Thomas and Amanda Green, part 3

Early last year I started a series of articles investigating the lives of Thomas and Amanda Green, my great-great grandparents. Here are links to the first two installments:

• Thomas and Amanda Green, part 1
• Thomas and Amanda Green, part 2

I began writing this third article shortly afterward but it fell by the wayside. Here, at long last, is the continuation of their story and my investigation.

Correction

After listening again to my 1981 interview with Grandma Olsen, I am reminded that it was Grandma’s parents Edwin and Loretta Case, not her grandparents Thomas and Amanda Green, who met in the lumber camps near Carson City.

Geographical context

We can get some sense of where Thomas and Amanda Green lived from atlases at the Michigan County Histories and Atlases Digitization Project. Thomas and Amanda lived with their family in Fairplain, Bushnell, and Bloomer Townships of southeastern Montcalm County, New Haven Township northeast of Bloomer Township in Gratiot County, and North Plains Township south of Bloomer Township in Ionia County. At the end of their lives they lived in Stanton and Greenville.

Thomas and Amanda lived in Fairplain Township, Montcalm County, Michigan at the time of the 1900 US federal census enumeration. I have not checked property records to determine when they moved there, but they were in Fairplain at the time of the 1894 Michigan state census. The Standard atlas of Montcalm County, Michigan, published by Geo. A. Ogle & Co. in 1897, shows that Thomas owned 40 acres consisting of the northwest quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 1 in Fairplain Township.

A recent aerial view of this area reveals two small lakes, one in the 40 acres owned by J. Chamberlain, the other on Thomas Green’s land. Back in the early 1960s my brothers and I found a small long-abandoned dwelling in this area that we thought of as a cabin. Based on my distant memory, the cabin was southwest of the lake on Thomas’s property and was probably Thomas and Amanda’s home. I wish I had known it at the time. I heard many years later that the cabin had been burned by some mischievous acquaintances.

Family connections

I noted in a previous article that Avey Case and his wife Gladys Teed were half-second cousins, grandchildren of half-brothers Thomas Green and Amos Dodge. There are other interconnections among Thomas and Amanda’s children and grandchildren.

Thomas and Amanda’s daughter Emma Green married William Alonzo Marsh after the death of William’s first wife Marian Claus Marsh. William and Emma had nine children that I am aware of. Their first child, Stella Marsh, married Frank William Jeffrey, with whom she had at least fourteen children. Frank’s father William N. Jeffrey married Stella’s mother Emma Green Marsh after the deaths of Stella’s father William Alonzo Marsh and Frank’s mother Emily Stair Jeffrey.

Stella Marsh had four older half-brothers from the union of William Alonzo Marsh and Marian Claus. William and Marian’s oldest son Martin Marsh married Ida “Tida” Wiser. William and Marian’s second son William A. Marsh married Nora Wiser. Tida and Nora were two of at least nine children born to Augustus and Julia Clark Wiser. Julia was Emma Green’s half-sister. Roenia Green’s daughter Olive Powers married Daniel Wiser, whose father Frank Wiser was Augustus Wiser’s brother.

A letter of inquiry to Martin Marsh from the Bureau of Pensions seeking information about Marian Marsh, wife of Civil War veteran William A. Marsh, found its way to William’s second wife Emma Jeffery, who was staying for a time with her sister Julia Wiser. Note the spelling variation in Emma’s last name. This letter was supplied by Susan Savard, a shirttail relative and family researcher who copied it from pension files at the National Archives:

• Letter to Martin Marsh with response by Emma Jeffery

My Grandma Olsen identified people in a picture of some of her extended family as shown in my attached notes. I believe she was right with one notable exception. Here’s why I think that the man in the back row between Laura and Theodore is Laura’s third husband Wellington Scott:

• Loretta Case’s half-brother George Robert Clark died January 26, 1913.
• Frank and Maude’s daughter Velma Case was born May 12, 1912. Her brother Elmo, who I am guessing is the child on the left, was born August 5, 1914. Elsie’s daughter Neva James was born January 15, 1920. Her older brothers Avey (who might be the other child in the picture) and L. V. were born February 23, 1914 and April 13, 1916, respectively.
• Laura married her second husband, Thomas Knight, March 18, 1915. They divorced November 4, 1915.
• Goldie Verda Case married Aden Springsteen on her nineteenth birthday, October 15, 1918. I don’t think she met Aden through her brother John until 1918.
• John Case and Vida Whitmore were married December 24, 1918.
• Laura’s companion in this picture resembles a picture of Wellington Scott posted on Ancestry.com and does not resemble pictures of George Clark posted there.

Elsie, Frank, John, Verda and Theodore Case were Ed and Loretta’s children. Sons Avey and Charles Case were apparently not present for this picture. Avey Case died December 11, 1918. Goldia Clark, born in 1903, was the younger of two daughters born to George and Laura Clark.

Descendant families

Thomas and Amanda have many descendants living today. I have followed a few family lines forward in time. Here are surnames of their great-grandchildren who are known to me:

1. Julia Clark’s family: Dunkel, Erskin, Marsh, Shattuck, Stockwell
2. George Clark’s family: Bellingar
3. Loretta Green’s family: Case, James, Springsteen
4. Emma Green’s family: Jeffrey, Marble, Marsh, Perry, Taft
5. Roenia Green’s family: Loucks, Powers, Trombley

Timeline

Here is a timeline of some events in Thomas and Amanda Green’s family:

• Thomas M. Green was born November 17, 1830 in southern Genesee (now Wyoming) County, New York. His parents were E. (Esick?) Green and Cynthia Ames Green.
• Amanda R. Brown was born February 5, 1838 in Medina County, Ohio. Her father’s name might have been James Brown.
• In 1840, Thomas’s half-brother Amos Dodge was born in New York to Daniel and Cynthia Dodge, and Amanda Brown moved with her parents to Michigan.
• In 1850, Thomas was living with Daniel, Cynthia and Amos Dodge in Erie County, New York. I don’t know where Amanda was.
• According to Amanda’s obituary, she married Thomas Green in 1855. This date is suspect.
• Julia Clark was born December 21, 1855 (maybe 1856) to Rene and Amanda Clark in Bloomer Township, Montcalm County, Michigan.
• George Robert Clark was born January 20, 1859 to John and Amanda Clark in Ohio.
• In 1860, Thomas and Amanda were living in Bushnell Township, Montcalm County with 1-year-old George Green. 3-year-old Julia Clark was living in the Bradford Wager household of North Plains Township, Ionia County.
• Cynthia Loretta Green was born October 6, 1861 or 1862 in North Plains Township to Thomas and Amanda Green.
• In June 1863 Thomas was registered for the draft in North Plains Township.
• Thomas enlisted for the army February 29, 1864 in North Plains Township and in Corunna, Shiawassee County, Michigan. He was described as five feet and ten inches tall with a dark complexion, grey eyes, and brown hair. He was mustered into Company C of the 13^th Michigan Infantry Militia.
• On March 20, 1865 Thomas suffered a gunshot wound at the Battle of Bentonville near Raleigh, North Carolina. He was transferred from the New Bern General Hospital to De Camp General Hospital on Davids’ Island, New York.
• On June 6, 1865 Thomas was mustered out of military service at Davids’ Island.
• Emma Green was born to Thomas and Amanda December 27, 1867 in Gratiot County, Michigan.
• Roenia Green was born to Thomas and Amanda May 9, 1870 in New Haven Township, Gratiot County.
• Thomas and Amanda were enumerated for the 1870 census on August 17 in New Haven Township. Julia, George, Cynthia, Emma and Rowena Green were listed with them.
• In 1880 Thomas and Amanda were living with Emma in Bloomer Township, Montcalm County. Where was Roenia?
• In 1894 the state census enumerator listed Thomas and Amanda with grandson Willie Hodge (Roenia’s son) in Fairplain Township, Montcalm County.
• In 1900 Thomas and Amanda were living in Fairplain Township.
• According to Amanda’s obituary, Thomas and Amanda moved to Stanton, Montcalm County around 1902.
• Amanda died in Stanton April 19, 1906.
• Thomas married Elizabeth Bates, born Whiteman, in Greenville, Montcalm County July 5, 1907. Their marriage record identifies Thomas’s father as E. Green and his mother as Cynthia Ames.
• Thomas and Elizabeth were living at 510 East Market Street in Greenville in 1910.
• Thomas died in Greenville December 30, 1910. He was buried with Amanda in the Forest Hill Cemetery, Stanton.
• Elizabeth Green died September 20, 1926 at the Michigan Soldiers’ Home Hospital in Grand Rapids, Kent County, Michigan.

Insights

We can get a glimpse of personal insight into Thomas and Amanda’s family from depositions in the case of Loretta Criss vs. John Wesley Criss. This legal file also contains signatures for Thomas, Amanda, Emma and Roenia. We should remember that we have only one side of this report of events in Loretta and Wesley’s relationship, but these depositions taken for legal purposes are nevertheless personal.

• Comissioner’s Report of Depositions, Criss vs. Criss

Selected sources

Daniel Dodge household, 1850 census, Holland, Erie County, New York

Thomas Green household, 1860 census, Bushnell, Montcalm County, Michigan

Bradford Wager household, 1860 census, North Plains, Ionia County, Michigan

Thomas Green household, 1870 census, New Haven, Gratiot County, Michigan

Thomas Green household, 1880 census, Bloomer, Montcalm County, Michigan

Thomas Green household, 1894 state census, Fairplain, Montcalm County, Michigan

Thomas Green household, 1900 census, Fairplain, Montcalm County, Michigan

Thomas Green household, 1910 census, Greenville, Montcalm County, Michigan

Thomas Green and Elizabeth Bates marriage, 1907, Greenville, Montcalm County, Michigan

Amanda Green death certificate, 1906, Montcalm County, Michigan

Thomas Green death certificate, 1910, Montcalm County, Michigan

George Clark death certificate, 1913, Isabella County, Michigan

Loretta Case death certificate, 1930, Mecosta County, Michigan

Julia Wiser death certificate, 1935, Gratiot County, Michigan

Emma Jeffrey death certificate, 1939, Gratiot County, Michigan

Rownia Childs death record, 1945, Clinton County, Michigan (1945 certificates not yet online)

Questions

• Who were Amanda Brown’s parents and siblings?
• Who was Julia and George Clark’s father, and what happened to him?