Correcting A Family Tradition

 

Years ago while attending a reunion of my Mother-in-law’s Hayes relatives I was told by one of his grandchildren that an ancestor, Hubbard A. Phillips, born January 29, 1816, in Leyden, Franklin County, Massachusetts ¹ had worked for the Pony Express.  I immediately knew that this story was improbable.  The Pony Express, operated for only eighteen months from April 1860 to October 1861, and was known to hire only thin young men.  In 1860 Hubbard was 44 years old and the father of nine living children.

The census taker for Milford, Jefferson County, Wisconsin had found Hubbard and his large family living there on August 11, 1860².  In November 1865 Hubbard, still a resident of Jefferson County, sold land there³.  Obviously, he was not a Pony Express rider during 1860-61.

By June 1880 Hubbard and his wife Lois (Bemis) Phillips were living in Kearney, Nebraska next door to their son-in-law and daughter Hiram H. and Maria (Phillips) Kimball.  Sixty-three-year-old Hubbard listed his occupation as a farmer⁴.  I also found him recorded a second time living alone in Taylor Township, Buffalo County next door to his son-in-law and daughter Linus and Annis (Phillips) Nichols⁵.  The 1880 Agricultural  Schedule lists Hubbard as owning 160 acres in  Taylor Township with only 15 acres tilled⁶.  On the following line is his son-in-law Linus who filed on a homestead in 1880 and proved up in 1885⁷.  Perhaps Hubbard also filed on a homestead but did not prove up.  I did not find him in the index to Buffalo County deeds nor in the Nebraska homestead files available at Fold3.com.

Hubbard’s wife, Lois Bemis, died May 18, 1881, at Sweetwater, Buffalo County, in the home of her son-in-law Hiram Kimball who was operating a grist mill there.  The only record of her death was found in a family Bible⁸.  Area newspapers for 1881 are lost and no record of her burial has been found.

Hubbard died on December 31, 1892, at Fayette, Fayette County, Iowa in the home of his daughter Eveline Cain⁹.  I did not find an obituary for him.  The Kearney newspapers for 1892 are lost and the Fayette County Leader printed only a one-sentence death notice¹⁰.  I also found a brief death notice in the Dunn County (Wisconsin) News¹¹.

Years went by and I hadn’t solved the question about the Pony Express story.  Then I visited a distant cousin and when I asked about the story she said she had some papers in an old family trunk.  There we found the rest of the story.  Hubbard hadn’t been a Pony Express rider, but he had carried the mail by horseback.  In August 1883 he contracted to carry the mail from Loup City to Westerville¹², and in June 1884 he contracted to carry the mail from Loup City to Georgetown¹³.

In every story, there is a kernel of truth.  Sometimes it takes years to find that kernel.

 

1. Leyden, Massachusetts Town Records, Vol. 3, p. 19; Ancestry.com
   
2. 1860 U.S. Census, Milford, Jefferson, WI Roll M653_1413; p. 395; Family History Library Film: 805413
3. Jefferson County, WI, Deeds, 1864-1865. Vol. 46. P. 133. Register of Deeds, Jefferson.
4. 1880 U. S. Census, Kearney, Buffalo, NE. Roll: 743; Page: 262A; Enumeration District 154.
5. 1880 U. S. Census, Taylor, Buffalo, NE. Roll: 743; Page: 285A; Enumeration District: 156.
6. 1880 U.S. Census1880; Taylor, Buffalo, Nebraska; Archive Collection Number: T1128; Roll: 5; Page: 15; Line: 6; Schedule Type: Agriculture
7. Homestead File, final certificate no. 6322, Land Entry Records for Nebraska, compiled 1857 – 1908, Record Group 49, National Archives, Washington, D. C. assessed Fold3.com.
8. Phillips-Kimball Family Bible 1816-1943 American Bible Society, New York, 1849. Photocopies of Family Pages held by Catherine Renschler, Juniata, NE. Location of original Bible unknown.
9. .ibid.
10. Fayette County Leader, 6 Jan 1893, p. 3. Accessed Newspapers.com.
11. The Dunn County News – 29 Nov 1884, P. 5.  Accessed Newspapers.com
12. Certificate of the Oath of Mail Contractors and Carriers; H. A. Phillips 5 August 1883. Private Collection Catherine Renschler Juniata, NE.  Westerville is an unincorporated community in Custer County.

13. .ibid, 15 June 1884. Georgetown is a former town in Custer County with a post office 1877-1922.