One Year Blogiversary!

One year ago today I started my blog!  Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read my posts.  Here are a few from the past year that are my favorites.

First post:  Mary Ida Sefton and Her 29 Roses

Most viewed post: Carrie C. Fields, Red Skelton's Aunt

Favorite post:  Fanny Gowdy and an American Romance in Paris

Longest post:  The Wartime Diary of Captain Willis E. Hedgecock

Shortest post: Nancy Tombaugh, Midwife of Richland County

Saddest post: Little Mary Catherine Green

Funniest post:  Nancy Oliver, Who Waited 3 Years For Groceries

And finally, the post with my favorite picture:

Dola M. Worland, Gold Star Mother

52 Ancestors: #50 John Kennedy Gowdy and the Search for John Paul Jones

Consul General John Kennedy Gowdy

John Paul Jones was the founder of the American Navy, a prolific and eloquent writer, and a fluent speaker of several languages. Perhaps the most well-known aspect of his posterity was his reply to a demand for surrender: "I have not yet begun to fight."  

However, when the celebrated admiral died in Paris in 1792, his burial was poorly recorded and his funeral was attended by few. For 113 years, America's first naval hero lay in an unmarked tomb in France.  One of the chief detectives in the search for his burial place was my third great grand-uncle, John Kennedy Gowdy.

John K. Gowdy was born in the small town of Arlington, Rush County, Indiana on August 23, 1843 to Adam McConnell Gowdy and Nancy Oliver.  The Gowdy family migrated from Rush County to Jasper County in 1848. When Adam Gowdy died at the young age of 48, John became responsible for the farm.  He divided his time by working on the farm during the summer and returning to Arlington each November, where he lodged with his sister Mary Jane and attended the local school.

At the age of 18, John K. Gowdy joined the Fifth Indiana Volunteer Cavalry.  He helped pursue and capture General John Hunt Morgan, the only Confederate leader to pass through Indiana. Gowdy served under General Ambrose Burnside in the winter of 1863-64 and under General William Tecumseh Sherman during the Georgia campaign.  After the war, Captain John K. Gowdy became an active member of the Grand Army of the Republic.

On January 24, 1867, John married Eve Eliza Gordon in Rush County, Indiana.  The Gowdys had three children, but only one, Fanny Alice, survived past childhood.  Their two year-old son, Latta Theodore, died two weeks after his sister Fanny was born, on March 24, 1870.  Between the years of 1887 and 1888, John K. Gowdy built a fine brick house in Rushville, Indiana. His former residence is now home to the Rush County Historical Society and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places of Rush County.

John K. Gowdy's house.

Gowdy was twice elected sheriff of Rush County (the youngest in the history of the county at the time.) From 1890 to 1897, he served as chairman of the Indiana Republican State committee.  In recognition of his services to the party, he was appointed by President William McKinley as consul-general to Paris on March 20, 1897.  The news of his position was reported in many papers throughout the country, including this California publication:  He will take with him to France, his wife and charming daughter.  Mr. Gowdy has no knowledge of the French language, but thinks he can manage it.  (Sacramento Daily Union, Vol. 93, No. 51, 13 Apr 1897.)  Consul-General Gowdy also took his horses to France.  The horses, "Rush" and "Brooks," were bred and trained in Rush County, Indiana. While in Paris, the horses were involved in an unfortunate incident:

John K. Gowdy at far right, wife Eve and daughter Fanny in coach.
Chaffeur Stephen Hordsbath and the Rush County horses.
Paris, France, 1898.

[M]iscreants broke into the private stable of United States Consul Gowdy in Paris and cut off the manes and tails of the American-bred horses that he had taken over from Rush Co., Indiana ...  It is assumed that this action was designed as a hint to Mr. Gowdy that he should do in Paris as the Parisians do, and drive bang-tailed horses.  It is an outrage and the severest punishment should be visited on the perpetrators if they can be discovered.  (The Breeder's Gazette, Vol. 34, 1898.)

Nearly two years after Gowdy began his service in France, he wrote a letter urging for an investigation to locate the remains of John Paul Jones:

To Representative Charles B. Landis, January 2, 1899, Paris, France.

It does seem strange that we have not identified ourselves in gratitude to him who fought our battles at sea in our struggle for independence and who was the first to secure our recognition as a Republic.  His achievement of glorious deeds commends itself to the gratitude of the country.  Every thoughtful American citizen can not but feel the deepest regret that we have shown no interest in his resting place.  The graves of other heroes of the Revolution have been marked, and honor paid.  John Paul Jones' love of liberty and devotion to the United States Government, and its principles, were the strongest passions of his life.  Besides fighting our battles, he identified himself in many ways with our Government, that in the past century should have called forth, as for other heroes of the Revolution, the praise and admiration of a grateful people.
                                                                                                               John K. Gowdy 

John Paul Jones Monument, Washington, D.C.

The quest began in June of 1899.  Two search teams were formed, one headed by U.S. Ambassador Horace Porter, and the other directed by John K. Gowdy. Although Consul-General Gowdy later wrote that the two worked in "perfect harmony", it seems that there was a spirited competition between the two teams.  The exhaustive search was concluded on April 14, 1905, when Porter's men discovered the coffin shortly before Gowdy's team arrived at the spot.  On January 26, 1913, the remains of John Paul Jones were at last re-interred at the Naval Academy Chapel at Annapolis, Maryland.

According to a transcript of an unidentified American newspaper, Captain John K. Gowdy ... never received the credit that [was] due him for his part in the search for the body of John Paul Jones.  On his own initiative and at considerable personal expense, Gowdy, while consul-general at Paris, employed a searching party and directed its operations.  John K. Gowdy later said that he did not have any hard feelings that the Ambassador received full credit for the discovery.

Consul-General Gowdy was also instrumental in the purchasing the right to build the Panama Canal. As recognition for his extensive services to France, John K. Gowdy was awarded the Legion of Honor, the highest decoration in France, on September 30, 1905.

John K. Gowdy died at his Rushville home on June 25, 1918, at the age of 74.  On the day of his funeral, flags were lowered to half-mast and many local businesses were closed.  Scores of telegrams from old political friends were received by his family.  John K. Gowdy is buried at Arlington East Hill Cemetery in his birthplace of Arlington, Indiana.

52 Ancestors: #49 Nancy Oliver, Who Waited 3 Years for Groceries

My 4th great-grandmother, Nancy Oliver, was born in Bourbon County, Kentucky on the first of June 1807 to John Oliver and his wife Jane Hill.  Sometime around 1821, the Oliver family moved to Rush County, Indiana.

At the age of 22, Nancy married Adam McConnell Gowdy, a blacksmith who was two years her junior. The couple had two daughters, named Mary Jane and Martha Ann, then three sons, Lewis Oliver, John Kennedy, and Adam Thomas.

General Store, shared under creative commons license on Flickr.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jalan68/14769865418/in/photostream/

Nancy's husband died in 1857; their youngest son, Adam Thomas Gowdy, died two years afterwards at the age of ten. Three of the Gowdy children (Mary, Martha, and Lewis) were married by this time, which only left one son, John Kennedy Gowdy, at home to look after his widowed mother.  The two lived on a farm in Rensselaer, Indiana.

[John] was living with his mother near Jasper [Indiana] when the war broke out.  He was 17 years old.  His mother sent him one day to a grocery two miles distant for soap, molasses, and a broom.  He found an excited group about the store discussing war news, and there was a recruiting officer in the town seeking volunteers. Young Gowdy promptly enlisted without consulting his mother, knowing she would object. Three years later, he came marching home again in a blue suit, with an honorable discharge in his pocket and the title of captain stuck to his name, enough to make any patriotic mother forgive anything or everything and be proud all the rest of her days. [But] he brought more.  He stopped at the grocery and bought the supplies his mother sent for three years before.  His first words on reaching home were: "Here, mother, are the soap, molasses, and broom you told me to get."  (The Literary Digest, Vol. 15, No. 2, pg. 59)

This same son was twice elected sheriff of Rush County.  John Kennedy Gowdy later became a famous Hoosier politician and served as Consul General to Paris during the William McKinley administration.  He received the Legion of Honor for his great service to France.

In her later years, Nancy Gowdy lived with her daughter Mary's family in Arlington, Indiana.  She died there at the age of 75 on September 3, 1882 and is buried at Arlington East Hill Cemetery in Rush County, Indiana.

52 Ancestors: #17 Mary Jane Gowdy and the Mysterious Oil Painting

Mary Jane Gowdy Green, 1876

English artist Edwin Farrer painted this now faded portrait of my 3rd great-grandmother, Mary Jane Gowdy.  For years, my family did not know who the subject of the portrait was, except that she was a relation of my grandfather's.  I discovered that the artist immigrated from England to Rush County, Indiana in 1870.  The portrait was dated 1876.  Trying to find out who the woman was, I reviewed the records on my grandpa's family in Rush County, and Mary Jane was the only one that fit.

Mary Jane was born on July 18, 1830.  She was the eldest child of Adam McConnell Gowdy, a blacksmith from Ohio, and Nancy Oliver of Kentucky.  Her brother, John Kennedy Gowdy, was the consul-general to Paris during the McKinley Administration.  Mary Jane had two other brothers, Lewis Oliver and Adam Thomas, and a sister, Martha Ann.

The Green residence, Arlington, 1988

On May 18, 1846, Mary Jane married the physician James Wilkinson Green in Rush County.  According to several sources for her birthdate, she was not yet sixteen when they were married.  She and James became the parents of thirteen children.  Out of nine sons, six of them became doctors, including my great-grandfather, John D. Green.  The Green family lived on a farm in Arlington, Rush County, Indiana.  In 1886, Mary Jane's brother-in-law, a physician in nearby Shelbyville, died and left his medical practice to his brother James.  They left Arlington behind and relocated to Shelbyville.

"Mrs. Green is what might be termed an extraordinary woman; she has raised a large family and is one of the best of wives, mothers, and companions; her home has always been noted for its generous hospitality." (Illustrated Historical Atlas of Rush County, Indiana, 1879.)

Mary Jane died on September 20, 1907.