected to Portage or the rest of 4th Street.  This can be seen on the 1890 Kalamazoo city map available here). 

I encourage you to visit the Kalamazoo Public Library website to see the other useful local history information they have available online.

Kalamazoo's Riverside Cemetery

I suspect that everyone with Kalamazoo roots has at least one person in their family who was laid to rest in Riverside cemetery. Some of the newer sections are devoid of much character, in my opinion, but I find the older sections on the slopes of the hill to be very peaceful. I got the opportunity to spend a little bit of time there last fall. While visiting family in town we spent an afternoon in section B (see map below) trying to decipher the inscription on John Harrigan's grave stone (I'll write about this endeavor later). Perhaps some people would find the spot lonely, but I enjoyed spending time beneath the crown of oak trees listening to the leaves rustling in the breeze.

Apparently, Riverside was not always such an idyllic spot. Anyone who has neglected their landscaping for one reason or another likely understands how quickly a flower bed can transform into a tangled den of bermuda grass. It seems that this happened to Riverside. Kalamazoo township purchased twenty-six acres in 1861, and had it laid out and ready for use by 1862 (The KPL website describes it here). Within seven years the cemetery was overrun by weeds and the citizens were having second thoughts.

Despite promises from the township to improve the cemetery, by 1869, the situation was so bad that some residents who had purchased lots were actually planning to give them up and bury their dead elsewhere. In the fall of that year, the township board appointed Dennis Coogan, “the well known gardener, to be sexton.” The article in the Kalamazoo Telegraph (10-19-1869, P4, col2) continued “that beautiful spot set apart as a resting place for the dead, has been neglected, and suffered to run back to a wilderness condition.”

In just over a year, Coogan had effected a change. The Telegraph (12-30-1870, P4 Col3) stated:

“This beautiful retreat for those who, after life's fitful fever, sleep well, has been greatly improved and beautified during the past season. Mr. Dennis Coogan, the well known gardener and florist, having been in charge of it, and devoting his best efforts to making it what it should be is encouraged by liberal appropriations by the people of the township. Heretofore it has been looked upon as a wilderness place, too wild and lonely for the purposes it was dedicated to, because it had been suffered to grow up weeds and underbrush, and the roads and pathways, to be almost lost. Now the change is great, and hereafter it will continue to grow in grace and beauty. A large number of lots have been purchased this season, and the place has come to be looked upon with great favor by those who a year or two ago believed it would never be made a pleasant looking burying ground. It is naturally the prettiest cemetery in the county, and in a few years will be all that we could wish it to be.”

Thanks to the ministrations of the grounds keepers, Riverside cemetery remains a well-tended and peaceful resting place for our ancestors.

To find your ancestors buried in Riverside I suggest checking the indexes at Find A Grave or downloading a PDF of transcribed burials from the Kalamazoo Valley Genealogical Society website (the records go up to 2006).

1940 Census Shirker

I admit it. Though I have been looking forward to the release of the 1940 census, like most genealogists, I have done nothing to prepare for it's release just days from now. While I have downloaded a blank 1940 census form to see the questions posed, I have looked up nary an enumeration district. I was already registered as an indexer for Family Search so I did not have to fight the crowds who, according to the Ancestry Insider, have been swamping their site.

I know where many of my close family lived in 1940 so I am not really expecting any surprises there, though I imagine I will still get a little thrill from finding people I know or knew in these long-awaited records. Beyond my own edification, I want the information from 1940 so I can attempt to track down some as yet unknown distant cousins. You never know who may have family stories or photos they are willing to share. For example, I know some of my Hartman relatives still live in Kalamazoo. They can expect to receive a cold call from me later this year.

I hope the release of the 1940 census will answer a couple of my burning questions. The big one for me is where was my grandmother's sister living? I haven't blogged about Mildred yet, but I plan to at some point. What I want to know is if Mildred was living with her boyfriend, Joseph Salpatrick in 1940 and if her kids were with her. Poor Mildred was mercilessly shot through the window in the wee hours of Christmas morning 1941 while she was preparing gifts for her children. Yes, you read that right. She was shot by none other than her apparently abusive, recently EX-boyfriend, Salpatrick. But enough of that for now.

For those of you who, like me, don't have their 1940 look-up cheat sheet prepared, here is a taste of what we can hope to find. In addition to the usual questions we have come to expect, we may also learn the highest grade of school a person completed. The census also provides us perhaps, with a two-for-one deal. People were asked if they lived in the same house in 1935 (and if not, where they lived, at least the town name). Then, in an attempt to gauge the effects of the Great Depression the enumerators asked a panel of questions about employment status, and specifically if they worked for one of the public emergency work programs (WPA, CCC, etc.).

Five percent of the population was also asked a series of supplementary questions about parents' origins, veteran status and social security questions. Unfortunately, questions beloved by many family historians were now only asked of this small segment of society. These would be (for women only): age at first marriage, if the woman had married more than once and number of children born. As disappointed as I am that these questions weren't asked of all my people, I feel worse for future genealogists when they see how few questions were asked of us in the 2010 enumeration.

For a complete list of questions I refer you to: http://www.census.gov/history/www/through_the_decades/index_of_questions/1940_population.html

For those of you with your list all ready, I congratulate you on your preparedness! If you have that task done you probably don't need me to tell you, but for everyone else, it can't hurt to put the address out there again.

On April 2^nd, the only place you will be able to search (by enumeration district) is: 1940census.archives.gov.

Happy hunting and may all of your people be in the 5%!

For more information on how the census switched from using enumerators to a by-mail system see me post:  http://kalamazoogenealogy.blogspot.com/2012/04/curb-stoning-census.html.

Records at Seeking Michigan

I have seen the Seeking Michigan website on a couple of lists of the best state genealogy websites and with good reason. I have mentioned using the Seeking Michigan website to find death certificates (1897-1920), but there is much more to explore.  The Seeking Michigan website has recently been revised and it appears that they are still adding functionality.  To jump right in, you will find the search box at the upper right of the screen.  Select a category by checking the appropriate box.

When you go to the home page you will see several categories: Seek, Discover and Look, Teach and Buy. If you want to learn a little more about the collections hover over each category.  Seek allows you to select from guides (a list of links to holdings in various categories of the Archives of Michigan), indexes (for a few records) and contact information.  Look contains recent articles on various topics and a search box to locate more (e.g. the Kalamazoo Corset Co. or Malcolm X in Michigan).  Teach has information for K-12 teachers to help them introduce children to the past (e.g. using a pioneer child's account).  The Buy page is pretty self-explanatory.  Near the top of the page you can hover over and select from collections, prints and records.  Discover is where the bulk of the records on this site lie.

Hover over Discover and you can choose from civic history (death records, civil war service records, films and plat maps), family history (civil war manuscripts, civil war photographs, civil war battle flags, early photography, oral histories, music of Michigan, main streets and architecture), death records and civil war.  If you hover over the civil war option you can further select events, the reveille blog original material (the same ones you will find under civic and family history) and resources.  If you have ancestors who served in a Michigan unit during the Civil War a number of collections worth looking at, particularly. Most of these documents have not been indexed, meaning that if you are looking for references to a particular soldier you can't simply type his name into the search box and expect pages of hits. The philosophy was that researchers would rather have access to all of the documents right away rather than have only a few indexed ones. While it is a bit tedious to hunt page by page for your people, it is certainly better than having nothing to hunt through at all.

Some details of the different collections are as follows.  Civil War manuscripts (letters and diaries of soldiers), Civil War service records (monthly returns, muster rolls, etc sent to the Adjutant General), Civil War photographs, government land office plat maps (largely from the 1820s and 1830s), other varieties of maps (1841 to circa 1900), Main streets (old photographs and postcards from throughout Michigan), lighthouses, early Michigan documents and several other categories.

I am happy to report that thanks to the revision of the website, navigating and downloading documents is now straight-forward.  The quirks that made things difficult to find and save in their entirety are no longer issues.  To quickly show you how the new page is set up I'll look at the Civil War service record collection. In the search box, type in the unit you are interested in (I chose the “Lancers”). Click on a particular set of records from the results list.  Near the top of the screen you will see the document identifier (Box 132, Folder 3, Document 1, for example).  Immediately above the document is a slider you can use to increase the size of the image on your screen. You also have the option to "fit to window" or "fit to width."  You can also simply drag the edges of the box (right middle and/or bottom middle) to increase the size of the document window.  You can easily print or save (in one of three sizes) with a click of a button just above the document screen.  On the right hand side of the screen is a scroll down box containing thumbnails of all of the documents within that folder.  Clicking on “Next” will take you to the next document in the folder or you can simply click on the thumbnail.  When you have finished perusing all of the documents in the folder and wish to go to the next hit from the search results page, click the right arrow near the upper right of the screen where it indicates "Results, 1 of 3," for example. 

The Seeking Michigan website is now more user-friendly.  The records are now easy to navigate and save.  I wish to thank them for all of the time and effort it took to digitize the images so that those of us who can't visit in person can still access these records. I know how time consuming it is to scan in family photos and documents, having just finished a bunch in early March.  I hope they continue to receive funding to carry on this valuable work!

Note:  As of September 2012, Seeking Michigan has added 1894 Michigan state census records for nine counties to their website.  To learn more see:  Seeking Michigan's Census Secret.