One would think court records would be the final authority on what really happened in the cases brought to justice. However, in reviewing the multiple lawsuits ensnaring Simon Rinehart's children—and later, his grandchildren—I've noticed a few tangles. For instance, in one record concerning a guardianship of Simon's daughter Charlotte, the clerk noted an assertion made in a previous record—only he left the date blank, presumably meaning to fill in the correct information later, but never doing so. In another record more to our specific concern, the court record gave a somewhat different list of names for the children of Simon and his second wife.
This complicates things. Which record do I consider to be the reliable one?
We had already seen, after Simon's will was contested in court in Perry County, Ohio, beginning in 1854, that his children from the first wife were listed as Samuel Rinehart, Martha Fordyce, Mary Smith, Thomas Rinehart, and Sarah Gordon. Also, that court case listed Simon's children from his second wife—the surviving widow Anna—as Nancy Ankrom, Jesse Rinehart, Lucinda Rinehart, Charlotte Rinehart, Cassa Brown, and Hannah Rinehart.
That case, and the following counter-suits, went on for pages and pages in Perry County court records, all of which I've read. But then came that discovery, from an old email, that Cassa Brown's husband Isaac had filed another suit after the death of Simon's widow Anna. Anna had died "about" December 18, 1859, and she had died intestate, putting into motion the very land division that Simon's heirs from his first wife had predicted.
What was confusing about finding that subsequent case was that the record included a different grouping of Simon's children. This second petition, which demanded that the Rinehart land be divided equally among Anna's descendants, noted a different listing of heirs. Named in this case were Anna's children and lineal heirs surviving her: Lucinda Rinehart, Hannah Rinehart, Nancy Colborn (wife of John Colborn), Mary Smith (wife of Robert Smith), Martha Fordyce (wife of Jacob), Jesse Rinehart, Charlotte Rinehart, and Cassa Brown (wife of Isaac Brown).
My first reaction was an "aha!" moment: I was having the worst time trying to locate a Nancy Ankrom in Perry County. I did find one in Greene County, back in Pennsylvania where Simon and his family had originated, but the time period seemed wrong. But now, according to this document in 1860, here she was under a different married name: Colborn. Step number one following this discovery is to return to census and land records to see if I can find Nancy and her husband John—not to mention, check the marriage records.
To my dismay, however, was the regrouping of the children attributed to Simon's second wife, Anna. In the court case following his death, Martha and Mary were listed along with the other children of Simon's first wife, but now they are said to have been children of Anna. None of the others from Simon's first wife (at least according to that previous court listing) were included in this petition to subdivide Anna's land.
I double-checked, just in case anyone claimed that Anna had raised the older children from childhood as if they were her own, or that they were all just one big happy family, despite being step-children. It was clear that missing from this later list were Samuel, Thomas, and Sarah. While I'm still struggling with the true identity of Samuel Rinehart, Thomas and Sarah were both still very much alive when Isaac Brown brought this case to court in 1861, and yet they weren't included in the listing of Anna's children. Should I now presume that Martha and Mary were actually children of the second wife? This brings us back to our original question from the beginning of this post: which court record was correct?
The document also went on to explain that each heir was to get one seventh of the subdivided land of their mother, Anna Rinehart. However, it doesn't require the mind of a rocket scientist to realize that there were not seven, but eight parties listed as heirs. That, however, requires its own explanation, bringing us to a fitting point to lay this lengthy puzzle aside until tomorrow's post.
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