Joseph Thompson
Our 2nd-great-grandfather Joseph Thompson was born 24 March 1846 probably in the town of Grass, Spencer County, Indiana, according to census data. It appears that his father passed away early in his life, judging from 1850 census data that indicated Joseph at the age of four lived in his grandmother’s (Polly Jeffers) house in Grass. Joseph’s mother (Nancy Thompson) also lived there along with probably three Jeffers cousins and his younger sister, Rebecca.
Civil War
At the age of 17, with the Civil War raging, Joseph enlisted in the Union army as a private on 1 August (or 7 September) 1863, according to the Indiana Civil War Soldier Database Index. He enlisted in Company D, Regiment 65 in Spencer County, Indiana. Joseph also served with Company G of the 84th Regiment as of 30 March 1864 and was appointed Quartermaster Sergeant on 1 July 1864. He was eventually transferred to the 120th Indiana Volunteers on 15 June 1865.
It’s likely that Joseph was involved in the Atlanta Campaign during his time in the 84th Regiment. The campaign consisted of an important series of battles in Georgia (May–September 1864) that eventually cut off a main Confederate supply center and influenced the federal presidential election of 1864. By the end of 1863, Atlanta, an important Confederate railroad, supply, and manufacturing centre, and a gateway to the lower South, became the logical point for Union forces to attack in their western campaign. The Union commander, General William Sherman, also believed a sustained campaign deep into Confederate territory would bring the entire war to an end. Southern defenders were under the strategic direction of General Joseph E. Johnston, until he was replaced by Lieutenant General John Bell Hood in July.
The Atlanta Campaign itself consisted of nine individual battles as well as nearly five months of unbroken skirmishes and small actions. After a series of seesaw battles, Sherman forced Confederate evacuation of Atlanta (31 August – 1 September). This Union victory presented President Abraham Lincoln with the key to reelection in the fall of 1864. It also greatly complicated the Confederate position near the Southern capital of Richmond, VA, as troops there now had to contend with Union forces to the north and south.
Excerpt from Britannica online article
Mary Ellen Calkins
Our 2nd-great-grandmother Mary Ellen Calkins was born in Switzerland, Indiana. She was the second eldest of many siblings. The below uncorroborated story about her father Henry Calkin, as found on findagrave.com, indicates Mary helped raise several siblings after her mother’s death.
Henry Marvin Calkin was born in Switzerland County, Indiana in 1822 to Thomas Calkin and Mary Hinman. He grew up there and married Elizabeth Larkin in Spencer County, Indiana in 1846 and had a number of children.
Henry traveled to New Orleans on a flat bottom boat, and while he was there the Calkin family contracted smallpox and he hurried home. His wife and some of the children died from the disease, and Henry also contracted it. He survived it but bore the characteristic pitted face from the sores.
Henry had gone to California during the Great Gold Rush and had experience in gold mining. Due to his resume, he was offered a position managing a lead mine near Chauncey, Missouri, so he headed there, where he married Mary Gibson, an orphan working in her sister’s boarding house near Chauncey. After he married, he sent for his younger children who had been living in Illinois with two older daughters, Sarah and Mary, who brought them to Missouri.
Taken from an unverified story on findagrave.com
Marriage and children
On 28 March 1866, Joseph (at 20 years old) married Mary Calkins (just 17 years old) in Spencer County, according to Indiana marriage records. Together, Joseph and Mary had the following children (census data indicates they had a total of ten children, but only seven lived):
- Eugene (about 1867- )
- Ulysses (about 1869- )
- Sylvester (about 1871- )
- Wm (about 1873- )
- Lillian (about 1875- )
- Oleva, our great-grandmother (1878- 1943)
- Herbert (1880- )
By 1870, the family was living in Jackson, Camden County, Missouri. Then the family moved to Turnback, Lawrence County, Missouri by 1880, where Joseph continued to farm, according to census data. Living in Missouri during this time, Joseph may have farmed produce such as wheat, oats, hay, tobacco, or potatoes.
Later in their marriage, Joseph and Mary appeared have significant relationship troubles, according to an article from the “Lawrence Chieftain” on 10 January 1895 detailing Joseph’s request for a divorce. In the article, Joseph claims he was lawfully married to Mary and lived with her until 28 June 1893. During their marriage, Joseph claimed to have “faithfully demeaned himself and discharged all his duties as the husband and at all times treated her with kindness and affection.” He accused Mary of wholly disregarding her duties as wife, since coming to this town and that she “absented herself from Joseph without a reasonable cause, for one whole year before filing of this petition…Joseph therefore prays for a divorce from the bonds of matrimony.”
It appears that the two mended their relationship because the divorce did not materialize, and Joseph and Mary, together, moved back first to Prairie, Indiana and then eventually to Beggs, Oklahoma between 1910 and 1912.
After Joseph’s death on 16 June 1912, Mary continued to live in Beggs, where she was listed as a widow in the next two census publications. She died in Beggs on 29 April 1933 at the age of 84.
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