Name: Linda M. Shea
E- mail: shaylin@telus.net
Belgium,
April 28, 1915
Mrs. R. Mudge,
41 Queen St., W.,
Guelph, Ontario
Dearest Mother and the rest;
I suppose you are anxiously awaiting the receipt of this letter to know if I am all right. Well, I am as fit as a fiddle thanks to my good health and God’s help and mercy in sparing me. By the time you will have received this letter the papers will have told, as best they know how of the way the Canadians brought honour to the country that sent them here, but the half will never be known of the individual heroism displayed during the charge and the days that followed.
I had gone to an important city near our billets about 5 o’clock and was in a store when suddenly there was an awful roar and all the windows were broken and the goods on the shelves fell on the floor. About a hundred yards up the street on the other side a “Jack Johnson” (18 inch shell) had demolished a house. It is wonderful the damage one shell can do. They have been dropping them into this town steadily for two days -- a case of wanton destruction, as the town was demolished last November, this just seems like heaping insult on injury. Our captain came along then, a fine man, whom we lost in the charge, and who sent us ahead to tell the officers to have the men fall in at once. Shortly afterwards we were ready to march off, after having filled our water bottles and gathered some grub into our haversacks, a wise precaution, not taken by all companies. On our way to the position we were to attack we met the French on the road coming back, gasping for breath from the effects of the gas bombs that were used by the dastardly Germans, in their attack.
One cannot blame the French for not being able to face it, as it made our eyes smart when we were half a mile from the trenches, almost an hour after it was used. The success of our attack depended on it being a complete surprise which it surely was. As one prisoner we captured said “We had thousands of men in reserve at this point ready to continue the advance at daybreak, and never in the least expected a counter attack so soon.” Our boys advanced in extended order, with fixed bayonets. (as per instructions received in Salisbury Plains) As they came through the hedge 150 yards in front of the trenches the enemy has almost completed, they were met by a hail of bullets from rifle and machine guns through which it would seem impossible for a man to pass alive, but some of us did, other poor fellows only got part way. As we got within a few yards of the trenches, the Huns beat it, for they will not stand and face cold steel when backed up by a “Tommie.”
As we stopped for breath in the trench, I found myself sitting on a big strapping Hun, who was crouching down in a corner. We took his rifle and ammunition from him and one of the boys stayed with him. We made other prisoners there too, who held up their hands pleading not to be bayoneted. Our Colonel Lockie then led us through the woods and out the other side. We lost a number there, and also captured many besides two large French guns, which has been captured. Dawn broke at 3:30 a.m. and found the Canadians “standing to” ready for a counter attack in trenches that had been dug within the last two hours. We were shelled something fierce all day and early the next morning were relieved by fresh troops. We went back about ½ mile and dug ourselves in for reserves for the excitement still continued as far as the shelling goes. They dropped them all about us all day long, and all night, but we were safe unless a shell happened to drop right in close to our dug out.
There are fresh troops and big guns here now so just watch our “smoke” save the day. At what cost I cannot say yet until it is official, but the losses later would have been far worse, if we had not checked them that night.
Mother, dear, you would not know me now. I haven’t washed in five days and am covered with mud from head to foot, and am writing this in a hole 3 ft. in diameter and 4 ft. deep, with plenty of straw and a horse blanket to cover me, and a couple of green shutters for a roof. The paper was supplied me by W. Forgie our Y.M.C. secretary who brought it to us with the shells bursting all about him but he knew we wanted to write home and let our folks know we were safe. Our officers were bricks and there are none better in the British army when it comes to going right into it, leading the men.
Well, mother, dear, I will have to close for this time. Let my friends know I am safe, as I cannot write more now. By God’s grace I came through thus far safely and I am leaving to Him the final outcome. Be brave, mother, dear and trust Him to see me safely home. Give my love to all and tell them that Canada has need to be proud of her boys, and to send more like them.
Yours lovingly, Bert
Notes: My granduncle Albert Bertram Mudge was b. 14 Nov. 1894 in Peterborough, Ontario the eldest son of Richard Mudge & Minnie Ellen Crossley. The family moved to Guelph around 1901. He was a private in the 16th battalion, Canadian Scottish Highlanders. After the war he moved to Winnipeg where he married Verta Eileen Meacham, 21 April 1920 and had one son. Uncle Bert worked for Eaton's from 1919 until 1958 when he retired. He died 28 Nov. 1968 in Winnipeg.
Find your roots and hear your ancestors' words across the generations. Discover your origins in old letters as ancestors tell their stories and reveal family relationships, past events, moments in time and details of family history. Add branches to your family tree as you search your ancestry and build your genealogy.
Showing posts with label Ontario. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ontario. Show all posts
Sunday, July 11, 2004
Saturday, May 08, 2004
Civil War: Charles McDowell, a Canadian in NY 9th Artillery, 1865
Name: Lisa Saunders
E- mail: saundersbooks@aol.com
To Nancy Wager McDowell from her husband Charles McDowell (A Canadian who enlisted in the New York 9th Heavy Artillery of the 6th Corps):
DURING THE SIEGE OF PETERSBURG [Near Petersburg] January the 1-1865
Dearest Wife
Old Eighteen and Sixty Five has got around and I ain’t much sorry either. But time passes fast with us now. It soon will be spring. Now we have easy times. It is awful muddy now. The most we do is to get our wood and that ain’t very hard work. I wouldn’t care if it would keep muddy all winter.
There has been a good [many] soldiers buried around here. You may go any way you are a-mind to and you will see graves throwed up. When we went after wood the other day, we found a man's skull laying a top of the ground. He hadn’t hardly any dirt throwed over him.
I counted twenty- six ball holes in a tree about a foot through. This was done the time we took the railroad and they charged on us but they got badly whipped. Some of our regiment got taken prisoners last night. Co. M and some of the other company went out yesterday morning on picket. Our company didn’t happen to go, and about two O’clock this morning, we was waked up by the yelling and shooting of the rebs. They made a charge on them. I haven’t heard exactly how many of our regiment there was taken. They say thirty-five or forty-two killed, and five or six wounded. Our boys brought in a few of the rebs. They come on them by surprise.
There is a good many deserting from the rebs most every night and come over here. I think this war will end this winter. It looks more like it now than it ever did before since I enlisted, but we can’t tell this war business is very uncertain. But I find most every one thinks so. I hope so anyway. I would like to have it come to an end this winter.
You would have laughed to have seen us tumble out of bed when the rebs charged on our picket line this morning. We tumbled over one another pretty fast. We was soon in a line. We didn’t know but they would try our line of battle but they knowed better than to try that. If they had they would have had a nice time.
You said you would like to have me come home on a furlough. I would like to go home as well as you would like to have me come but I don’t know whether there will be any more furloughs given or not. I think it will be a pretty hard thing to get one. Isae Woodruff started for home the other day. He had a furlough for fifteen days. He has been trying for one ever since his father died and if it hadn’t been for his father dying, he couldn’t have got one.
You say we can afford it as well as any body. Well I think we could, but if we save the money that it would cost me to come home, we can have so much more to spend. You know we will want to go a- visiting some when I get there. We might happen to get back to Washington yet this winter.
When we get orders to move, we don’t stop to tell long stories. We hear Dunbar and them other fellows is coming back to the regiment. I hear that Lee has give Lucy all of his property to keep till we comes back, then I suppose he will take her too. I wonder if he washed his face since he has been home. Robert Trevor is most well. Old Jef Davis is at home now.
I helped carry Jef in when he was wounded. I couldn’t help but laugh and felt sorry for him to hear what expressions he made. He said it was too bad. He said there was a reb captain come up to him after he was wounded and commenced turning him over to search him. He asked him what he wanted and he said his money and Jef told him [he] would get it for him. He said he put his hand in his pocket and handed his pocket book and the captain took the money out and throwed the pocket book down and a boy came along and he gave him the pocket book for a drink of water.
He would almost cry when he told about that. He said he thought it was too bad after shooting him to take the last cent he had. He said they took twenty-four dollars and ninety-five cents, which he had worked hard for. And he said there was some more come up to him and said, “You are wounded, are you old fellow?” And Jef said, “Yes.” “Well,” they said, “we will be a long with the ambulances and take you to Richmond you dammed Yankees. We will give you Fishers Hill!” Now I bet you Jeff’s eyes stuck out then. And, he said, in about two hours he seen them going back pell mell as hard as they could run and the Sixth Corps after them. He said then he felt glad. This was about now he laid there on the ground till next day noon before we found him.
That is what hurts the men so, laying on the ground so long after they are wounded. They took lots of money from our boys that day. I could have made a thousand dollars if I had a-went around an got our wounded and killed and searched them, but I wouldn’t do such a thing but there is lots of them that does do it and the boys had lots of money then.
There is a good many of our wounded a- coming back to the regiment now. There was two come today that was wounded to Monocacy, besides a good many new recruits. There was one come a few days a go, just like John Tree. You know him. The one we had so much fun with when we was at Fort Foote. The boys had lots of fun with him and night before last we left and we ain’t seen him Since. I don’t think they will look for him much.
It’s a- getting so cold. I don’t know but we shall heft to set up tonight and keep a fire. It is a-freezing fast. But we had the good luck to make a haul on a couple of blankets the other night when we was guarding baggage. I find a man has to look out for himself here. If he don’t, nobody else will look out for him. My cousin was over to see us the other day. He is pretty sick of the war.
I think I must write a letter to Canada before long. I haven't wrote to them since you left. Don’t you think it is too bad it has been so long since I wrote? I feel most ashamed to write now. I shall heft to apologize pretty well. I must write within a few days. Anyway I have had three or four letter from them this summer. Uncle Hiram has been a- trading farms lately. As soon as my time is out I think I shall go and see them Sometimes when I get to thinking about my native land and what good times I have had there it makes a feeling come over me that makes me feel sad.
Little did I think when I left home that I would be gone for seven years. Oh how I long to see my sister Margaret and all the rest, and if I get out of this alive it won’t be long before I can see her. She thought [my likeness] an awful sight. She feels pretty bad about us. She is afraid we will never come home alive but I live in hopes that we will come out all right.
And I must tell you what we had to eat for News Years. We didn’t draw no rations yesterday and we hadn’t nothing for supper last night, only coffee and nothing for breakfast this morning only we got an order and went and bought some bread. So we had bread, beef and coffee, and drawed rations after breakfast. So we had hardtack, coffee and pork for dinner. ain’t that pretty good? It’s getting so cold I must draw my letter to a close hoping soon to get an answer. We expect to go on picket now every day but I hope not till it gets a little warmer. I have just heard that they only captured twenty- three of our men.
From your ever true and affectionate husband C McDowell
Notes: The above letter is one of about 150 Civil War letters I found in my mother’s attic between Charles and Nancy Wager McDowell and their families. Charles McDowell was born in Simcoe, Ontario, Canada on 15 Feb. 1837. His family later moved to Norwich, Ontario, Canada. As a young man he and his brother David McDowell moved to Geneva, NY where Charles married Nancy Wager 24 Dec. 1860 when she was just 15. Despite his father's pleas (John McDowell of Norwich, Ontario) Charles enlisted in Lyons, New York in 1862. He served in the New York 9th Heavy Artillery under Secretary of State Seward's son, William H. Seward Jr., of Auburn, NY. The regiment was nicknamed "Seward's Pets" because the Secretary of State frequently visited his son's regiment and often brought along Lincoln. In the letters I read of a remarkable devotion to one another despite war’s infidelities, scandals and ever-present threat of death as well as Charles’s devotion to his new country. I also gained new insight into a wife's role in the camp life, a Canadian family’s views on the war and their participation, hangings, prostitution, amputations, desertions, theft and murder among Union troops, personal contacts with Lincoln and Seward (of "Seward's Alaskan Folly"), battles of Cold Harbor, Jerusalem Plank Road, Monocacy, Opequon, Fisher's Hill, Cedar Creek, the Siege of Petersburg, Moseby's Men, and the Shenandoah Valley Campaign. Among my family’s papers I also found photographs of most of the letter writers as well as Nancy Wager McDowell's obituary which reads: "MRS. MCDOWELL IS DEAD - SHOOK HANDS WITH LINCOLN. With the death of Mrs. Nancy Wager McDowell...the town of Sodus probably loses the distinction of having a resident who could boast of having shaken hands and talked with the martyred Lincoln…She was married in 1860 to Charles McDowell, a native of Canada, who came to America when a young man. Mr. McDowell was a member of the Ninth New York Heavy Artillery in the Union Army and it was while stationed near Washington that his wife had an opportunity to speak with the President. Mrs. McDowell passed nearly a year in that vicinity and many were the pies she baked for the soldiers stationed at the capital. Typhoid Fever caused her to return to Alton to the home of her parents…" ("The Record," Sodus, Wayne County, N.Y. September 18, 1931) Charles McDowell died 17 April 1913. Their two children were May Belle (born 4 Aug. 1871) and Gilbert (born 6 Mar. 1883). Gilbert’s children were Gilbert and Russell (grandfather).
The letters, along with background information and era recipes are found in my book: Ever True: Civil War Letters of Seward's New York 9th Heavy Artillery of Wayne and Cayuga Counties Between a Soldier, His Wife and His Canadian Family
If you would like to see pictures of Charles and Nancy McDowell and read more letters, please visit my website at www.authorlisasaunders.com
E- mail: saundersbooks@aol.com
To Nancy Wager McDowell from her husband Charles McDowell (A Canadian who enlisted in the New York 9th Heavy Artillery of the 6th Corps):
DURING THE SIEGE OF PETERSBURG [Near Petersburg] January the 1-1865
Dearest Wife
Old Eighteen and Sixty Five has got around and I ain’t much sorry either. But time passes fast with us now. It soon will be spring. Now we have easy times. It is awful muddy now. The most we do is to get our wood and that ain’t very hard work. I wouldn’t care if it would keep muddy all winter.
There has been a good [many] soldiers buried around here. You may go any way you are a-mind to and you will see graves throwed up. When we went after wood the other day, we found a man's skull laying a top of the ground. He hadn’t hardly any dirt throwed over him.
I counted twenty- six ball holes in a tree about a foot through. This was done the time we took the railroad and they charged on us but they got badly whipped. Some of our regiment got taken prisoners last night. Co. M and some of the other company went out yesterday morning on picket. Our company didn’t happen to go, and about two O’clock this morning, we was waked up by the yelling and shooting of the rebs. They made a charge on them. I haven’t heard exactly how many of our regiment there was taken. They say thirty-five or forty-two killed, and five or six wounded. Our boys brought in a few of the rebs. They come on them by surprise.
There is a good many deserting from the rebs most every night and come over here. I think this war will end this winter. It looks more like it now than it ever did before since I enlisted, but we can’t tell this war business is very uncertain. But I find most every one thinks so. I hope so anyway. I would like to have it come to an end this winter.
You would have laughed to have seen us tumble out of bed when the rebs charged on our picket line this morning. We tumbled over one another pretty fast. We was soon in a line. We didn’t know but they would try our line of battle but they knowed better than to try that. If they had they would have had a nice time.
You said you would like to have me come home on a furlough. I would like to go home as well as you would like to have me come but I don’t know whether there will be any more furloughs given or not. I think it will be a pretty hard thing to get one. Isae Woodruff started for home the other day. He had a furlough for fifteen days. He has been trying for one ever since his father died and if it hadn’t been for his father dying, he couldn’t have got one.
You say we can afford it as well as any body. Well I think we could, but if we save the money that it would cost me to come home, we can have so much more to spend. You know we will want to go a- visiting some when I get there. We might happen to get back to Washington yet this winter.
When we get orders to move, we don’t stop to tell long stories. We hear Dunbar and them other fellows is coming back to the regiment. I hear that Lee has give Lucy all of his property to keep till we comes back, then I suppose he will take her too. I wonder if he washed his face since he has been home. Robert Trevor is most well. Old Jef Davis is at home now.
I helped carry Jef in when he was wounded. I couldn’t help but laugh and felt sorry for him to hear what expressions he made. He said it was too bad. He said there was a reb captain come up to him after he was wounded and commenced turning him over to search him. He asked him what he wanted and he said his money and Jef told him [he] would get it for him. He said he put his hand in his pocket and handed his pocket book and the captain took the money out and throwed the pocket book down and a boy came along and he gave him the pocket book for a drink of water.
He would almost cry when he told about that. He said he thought it was too bad after shooting him to take the last cent he had. He said they took twenty-four dollars and ninety-five cents, which he had worked hard for. And he said there was some more come up to him and said, “You are wounded, are you old fellow?” And Jef said, “Yes.” “Well,” they said, “we will be a long with the ambulances and take you to Richmond you dammed Yankees. We will give you Fishers Hill!” Now I bet you Jeff’s eyes stuck out then. And, he said, in about two hours he seen them going back pell mell as hard as they could run and the Sixth Corps after them. He said then he felt glad. This was about now he laid there on the ground till next day noon before we found him.
That is what hurts the men so, laying on the ground so long after they are wounded. They took lots of money from our boys that day. I could have made a thousand dollars if I had a-went around an got our wounded and killed and searched them, but I wouldn’t do such a thing but there is lots of them that does do it and the boys had lots of money then.
There is a good many of our wounded a- coming back to the regiment now. There was two come today that was wounded to Monocacy, besides a good many new recruits. There was one come a few days a go, just like John Tree. You know him. The one we had so much fun with when we was at Fort Foote. The boys had lots of fun with him and night before last we left and we ain’t seen him Since. I don’t think they will look for him much.
It’s a- getting so cold. I don’t know but we shall heft to set up tonight and keep a fire. It is a-freezing fast. But we had the good luck to make a haul on a couple of blankets the other night when we was guarding baggage. I find a man has to look out for himself here. If he don’t, nobody else will look out for him. My cousin was over to see us the other day. He is pretty sick of the war.
I think I must write a letter to Canada before long. I haven't wrote to them since you left. Don’t you think it is too bad it has been so long since I wrote? I feel most ashamed to write now. I shall heft to apologize pretty well. I must write within a few days. Anyway I have had three or four letter from them this summer. Uncle Hiram has been a- trading farms lately. As soon as my time is out I think I shall go and see them Sometimes when I get to thinking about my native land and what good times I have had there it makes a feeling come over me that makes me feel sad.
Little did I think when I left home that I would be gone for seven years. Oh how I long to see my sister Margaret and all the rest, and if I get out of this alive it won’t be long before I can see her. She thought [my likeness] an awful sight. She feels pretty bad about us. She is afraid we will never come home alive but I live in hopes that we will come out all right.
And I must tell you what we had to eat for News Years. We didn’t draw no rations yesterday and we hadn’t nothing for supper last night, only coffee and nothing for breakfast this morning only we got an order and went and bought some bread. So we had bread, beef and coffee, and drawed rations after breakfast. So we had hardtack, coffee and pork for dinner. ain’t that pretty good? It’s getting so cold I must draw my letter to a close hoping soon to get an answer. We expect to go on picket now every day but I hope not till it gets a little warmer. I have just heard that they only captured twenty- three of our men.
From your ever true and affectionate husband C McDowell
Notes: The above letter is one of about 150 Civil War letters I found in my mother’s attic between Charles and Nancy Wager McDowell and their families. Charles McDowell was born in Simcoe, Ontario, Canada on 15 Feb. 1837. His family later moved to Norwich, Ontario, Canada. As a young man he and his brother David McDowell moved to Geneva, NY where Charles married Nancy Wager 24 Dec. 1860 when she was just 15. Despite his father's pleas (John McDowell of Norwich, Ontario) Charles enlisted in Lyons, New York in 1862. He served in the New York 9th Heavy Artillery under Secretary of State Seward's son, William H. Seward Jr., of Auburn, NY. The regiment was nicknamed "Seward's Pets" because the Secretary of State frequently visited his son's regiment and often brought along Lincoln. In the letters I read of a remarkable devotion to one another despite war’s infidelities, scandals and ever-present threat of death as well as Charles’s devotion to his new country. I also gained new insight into a wife's role in the camp life, a Canadian family’s views on the war and their participation, hangings, prostitution, amputations, desertions, theft and murder among Union troops, personal contacts with Lincoln and Seward (of "Seward's Alaskan Folly"), battles of Cold Harbor, Jerusalem Plank Road, Monocacy, Opequon, Fisher's Hill, Cedar Creek, the Siege of Petersburg, Moseby's Men, and the Shenandoah Valley Campaign. Among my family’s papers I also found photographs of most of the letter writers as well as Nancy Wager McDowell's obituary which reads: "MRS. MCDOWELL IS DEAD - SHOOK HANDS WITH LINCOLN. With the death of Mrs. Nancy Wager McDowell...the town of Sodus probably loses the distinction of having a resident who could boast of having shaken hands and talked with the martyred Lincoln…She was married in 1860 to Charles McDowell, a native of Canada, who came to America when a young man. Mr. McDowell was a member of the Ninth New York Heavy Artillery in the Union Army and it was while stationed near Washington that his wife had an opportunity to speak with the President. Mrs. McDowell passed nearly a year in that vicinity and many were the pies she baked for the soldiers stationed at the capital. Typhoid Fever caused her to return to Alton to the home of her parents…" ("The Record," Sodus, Wayne County, N.Y. September 18, 1931) Charles McDowell died 17 April 1913. Their two children were May Belle (born 4 Aug. 1871) and Gilbert (born 6 Mar. 1883). Gilbert’s children were Gilbert and Russell (grandfather).
The letters, along with background information and era recipes are found in my book: Ever True: Civil War Letters of Seward's New York 9th Heavy Artillery of Wayne and Cayuga Counties Between a Soldier, His Wife and His Canadian Family
If you would like to see pictures of Charles and Nancy McDowell and read more letters, please visit my website at www.authorlisasaunders.com
Friday, April 23, 2004
John St. George Honner in Minnesota to brother Edward W. Honner in Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada 1863
Name: Maryjane Honner
E- mail: mjonhermusheen@m33access.com
Okaman (1)
July 19th 1863
My dear Brother I recived (2) the news of your marrige (3) from Mother last week and it gives me much pleasure to know that you have made so good a cohoice (4) and I hope that you will engoy (5) all the happiness that I wish you. Your settling in Canada was a grait (6) disapointment (7) to me for I alwas (8) was in hopes that you would settle in Minnesota but so it is our dearst (9) hopes are oftenst blighted but hoping that it is all for the (10) and that you will do well and prosper and be help and comfort to Father and Mother in their old age.
I am content. The seosan (11) has been very dry here but corops (12) look very well. wheat is very promising, is filling good. will be fit to cut next week. The Indians are giveng (13) trouble yet. there was three stole horses at Northfield. was making there (14) way through the big big Woods when they were seen nere (15) Waterville. the people turned out, came up to them nere (16) duck Lake and shot one dead and wounded one and (second page) was after the other last accounts. Squire went on his place last spring but the Indians was so bad that he came back and is now in York State. Write soon and tell me all the news.
I remain your affectionate Brother J. S. G. Honner "
John Honner was a brother of grandfather Edward Honner" - Notation added to letter by Winifred Honner, granddaughter of Edward W. Honner
1 Okaman, Waseca County, Minnesota
2 recived: received
3 marrige: marriage
4 cohoice: choice
5 engoy: enjoy
6 grait: great
7 disapointment: disappointment
8 alwas: always
9 derst: dearest
10 that it is all for the: probably meant to write "best" at the end of this phrase
11 seosan: season
12 corops: crops
13 giveng: giving
4 there: their
15 nere: near
16 ibid.
Notes: John St. George Honner in Minnesota letter to brother Edward W. Honner in Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada - dated July 19th, 1863 transcription by Maryjane Stelmach Honner w/ special thanks for the help of Janean McKay, Redwood Falls Genealogical Society, Minnesota Regarding the envelope and postmarks: The front of the envelope is postmarked Nov 30 9PM (year illegible). However, there are two postmarks on the reverse. One is ---BURG (illegible) SE(?) 2 80 ONT. The second is WINDSOR AM DE 2 80 ONT. Edward W. may have not received this letter until December 1880, perhaps because of the United States being in a civil war when it was posted. The letter may have been lost in transit for quite some time.
John St. George Honner, son of Maria Howard and Edward Honner of Mountrath, Queen's County, Ireland, was born 28 May 1831 in Turin, Lewis County, New York. The family lived briefly in the United States after immigrating, then moved on to Canada, eventually settling in and around Amherstburg, Essex County, Ontario, across the Detroit River from Michigan. JSG Honner's 6 living brothers, 7 sisters, and many cousins developed strong ties to both Great Lakes shipping and lumbering. Brothers-in-law Thomas Hackett and John Sunderland, as well as brother Thomas were all captains and masters of many vessels, the latter lost in the wreck of the Ira H. Owen. Husband of cousin Dorcas Honner was George Ruddiman and husband of cousin Caroline was John Torrent, both lumber barons in Muskegon, Michigan. It is thought that "Squire" in the letter is John Torrent's son Squire, who returned for a time to his grandparents in New York. Both JSG and brother Edward worked as sawyers in Muskegon as young men, probably for Ruddiman and Torrent. While Edward returned to Canada, JSG went on to Minnesota, first to Waseca, but eventually to Brown County, that part now Redwood Falls, Redwood County. JSG was one of the first settlers, and he and his wife were one of the first families in the stockade there. He had married Antoinette Green, who was born in 1842 in Wisconsin, in 1858 in Waseca. In 1865 & 1870, JSG was elected to the Minnesota State Legislature and, in 1872, to the Minnesota State Senate. He was also the county's first Registrar of Deeds. John St. George Honner died 22 June 1888 in Redwood Falls, where he is buried. The 3 of his children who survived to adulthood, Howard, Minnie, and Edward, all moved to Washington State and Oregon where their descendents still reside. John St. George Honner was my great-great uncle and Edward Walton Honner was my great-great grandfather.
E- mail: mjonhermusheen@m33access.com
Okaman (1)
July 19th 1863
My dear Brother I recived (2) the news of your marrige (3) from Mother last week and it gives me much pleasure to know that you have made so good a cohoice (4) and I hope that you will engoy (5) all the happiness that I wish you. Your settling in Canada was a grait (6) disapointment (7) to me for I alwas (8) was in hopes that you would settle in Minnesota but so it is our dearst (9) hopes are oftenst blighted but hoping that it is all for the (10) and that you will do well and prosper and be help and comfort to Father and Mother in their old age.
I am content. The seosan (11) has been very dry here but corops (12) look very well. wheat is very promising, is filling good. will be fit to cut next week. The Indians are giveng (13) trouble yet. there was three stole horses at Northfield. was making there (14) way through the big big Woods when they were seen nere (15) Waterville. the people turned out, came up to them nere (16) duck Lake and shot one dead and wounded one and (second page) was after the other last accounts. Squire went on his place last spring but the Indians was so bad that he came back and is now in York State. Write soon and tell me all the news.
I remain your affectionate Brother J. S. G. Honner "
John Honner was a brother of grandfather Edward Honner" - Notation added to letter by Winifred Honner, granddaughter of Edward W. Honner
1 Okaman, Waseca County, Minnesota
2 recived: received
3 marrige: marriage
4 cohoice: choice
5 engoy: enjoy
6 grait: great
7 disapointment: disappointment
8 alwas: always
9 derst: dearest
10 that it is all for the: probably meant to write "best" at the end of this phrase
11 seosan: season
12 corops: crops
13 giveng: giving
4 there: their
15 nere: near
16 ibid.
Notes: John St. George Honner in Minnesota letter to brother Edward W. Honner in Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada - dated July 19th, 1863 transcription by Maryjane Stelmach Honner w/ special thanks for the help of Janean McKay, Redwood Falls Genealogical Society, Minnesota Regarding the envelope and postmarks: The front of the envelope is postmarked Nov 30 9PM (year illegible). However, there are two postmarks on the reverse. One is ---BURG (illegible) SE(?) 2 80 ONT. The second is WINDSOR AM DE 2 80 ONT. Edward W. may have not received this letter until December 1880, perhaps because of the United States being in a civil war when it was posted. The letter may have been lost in transit for quite some time.
John St. George Honner, son of Maria Howard and Edward Honner of Mountrath, Queen's County, Ireland, was born 28 May 1831 in Turin, Lewis County, New York. The family lived briefly in the United States after immigrating, then moved on to Canada, eventually settling in and around Amherstburg, Essex County, Ontario, across the Detroit River from Michigan. JSG Honner's 6 living brothers, 7 sisters, and many cousins developed strong ties to both Great Lakes shipping and lumbering. Brothers-in-law Thomas Hackett and John Sunderland, as well as brother Thomas were all captains and masters of many vessels, the latter lost in the wreck of the Ira H. Owen. Husband of cousin Dorcas Honner was George Ruddiman and husband of cousin Caroline was John Torrent, both lumber barons in Muskegon, Michigan. It is thought that "Squire" in the letter is John Torrent's son Squire, who returned for a time to his grandparents in New York. Both JSG and brother Edward worked as sawyers in Muskegon as young men, probably for Ruddiman and Torrent. While Edward returned to Canada, JSG went on to Minnesota, first to Waseca, but eventually to Brown County, that part now Redwood Falls, Redwood County. JSG was one of the first settlers, and he and his wife were one of the first families in the stockade there. He had married Antoinette Green, who was born in 1842 in Wisconsin, in 1858 in Waseca. In 1865 & 1870, JSG was elected to the Minnesota State Legislature and, in 1872, to the Minnesota State Senate. He was also the county's first Registrar of Deeds. John St. George Honner died 22 June 1888 in Redwood Falls, where he is buried. The 3 of his children who survived to adulthood, Howard, Minnie, and Edward, all moved to Washington State and Oregon where their descendents still reside. John St. George Honner was my great-great uncle and Edward Walton Honner was my great-great grandfather.
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