Moving Back, Moving Onward

When Marshall Jackson left Pembina County in the new state of North Dakota, it was likely with only his immediate family. Along with his wife Hester, that included sons Burnett and Earl, and daughters Gladys and Eleanor.

According to the 1906 Canadian census, the family reported arriving in Winnipeg in 1903—although by then, son Burnett had married and moved to Saskatchewan, and son Earl had also moved out of the family household, likely remaining in Winnipeg.

As for the many Harvey family members related to Marshall's wife, Hester, none apparently joined them on the trek northward, when the moved to Winnipeg. For although Marshall was said to have been born in Peterborough, Ontario, the majority of census reports showed Hester as having been born in New York.

In checking the 1885 census for the Dakota Territory, Pembina County—where the young Jackson family had settled—had no less than thirty four people itemized with the surname Harvey, Hester's maiden name. In fact, on the land grant records for Marshall Jackson, related documents referred to both an Ellen Harvey and a John B. Harvey—and then a reference to "heirs of" John Harvey in 1899.

Whether Hester was connected to this John and Ellen was not clear from documents I could locate, though. John's obituary was vague, to say the least. Here's all The Pioneer Express had to say on the matter on May 4, 1894:

Mr. John Harvey, sr. passed away Friday last, after an illness for over six weeks, which he bore with Christian fortitude. He leaves a widow and seven children, all of whom were at his bedside when he passed away. His funeral on Sunday last was largely attended, about sixty carriages following to his last resting place.

There was a John B. Harvey buried in a Pembina County cemetery—the Walhalla Hillside Cemetery—who had died on April 27, 1894, well within the parameters described by the newspaper article. Of course, a will and probate records would help determine whether Hester Harvey Jackson was among those seven children steadfastly attending to John Harvey in his last moments. As neither FamilySearch.org nor Ancestry.com currently include digitized wills or probate records for North Dakota, and since I have no plans in the foreseeable future to journey there, that little research project will have to be put on a back burner.

However, I can certainly hunt and peck through the documents which are available, in the meantime. So I looked for any records which might contain a John, an Ellen, and a Hester in the same household. I found one: in Watertown, New York, where a John B. Harvey lived with his wife Anna and four children, according to the 1880 U.S. Census. Conveniently, the household included a seventeen year old Hester, plus a nineteen year old Ellen. The added bonus was the inclusion of a son John—thus making his father's record agree with the "John Harvey, sr." designation we found later in North Dakota.

There were, of course, several drawbacks to this proposed match.

First was that the reporting party declared every single one of the household members to have been born in Canada, thus disagreeing with Hester's subsequent—and repeated—identification as having been a New York native.

Second was not only the number of children, but the discrepancy between their names and those of the Harvey family I found in the 1885 Dakota territorial census—while I found an Ellen and a John (Hester was, by then, married to Marshall Jackson), I lacked any sign of their older brother Samuel.

Worse, while it certainly would be possible for more children to have been born to the couple after the 1880 census, it wouldn't quite as handily explain away so many discrepancies on the reported ages in each census. Not to mention, there would be some explaining to do in the matter of wife Anna turning into wife Agnes in the journey from New York to North Dakota.

At best, all I can determine at this point is that Hester's Harvey family—whoever they were in Pembina County—all seemed to remain behind as she took her leave of them in 1903. Many of them likely remained in North Dakota for the rest of their lives, judging from the many Harvey memorials on the Find A Grave entry for the Walhalla cemetery where John B. Harvey was buried.

As for Marshall Jackson's own siblings—he had two brothers and two sisters, all but one sister still remaining in the Jackson household in Calhoun County, Iowa, in that state's 1885 census—none of them seemed to follow him back to Canada either. One brother headed toward Montana then eventually wound up in the Los Angeles region, while the other eventually ended up in the Chicago area. One sister stayed in Lake City, Iowa, until after her husband died, when she returned home to Ontario and remarried. The other sister eventually moved to Nebraska.

The 1903 move that returned Marshall Jackson back to his homeland brought with him five United States citizens. According to the 1916 census, Hester and her daughters became naturalized Canadian citizens in 1910. That didn't last for long, though. After the tragic death of her husband, Hester eventually moved southward with her two daughters, where each of them lived in various locations in Los Angeles County in California.

As for Marshall's two sons, the eldest moved first to Saskatchewan, but eventually ended up moving closer to his father's home in Winnipeg by relocating to the city of Brandon. The youngest, at first living in Winnipeg, later moved to Saskatchewan, to Moose Jaw.

I often wonder, in the aftermath of great personal tragedy, what becomes of those left behind—what the personal repercussions were, and how far that painful experience emanated. In the case of Marshall Jackson's family, as his children married and started families of their own, life's path seemed to tug them in different directions—a natural occurrence for many of us in these more recent eras. It's been almost one hundred years now since Marshall Jackson lost his life so tragically and senselessly, and the family has seen the passing of two more generations since Marshall's death. And yet, though the newspaper headlines of the tragedy that took his life have long faded from public view, his was a story that surely hasn't been forgotten by the ones who were the closest to him.    

Above: Where the Marshall Jackson tragedy began: boarding the eastbound train at the Canadian Pacific Railway depot in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in January, 1917. From the Rob McInnes Postcard Collection, one of the collections featured at PastForward, Winnipeg's Digital Public History. Used by permission, with thanks to the Winnipeg Public Library. 
 

Getting Personal

In retracing the steps on the timeline of constable Marshall Jackson's life, not all was newspaper coverage of his career in law enforcement. There were a few glimpses on the personal side in those Dakota Territory newspaper reports, as well, helping to paint a portrait of the man and his family.

The newspaper from the county in which he settled, after leaving his home in Canada, captured this moment in time on March 1, 1889, in The Pioneer Express:

Marshall Jackson, wife and family, have returned from the east. Their little boy was sick with the chicken pox when they left and he has been very sick since their return but is now slowly convalescing.

Given the date of 1889, it was impossible to tell whether the "little boy" the paper was designating was Marshall's oldest son, Burnett—who would, by then, have been five years of age—or their younger son, whose name turned out to be Earl, after all.

Still, one valuable clue in that brief insert showed us that the Jackson family had reason to visit someone—or something—back east. The trick in finding utility in that "back east" idea depends on the frame of reference of those choosing that descriptor. For those of us originating on the eastern seaboard, the phrase could only mean one thing: an east coast destination. But for those accustomed to midwestern ways, the term could simply mean a trip to, say, Iowa.

Wherever it was, though, chances were good that Marshall had not made his previous trek westward as a young, single man, alone. The possibility of family nearby—instead of far away, back in Ontario—increased ever so slightly with this detail from the local newspaper.

Second son Earl became the mention of the next clue found in newspaper reports of Marshall's personal life in North Dakota. Once again, it was The Pioneer Express providing the details, this time on October 4, 1901, in a section labeled "County News" under a subheading for Glasston:

Marshall Jackson of Neche visited his son Earl, Sunday.

As brief as that line was, it also provoked some questions. By 1901, young Earl would have been about fifteen years of age. Considering he was living back in Neche at the time of the 1900 census—just over one year previous to this news mention—what caused the change? There was little more in Glasston—then as well as now—than farmland and a stop along the Great Northern Railroad. Could he have moved the twenty five miles from Neche, simply to get a job?

Actually, hold that thought on the railroad. The Great Northern Railroad may well have been the very vehicle which brought Marshall Jackson to this part of the Dakota Territory in the first place. After all, the Great Northern had branches that ran northward to Canada from Dakota Territory and, like the Northern Pacific Railway—another company with early train service to Dakota with a northern line headed to Winnipeg—heavily promoted their service westward to immigrants and others seeking new opportunity as land in this territory opened up in the 1870s onwards.

Whether it was the Great Northern or the Northern Pacific that brought Marshall Jackson all the way from Ontario, Canada, to Pembina County in Dakota Territory in the early 1880s, one thing is sure: it was the easiest way to move back out again. And that is apparently what Marshall and his family did, in the early 1900s.

An entry in the April 3, 1903, edition of The Pioneer Express gave the first indication:

W. A. Murphy purchased the residence of Marshall Jackson, of Neche, recently. The latter will remove to the Northwest.

Well, take that last line with a strong dose of skepticism. You know those editorial foibles. As we already know, by the time of Canada's 1906 census, Marshall and Hester Jackson and at least their two daughters were in Winnipeg, listing their date of arrival in the Dominion of Canada as 1903.

Above: An undated photograph, circa 1909, of Osborne Street in Fort Rouge, the section of Winnipeg in which Marshall Jackson and his family eventually moved, upon their return from North Dakota. This intersection was less than one kilometer from the Jackson home. From the Rob McInnes Postcard Collection, one of the collections featured at PastForward, Winnipeg's Digital Public History. Used by permission, with thanks to the Winnipeg Public Library. 

Finding the Jackson Family

It isn't every day that one uncovers a murder mystery among the stories tucked inside one's family history. Even though the victim in this case—Marshall Jackson of Winnipeg, Canada—wasn't part of my family (sadly, it was his murderer who was a distant relative in my matrilineal line), I wanted to trace his story to find out more about the man.

At the time of his 1917 death in the line of duty, working as part of the immigration service, Marshall Jackson lived with his family in a section of Winnipeg known as Fort Rouge. Newspaper reports of his funeral helped pinpoint his family in the census taken only one year prior to his passing. Although the household listed Marshall, his wife "Ester" and two daughters, we had seen from newspaper coverage that he also had two sons—one living in Brandon in the same province of Manitoba as his parents, the other in the neighboring province, Saskatchewan, in a place called Moose Jaw.

Rather than attempt the rather unwieldy genealogical chore of trying to find these Jackson sons at their place of residence in that same census enumeration—a trying feat, considering such a common surname—I thought it might be more expeditious to wander back through the census records systematically, until I could locate a year in which they all resided in one household.

Pulling up the prior census, though, proved unhelpful. There, still in Winnipeg, were the Jacksons—sans sons, unfortunately. The 1911 census showed wife Hester and daughters Gladys and Eleanor, but no sons.

Again, skipping backwards another five years to the previous census record of 1906, we find the same household. No sons.

Five years prior to that, in the 1901 census: nothing. No Marshall Jackson family whatsoever—with or without sons.

It might have seemed like we were doomed to have to go the more tedious route of eliminating numerous Jackson families in those two other Canadian locations in the hope of finding the right sons of Marshall and Hester Jackson. Except for one thing: looking at the actual digitized replica of the census page reveals much more than the mere transcription provides (at least in current formats). And on that digitized record, we could glean a few more facts to help reconstruct this family tree.

For one thing, the 1916 census showed that the Marshalls' youngest daughter was born in the United States. Because she was twenty one years of age at the time of that census, it would mean that the family—well, this daughter and her mother, at the very least—would not have been in Canada as late as 1895.

This particular census, however, helps us pinpoint the year of immigration a little more clearly—if, however, the reporting party remembered the incident clearly.

The 1916 census record shows Marshall's wife—not a citizen at the time of her arrival in Canada—to have come to that country in 1904. The same thing was reported for her two American-born daughters, indicating they must have been in the United States during the time of that country's census in 1900—thus addressing why they wouldn't have shown up in the 1901 census in Canada.

And sure enough: there the family was, in the town of Neche in Pembina County, one of the most northern counties in the new state of North Dakota.

Although the precise handwriting of the enumerator made reading the names of each family member a snap, it was somewhat complicated by his less than stellar spelling abilities, thus not quite providing us the precise names of each of Marshall Jackson's sons. However, we do have an approximation of what their names were. "Bernatt," the eldest, was fifteen years of age, having been born in North Dakota in December of 1884.

The second son, also born in North Dakota, arrived in June of 1886, bringing him to the brink of fourteen years of age at the point of the 1900 census. The only problem is: I can't read his name. It looks suspiciously like "Irl," making me wonder whether it should actually be Earl—until I succumb to pondering the possibility that it might have been Gil. I find it more forgivable to have to endure bad handwriting than poor spelling.

Of course, the girls were both listed—Gladys, having been born in October of 1891, and her younger sister "Ellen" in August of 1896—as was their then-thirty six year old mother, Hester. Apparently, Marshall and Hester had by then been married for seventeen years, placing the year of their marriage around 1883, and the location—considering Hester was, by other reports, actually American and not Canadian, as this census mistakenly identified her—somewhere in the United States. Indeed, the date of Marshall's arrival in the country was marked as 1881, most likely precluding the possibility of a Canadian marriage.

Another interesting detail of that 1900 census in North Dakota was the listing of Marshall's occupation. The census reported him to be serving as constable. While not to the rank of sheriff that the Winnipeg newspapers had later reported him to be—and certainly nowhere near the size of city his reported location of Fargo would have been at the time—the position of constable was a form of law enforcement officer, in some cases an elected official.

Although by this census record, Marshall Jackson had not, exactly, served as sheriff as the Winnipeg newspapers later reported, there were other indications that the paper may not have missed the mark by as much as it seems here. It was another newspaper report—this time from stateside—that provided a few hints.

Above: The Marshall Jackson household in the 1900 U.S. Census for the town of Neche in Pembina County, North Dakota. Image courtesy Ancestry.com.

Documenting the Details

It doesn't take a deep examination of newspaper articles to realize that the editorial process is prone to errors. Genealogists are often overjoyed to discover mentions—no matter how fleeting—in the daily press of their ancestors' home towns, but that joy can sometimes be short lived if not tempered by a cautious double-check in corresponding official documents.

Take the Find A Grave entry I mentioned yesterday. While I was delighted to find a newspaper reprint of Marshall Jackson's photograph posted on his Find A Grave memorial by a well-meaning volunteer, I couldn't help notice some possible discrepancies.

For one thing, his date of birth was given in the Find A Grave entry only as a year—1862—meaning we'd have to delve further to sharpen that detail. That, however, is not my main concern, as much as the fact that his place of birth was listed as North Dakota. If you are a history buff focused on the American West, you will know that the state of North Dakota didn't even exist then; lumped in with what eventually became its twin state, South Dakota, the area was then known as the Dakota Territory.

More important than that slight error, though, is the fact that this detail disagreed with the newspaper report back in Winnipeg, the day the news of his murder hit his hometown newspaper. According to the Manitoba Free Press on January 26, 1917, Marshall Jackson was not born in Dakota—no matter what one chose to call the place—but was born near Peterborough, Ontario.

Considering such a discrepancy, when his obituary mentioned he was survived by a wife, two sons and two daughters, you know I had to check that one out.

Unlike the census records in the United States—regularly scheduled for intervals of ten years' duration—the Canadian census from the western provinces provided us a glimpse of the listing of local residents only one year prior to this 1917 tragedy. Thus, it was fairly easy to determine just which household was the right Jackson household.

Thankfully, the Free Press had also provided the Jackson family's address in Winnipeg at the time: 697 Warsaw Avenue. While the 1916 census record showed a different house number, the Jackson family was right there on Warsaw: fifty two year old grain inspector, Marshall Jackson (who was indeed born in Ontario, at least according to this census enumeration), his wife, Hester, plus two daughters, "Gladas" and "Ellan." Both twenty four year old Gladys and twenty one year old Ellen were entered as born in the United States.

Those details seemed to corroborate nicely the newspaper report that, before his fifteen years "in the investigation business," Marshall Jackson "had come to Winnipeg from Fargo, N.D., where he had been sheriff."

If you suspect my next point of inquiry will be to check out that claim that Marsh had once been sheriff, you know me well. Count your tally as having gained bonus points if you also wondered whether I would still pursue the record to discover the names of the two as-yet missing sons' names. We'll trace the family back through the 1911 and 1906 Canadian census records, and then jump the border to the United States census record for 1900, to see what else we can discover about this family. 

 

Gone in Five

It was a somber gathering in Winnipeg, that late Monday morning of January 29, 1917, to await the incoming train from Ontario. It wasn't exactly for a passenger that the crowd awaited the train's arrival. It was, however, on behalf of a person that they had gathered: Marshall Jackson, the recently slain detective who had taken on the assignment of conveying an extradited prisoner to Windsor, Ontario. His remains, escorted by an official from the Ottawa Immigration Department, were to arrive home that day.

Marshall Jackson had passed away only days before. According to the coroner's report in the records of the Sandwich West division of Essex County, he had died on that January 25th, near Saint Clair Junction in that same district. The coroner noted the cause as "a shot in abdomen by James Stewart" who was "being brought to Windsor for deportation." Mercifully—at least according to the coroner's reckoning—the victim had "died in about five minutes."

Gathered at the station in Winnipeg, four days later, were members of Marsh's family, along with representatives from "Damon Lodge, No. 5, Knights of Pythias" (listed as "Dominion Lodge" in a later newspaper report, along with a note that he was also affiliated with the Atabara Temple No. 149, D.O.K.K.).

The plan called for a private ceremony at the family's home the following day, from which the funeral cortège would then proceed to the Fort Rouge Methodist Church for a public service. Committal was to be at Elmwood Cemetery.

As I gather these details from the various newspaper articles, I'm working on locating additional documents to verify those reports at the close of Marshall Jackson's life. Indeed, his burial at Elmwood was corroborated by an entry in Find A Grave—although admittedly, that resource is not always error-free. Included in the Find A Grave entry was a clipping from an unnamed newspaper, with the caption,

Victim: Winnipeg private detective shot to death by his prisoner, William Anderson, on speeding train near Windsor, Ont.

The news clipping was accompanied by a photograph of Marshall Jackson, himself. Of course, we now know that William Anderson was merely one alias used by John Syme Hogue, and we've already discussed his side of this story. But now that we have these few details on Marshall Jackson, it's time to delve into his own story—at least as much as online resources permit.

Above: Portion of the death records of Essex County, Ontario, Canada, showing the Medical Certificate of Death for Marshall Jackson. Image courtesy Ancestry.com.

Getting to Know "Marsh"

When the news first broke on January 25, 1917, that a Dominion immigration officer had been shot in the line of duty, the papers back in his hometown of Winnipeg got the scoop, alright—but they got it wrong. Announcing in the Manitoba Free Press that it was Detective Nesbitt who was shot, the editors found themselves in the uncomfortable position—at the bottom of the very same front page column—of admitting there was no such person in the employ of the Winnipeg police force.

What did come to light, though, was a series of articles revealing just a little bit about the man who was killed early that morning. While those articles may be found disappointingly inadequate for genealogists hoping to locate identifying names of the bereaved family members, the series of clues about Marshall Jackson does reveal several details about the man, his career, and his earlier life.

Right away, the newspaper caught its error and explained,

The only Jackson known to the police in Winnipeg was Marshall Jackson, usually known as "Marsh." Mr. Jackson was a prominent private detective, and did considerable work for the [Sir Rodmond Palen] Roblin government. He also figured in Saskatchewan elections. His agency supplied private detectives for departmental stores, banks, and similar institutions, and being an old-timer he was well established in Winnipeg.

The next day, while newspapers on both sides of the border were furiously following the progress of the manhunt for Marsh's slayer, the Manitoba Free Press slipped in a small notice about the man's funeral, in the midst of a brief biographical sketch about Marsh.

Jackson was well known all over Canada, more especially in the west. He was born near Peterborough, Ont. He had been in the investigation business for fifteen years. He had come to Winnipeg from Fargo, N.D., where he had been sheriff. He was about 50 years of age.

There was more explanation of Marsh's connection to government:

For the past four years, Jackson had been employed more or less by the Dominion government. He was a seed grain inspector at one time, and during the latter years was a special investigator, and employed in the deportation of dangerous criminals.

Naturally, with those business connections—and especially considering the manner in which he died—it was no surprise to read that the "Dominion government will have charge of the funeral."

With all that detail on Marshall Jackson's work history, one would have hoped for a more complete obituary than the brief paragraph offered on his family. Still, I'll let that suffice me for a start on the genealogical research trail.

Besides his wife, two boys, one in Brandon and one in Moose Jaw, and two girls, who live with their mother at 697 Warsaw avenue, Fort Rouge, survive.

The Other Side of the Story

Accompanied by an official of the Ottawa Immigration department, the body of Marshall Jackson, the well-known Winnipeg detective, who was killed while escorting a prisoner...will arrive in Winnipeg at 11 o'clock this morning.

That was the news report in the Manitoba Free Press on Monday, January 29, 1917, which brings us back to the other side of the story I set aside, back in January of this year—almost exactly ninety nine years after this newspaper entry. It was—at least on the side I had been talking about—the story of John Syme Hogue, son of a civil engineer in Charleston, West Virginia, whose unfortunate life choices found him on death row in a prison in Ontario, Canada. The reason: murder of an immigration officer handling the process of his extradition to stand trial back in the United States.

The other side of the story, of course, would be that of Marshall Jackson, the Winnipeg detective assigned to escort John Hogue—still being referred to under one of his many aliases—back to Windsor in Ontario, where he was to oversee the transfer of his prisoner to United States law enforcement personnel at the international border.

While there are several newspaper reports which included enough details on the man to develop a sketch of who he was, the downside to that attempt is the typical rush to publish in the face of getting "the scoop" ahead of the competition. At first, the Winnipeg newspaper identified the officer as "Detective Nesbitt"—until someone from the police force must have pointed out that they had no such detective by that name. For a while, it seemed the number of aliases for the reports on the now-deceased detective was doomed to catch up with the number of aliases assigned to his assailant.

It is not simply to sort out the chronology—or merely the correct identity—of the slain officer that I want to pick up this thread of the narrative. As you likely have realized from following along here at A Family Tapestry, it's the stories that exert that powerful pull on me—of course I want to know Marshall Jackson's story, as well.

Even more than that, though, is an additional pull this story exerts on me, personally. Because I am married to a law enforcement professional, I have had the vicarious—albeit admittedly distant—experience of knowing the impact on those on the force who have lost a co-worker who has died in the line of duty. It is an awful experience with multiple repercussions, not only for immediate family, but for those who worked with the fallen officer, and for the community in which that person once served. Whenever I hear of an officer who was injured or killed during the course of work, I can't help but hear echoes of officer safety warnings in my head—the oft-repeated kind drilled into public safety employees over the course of their career. When I read a story like Marshall Jackson's, I can't help but cringe when I realize what happened to him. Stories like his became the training material used to hopefully prevent further such tragedies from occurring.

For the rest of the week, we'll revisit this other side of the John Syme Hogue story. We'll explore what we can reconstruct of Marshall Jackson's own role in this story, his work history, and his family's story. Between newspaper reports, census records, cemetery records and other findings, this will help us understand a bit more about who this seasoned detective was who nevertheless lost his life in the course of a day's work.

Above: French impressionist painter Claude Monet's 1885 oil on canvas, "Train in the Snow." Courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Still Stewart in Their Book

James Stewart, alias James Gordon, alias James Andrews, alias John Hogue, safe blower of a decade ago and convicted murderer...

So went the opener of yet another newspaper article on the still-unfolding saga of John Hogue—this one from the Escanaba Daily Press of April 1, 1926. Though Escanaba is about as far away from Battle Creek as you can get and still be in Michigan, its interest in the Hogue case—or the Stewart case, as they still presumed—revealed just how intent the people of Michigan were in seeing that the man, whoever he was, pay his debt to society for crimes committed in Battle Creek a full ten years beforehand.

If you thought Hogue was still sitting in a cell at the Kingston Penitentiary in Ontario, you and I both missed something. Embedded within the lead to another Michigan newspaper's coverage of the 1926 chapter of the unfolding Hogue story—this time, from the Marshall Evening Chronicle on April 22—was this surprise:

John Hogue, who stood in the shadow of the gallows, and who at the last moment secured a commutation of sentence to life and later to ten years....

Somehow, I missed that last detail. To ten years? How did that happen?

Knowing that I could find all the Essex area newspapers from that time period in Ontario online, I tried in vain to locate any mention of that latest change in sentence.

Lest you assume this Hogue fellow lived a charmed life, think again. Apparently, not even he knew about the surprise in store for him upon his release from prison that year. Back in Manitoba—a place full of people who also had a vested interest in watching Hogue's every move—the Brandon Daily Sun noted on April 8, complete with the usual litany of aliases,

John Hogue, alias James Steward, alias James Gordon, pardoned murderer from Kingston, Ont., penitentiary, professed complete astonishment when turned over to Battle Creek police by Ontario officers. The transfer was made on a Detroit-bound car ferry from Windsor. Hogue declared his rearrest an unexpected and unpleasant development.

Of course, if he had been reading the Escanaba Daily Press, it wouldn't have been such a surprise to him, since back on April 1, the headline there had announced the plans, "Paroler will be arrested."

The Marshall Evening Chronicle provided the explanation for this abrupt change in plans: Hogue was charged with burglarizing a Battle Creek pool hall ten years prior. Being the county seat of Calhoun County in which Battle Creek was located, Marshall, Michigan, would be the location of the newspaper of record for that county's proceedings, and was likely keen to get the scoop on any reports concerning the long-awaited suspect Stewart, er, Gordon, er, Hogue. Once again, John Hogue would be getting his day in court—whether he wanted it or not.

 

Puzzling Over an Editorial Device

Delving into newspaper archives can be a great way to gain insight into the story behind the stories in a given ancestor's life—as long as you pick up the knack of reading between the lines. Still, there may be pitfalls in that approach.

That certainly turned out to be the case in pursuit of the psyche comprising one John Hogue, the man we now know as one of Canada's convicted murderers during those tumultuous years during World War I. Possibly displaced as prime headline in a news vortex that sucked national attention away to far distant current events across the Atlantic, the story of John Hogue's narrowly missing a fate of swinging on the gallows in Ontario dropped off the radar at about the time news reached home about the devastating casualties just sustained at Vimy Ridge.

Still, before that point, there was much to glean from the newspapers, and I've trawled through every report I could find. One, in particular, I want to revisit now as an example of how that hope of analyzing one's family history subject may sometimes backfire on a researcher.

This particular report on John Hogue appeared in the Brandon Daily Sun, a newspaper back in Manitoba, where Hogue had begun his long deportation journey in early 1917, and from which he had just completed a three month jail sentence. The article was datelined "Windsor, Ont., Feb. 13," shortly after Hogue had shot a Dominion immigration official in Ontario, in the course of attempting an escape.

The setting for the news story was the Windsor jail, where Hogue was being held for trial, scheduled for early March. Undoubtedly, thoughts uppermost on his mind would have been the very real possibility of a death sentence, and how that likelihood would spin out in his various relationships.

That, at least, was how I presumed it might have been. Reviewing the article now and giving it a second thought, I'm not sure it provides the same glimpse into his psyche as one might have presumed—a little fact checking persuaded me to think differently about the man's current state of mind, at least at that point.

Let's take a look at the article, and then I'll explain what I mean. From the page five article, under the title, "Alleged Murderer Disposed of Property":

James Steward, alias Wm. Anderson, alleged murderer of Marshall Jackson, of Winnipeg, who will stand trial in March, has disposed of all his earthly possessions. He has willed his diamond scarf pin to a sister, Margaret Ashworth of Evansville, Ohio; a small savings bank account deposited in a Des Moines, Iowa, bank, to another sister, of Travers City, Mich.; a valuable traveling clock to Inspector of Police Mortimer Wigle, of Windsor; a rain coat to Fred Steward, his night guard at Sandwich jail.

In addition to questions about implications for professional ethics in regard to the last two bequests, it turned out there were other doubtful details about the revelation of this criminal's first installment on last wishes.

On its face, this appears to be a wonderful opportunity to confirm this man's family circle—but if you thought that at first glance, think again. Remember, this is the man whom people were led to believe was named something other than his true identity; what makes us think he would correctly name either of the two sisters he had mentioned?

But let's, for a moment, give him the benefit of the doubt. Since we already know his true identity as John Hogue of Charleston, West Virginia, we can take a look at his family tree. As it turns out, he did have two sisters. Well, amend that: because his mother had been married twice, he had an older half-sister as well as a younger sister. However—and I know this won't come as a surprise to you now—neither of those sisters was named Margaret, let alone Ashworth. Plus, each of his sisters spent their entire lives in their hometown, back in West Virginia, not in Evansville, Ohio, or Travers City, Michigan.

Come to think of it, there isn't even any such place as Evansville, Ohio—not according to Google Maps or any Internet search. (Well, there was one result that came up on MapQuest, north of the point on eastbound Interstate 80, just before the split with Interstate 680, approaching Youngstown. But I couldn't replicate that information anywhere else.) Evansville, Indiana, yes (on the Ohio River, even); but not in Ohio. Perhaps our traveling yeggman had gotten his directions wrong.

But let's assume, for a moment, that this Margaret Ashworth was a real person. Was there anyone by such a name anywhere in Ohio close to that time period? As it turns out, there were no results on Ancestry.com for such a name in the 1920 census—but there was someone by that name in Youngstown in the 1930 census. Could that be some sort of clue?

Why did the article name one sister, but not the other? Why, indeed, did the paper include the name of a city that didn't even exist? Were these just editorial mistakes? Or can we even believe that the man had family scattered over all the midwestern United States—and bank accounts, too? Why would the newspaper's readership even care what an alleged murderer's possessions consisted of—or where they were bound after his demise?

Whether an editorial ploy or manipulative move on the part of Hogue, himself, this little display of histrionics tended to make me less sympathetic to his cause. It hatched all sorts of unanswerable questions, foremost among them considerations of the psychological aspects they might be revealing. Was this Hogue, attempting with pathos to sway the public (or at least the potential jurors), or was it simply reformist agitators seeking to disrupt the traditions of Canadian jurisprudence with a change in public sentiment?

Above all, hadn't anyone thought of the implication of such a statement before a verdict could even be reached in Hogue's court case? Why give away all one's "earthly possessions" before judgment has been pronounced? Wouldn't that have been considered an admission of guilt?

This type of agonizing over past newspaper reports may well be beyond the purview of what is meant by an "exhaustive search" for genealogical answers. To sort it all out, I'll likely resort to transcribing each of the many newspaper articles I've found, arrange them in date order, and set them aside to gel for a while before picking them back up for a final review. Sometimes, my brain needs a respite like that.

A story like this comes with baggage—a lot of context which simply can't be ignored. Although we'll need to revisit just one more stop along the way to John Hogue's commutation of execution to a life sentence, after that, it will be time to move along to the next episode in his story. You know this story couldn't just stop there.   
 

News of Friends and Associates

When researching the history of a man prone to changing his alias as many times as he slips across state borders, it becomes necessary to have other devices to help keep track of his whereabouts. Tracking John Hogue through the years of 1916 and 1917 from his birthplace in West Virginia to his alleged residence in Cincinnati to his various escapades in the midwestern United States and Canada seemed convoluted enough, but when newspaper reports failed to point the way, I often searched under his aliases. Sometimes, though, even they lost me.

Though the search for John Hogue's whereabouts started out as a genealogical pursuit, it certainly turned out to be much more than I bargained for. Still, I've found it helpful to take my cue from internationally-respected genealogist Elizabeth Shown Mills and her research tip to consider the "FAN Club" of the target person being researched. While that "FAN" originally referred to "family, associates and neighbors," with John Hogue essentially leaving his family behind in Charleston, I've taken to substituting that "Family" with "Friends."

Well, perhaps "friends" is too liberal an application. It might be more apropos to Hogue's situation to consider these people I've been tracing as associates. No matter which way they are classified, they help me reconstitute his story through the technique of cluster research, a concept well described by attorney and genealogy blogger James Tanner. (While his example demonstrates an application to geographical instances, my pursuit is more of a sociological exploration.)

As the newspapers of the various locales concerned with the disposition of Hogue's case in 1917 kept churning out headlines and (sometimes erroneous) narratives, I've been on a seemingly never-ending quest to catch up with all the reportage. I ran across a blurb, dated shortly after the commutation of John Hogue's sentence that May, revealing a glimpse of just what he might still have been doing, had he not been detained for that fateful deportation after serving the three month term in Winnipeg.

Recall that John Hogue, in Winnipeg, had been arrested and tried as one William Anderson, along with his accomplice, said to be named "Sheeney" Holmes. Together, they had been in the process of blowing open a safe at the Robinson and Company departmental store in town. That was back in October, 1916.

By June, 1917, while Hogue—a.k.a. William Anderson in Winnipeg—was being transported to the Kingston Penitentiary in Ontario to serve a life sentence, his buddy Holmes was apparently still hard at work, back in Manitoba. This time, the scene of the crime was Portage la Prairie—nowadays, a mere one hour's drive west on the Trans-Canada Highway from Winnipeg. The June 11, 1917, Winnipeg Free Press carried the story under the tag line, "Suspected Yeggmen Arrested."

Of course, we've already learned what "yeggmen" are. But it was interesting to note what local journalists had not yet learned about what to call one of Holmes' other associates.

Among the three men arrested as yeggmen at Portage la Prairie Wednesday is "Sheeney" Holmes, according to an announcement made on Saturday by the Pinkerton's agency of Winnipeg. Holmes was a pal of William Anderson, now serving a life term for the murder of Detective Marshall Jackson. Both men served a jail term in Winnipeg, and were deported.

Well, perhaps "Anderson" was deported. Evidently, Holmes had still been left at large to do more damage. Not surprisingly, John Hogue's associate had learned one of the basics of his trade: always travel with an alias. The newspaper article noted Holmes' reinvented self:

Holmes gave his name at Portage as J. C. Little.

One had to wonder: if John Hogue had not been deported, what would he have been up to, at that point? Likely, moving on down the road to the next likely target.

As to the other players in John Hogue's universe of friends, associates and family, it was often difficult to trace this with certainty. Even when a story seemed to provide a solid clue, often the name proved a false lead, as we'll see tomorrow with another part of this episode in the Hogue saga.    

Life — According to the Locals

The uproar of chasing a fugitive—murderer, at that—who remained at large for upwards of forty eight hours certainly was news consumed voraciously by the populace back in Michigan and Wisconsin (scene of several crimes attributed to John Hogue) and Manitoba (site of his previous arrest and home of the deportation officer he had just killed). Each of those locales obviously had their own agenda in following the reports of Hogue's trial and sentencing.

But what about Essex County, Ontario—the very place where all this drama unfolded in late January, 1917? The two subscription sites from which I had gleaned these other news reports unfortunately did not include editions from any location in Essex County, thus leaving a rather significant gap in our survey of unfolding events.

Fortunately, I recalled a way around this dilemma. Those of you who have been journeying along with A Family Tapestry for a few years might have had your memory jogged by mention of that location, too. Though not having anything to do with this family line, we had spent some time on Essex County news when one of my husband's distant Flannery cousins from Paris, Ontario, had shown up in the news in that county in Ontario.

It was thanks to reader Intense Guy that I had become acquainted with a newspaper scanning project initiated in Essex County a while back. He had mentioned it in a comment when we were discussing the fate of one Patrick Flannery. Though that site has now transferred its original scans to a different URL, the good news is that, in the process, the site has uploaded numerous other news publications from the county as well.

Taking a look at the current files, I've been able to get an earful of local editorial commentary on the case as it unfolded.

From The Essex Free Press of May 4, 1917, in an editorial collection of shorts dubbed "Twinklers," an unnamed staffer noted,

A petition has been signed by a large number of people in Windsor on behalf of John Hogue, alias Stewart, who shot the immigration officer some time ago. At the first thought, we would be pleased to append our names, but when we remember that, if he had had half a chance, he would have shot the officers that arrested him, we are compelled to shrug our shoulders and remark, that after all the kindness shown him, to commit a deliberate murder, the scaffold is the only humane punishment for him.

A level-headed analysis was provided in a column simply labeled "County News" in the same edition of The Essex Free Press, explaining the order of events leading up to Hogue's eleventh-hour reprieve. The request had been made to consider either a new trial or at least a commutation of sentence to life imprisonment.

"In the event that an error is found in the charge" of the presiding judge in his instructions to the jury, which apparently "did not fully understand the law as it was explained to them," it was hoped the powers that be would reverse course. To bolster that argument, the newspaper included a review of pertinent facts:

Three affidavits from jurors to that effect have been obtained by the condemned man's counsel.

In addition,

The crown is also charged with failure to produce...two material witnesses, members of the colored construction battalion, which was in Windsor at the time of the slaying. Their evidence, counsel maintains, would have proven that Hogue did not intend to kill Immigration Officer Marshall Jackson.

Unfortunately, there was no mention of just what evidence those witnesses might have provided.

Though it is understandable that those Hogue had wronged back in Michigan and Wisconsin were vocal in their demands for justice, and those in Manitoba were aggrieved at the loss of a local officer and family man, it seemed counter-intuitive to read that a good number of local residents at ground zero for this latest in Hogue's escapades would plead for clemency on his behalf. However, as we'll see tomorrow, there was a vocal chorus raised not only among those back in his hometown in West Virginia, but there in his most recent stop in Canada, as well.

 

Picking Up on a Hundred Year Old Story

Let's begin at the end: the moral of this story—at least on the process side of the analysis—is to never start telling a multi-post-long story right before a major holiday. Like I did. Every time the narrative got rolling, it would have to be set aside for posts of another sort. First it was Christmas. Then New Year. Then, too many roadblocks with the impending date of my flight to Salt Lake City—and then a week of training at SLIG.

But now? The coast is clear, I hope, to return to the story of the man who took to blowing up safes in a half dozen midwestern cities before finally being apprehended in Winnipeg.

If you thought the close of the fugitive's drama came at the moment of his sentencing, you would be missing the rest of the story. And I want to tell that story—well, at least as much of it as I've been able to find.

So, before we pick up that narrative, let's endure a brief recap for those who spent their holidays doing things other than reading genealogy blog posts. I'll include hyperlinks back to the original posts, so you can hopscotch your way through the littered trail betwixt the cheery holiday posts of last month.

We started in the middle of December with a discovery of an odd set of entries on a border crossing report for John Hogue of Charleston, West Virginia. Only, he wasn't coming from West Virginia at the time; he was arriving in Detroit from Windsor, Ontario, in February, 1926, escorted by a deputy sheriff of Calhoun County, Michigan. The reason for his re-entry into the country was to stand trial for crimes allegedly committed in that county.

As any genealogist would, I had this nagging doubt about the document, wondering if it really was referring to my John Syme Hogue, son of a civil engineer in Charleston, West Virginia. I had to take a closer look—which led me on this wild chase to figure out exactly who this convict John Hogue might have been.

First stop on my research plan was to search for that name in historic newspaper archives. I got more than I bargained for: apparently, the man was known by several aliases. More importantly, he was wanted in Battle Creek, Michigan, for blowing up a safe and getting away with its contents—over four hundred dollars in cash. That was in March, 1916.

By May, the fugitive—never having been caught by Battle Creek authorities—was plying his craft at another safe in Madison, Wisconsin. By this time, newspaper reports were glowering over the escaped suspect, whom they believed to be named James Stewart.

In October, a case with many of the same details occurred, but this time the suspect was apprehended, and spent nearly three months in jail. Toward the end of his sentence, local law enforcement officials were informed that their prisoner, whom they had assumed was named William Anderson, was wanted in Battle Creek for a similar crime committed there back in March. The process to extradite the prisoner was initiated, and by the end of January, 1917, he was sent east on a train bound for Windsor in the custody of an immigration official. The plan to hand over the convict to U.S. authorities at the international border at Windsor was never completed. Just three miles before his arrival in Windsor, the prisoner grabbed the officer's gun, shot him, and leaped from the still-moving train.

The midnight getaway in the rural outskirts of Windsor prompted a widespread manhunt. For two days, the fugitive eluded both law enforcement officers and citizen posses assembled from several surrounding towns. In an almost anti-climactic way, an unassuming stranger stopping by a local hotel for a meal and a night's stay turned out—despite yet another alias—to be the very man who was the focus of what was billed "the biggest manhunt of a year or more."

Immediately booked into the Windsor jail, starting up the process of scheduling his trial in Ontario's Supreme Court, the suspect made his own protests about the crime just committed. He insisted his captor's gun was "hair-trigger" and that he never meant to kill the man, just keep him at bay to effect his getaway. Newspaper reporters from the several American cities in which he—under a number of aliases—had committed crimes hounded the now-found fugitive for a scoop on this emergent story.

Regardless of intent, James Stewart—a.k.a. numerous other monikers but in reality one and the same as the John Hogue whose genealogy led me to this story—appeared before the Ontario Supreme Court on the morning of March 7, 1917, and saw the conclusion of arguments, jury deliberations and the announcement of their verdict, and the sentencing all unfold before the day was over. He was pronounced guilty as charged. He was sentenced to die on the gallows that May 17.

The defense began immediately to prepare an appeal. While newspapers back in Winnipeg and throughout those midwestern American locales where the suspect had likely also plied his craft churned through all the details of the murder and trial, it seemed they couldn't quite agree on the correct name for the suspect for nearly another month. In the end, it became clear that the man sought by so many cities was indeed John Hogue. And though he had seemed to forget his family, they had not forgotten him. John Hogue's brother began his own campaign to defend his brother, going so far as to enlist the support of his state's then-current governor, John J. Cornwall.

Granted, it might be a far-fetched scenario to think the governor of an American state would be likely to agree to plead on behalf of a criminal detained in an entirely different country. But in the case of this criminal, the chances were somewhat better. Both John Hogue's father and younger brother were prominent civil engineers in the city of Charleston—capital, incidentally, of West Virginia. To say the family was "prominent," however, does not reveal the full line of connections in that family's heritage. Surprisingly, this man condemned in a Canadian court for murder was actually a descendant of one of the United States' own most revered Chief Justices, John Marshall.

Tracing that genealogical connection was where I left off with this story. While it may have seemed as if the story just fell off the table, having been pre-empted by holiday and post-holiday activities, I assure you there is more to be told. And we can pick up the trail again—this time, safe from further interruptions—with tomorrow's post.

Above: The document that started me asking all those questions, Manifest of the United States Department of Labor Immigration Service card for John Hogue; courtesy of Ancestry.com.

Tracks in the Midnight Snow

In Winnipeg, the crime was known as "the Robinson safe breaking affair," but the man under suspicion for masterminding it was called—at least by one newspaper account—William Anderson. Along with his accomplice, "Sheeney" Holmes, he was arrested and stood trial in that Manitoba city in October, 1916. By the time his sentence—a mere three months—was up, authorities had discovered he was wanted for a similar crime back in the United States.

To accommodate the Michigan jurisdiction which had requested his extradition, the criminal was to be transported by rail, escorted by a Canadian immigration official, to the city of Windsor in Ontario—which happens to lie directly across the river from the American city of Detroit. Then, in the intricate dance between jurisdictions not wanting to overstep the bounds of their authority, the Canadian law enforcement official would board a ferry with his charge to cross the Detroit River halfway, at which midpoint he would consummate the exchange of the prisoner with Michigan officials at the international border.

Just before Marshal Jackson was to complete that journey—the Canadian Pacific Railway train was three miles due east of its destination after midnight on January 24, 1917—his prisoner abruptly brought his manacled wrists upward, then quickly down upon the officer's head, partially stunning him. The momentary pause was all it took for the man to grab the officer's gun and shoot him with it, killing him instantly.

Shackled yet still holding the revolver, the man exited and then jumped from the moving train, apparently leaping without injury to the snowy field below. Though word spread quickly about the fugitive—over the next several hours, posses were formed from several nearby towns to aid in the search, and bloodhounds were called out in the chase—after two days, the trail was lost. Authorities speculated that their suspect had likely managed to slip away by somehow crossing the border into the United States—some even surmising that he had taken the risky route of attempting a crossing of the iced-over Detroit River.

The news traveled quickly back to Winnipeg, home of the slain officer. All in a jumble, the front page story there gave confusing reports on just who it was who had been shot. The headline said the victim was Detective Nesbitt, but in the story that followed, he was identified as Detective Jackson. The conclusion of the report, however, mentioned that there was no Detective Jackson on the Winnipeg force, and speculated that the slain was actually a private investigator in the area, frequently under contract to provide services to the local government.

Is it any surprise then—considering all the confusion in the wake of the uproar—that in the follow up report the next day, all in the same column the fugitive would also be identified by two different names? Despite the details provided by the Manitoba Free Press on Friday, January 26, 1917, concerning William Anderson and his three-month incarceration in Winnipeg leading up to this unexpected climax, perhaps owing to an editorial sleight-of-hand, one report overlaid another, and in one breath the article fingering William Anderson bluntly asserted the perpetrator was a man by a different name.

That other name, incidentally, was James Stewart—the same James Stewart wanted back in Battle Creek for blowing the safe in Arthur B. Mitchell's Billiard Hall.

Photograph above: The Canadian Pacific Railway station in Winnipeg, circa 1920—where the journey began on the long trip back east for Marshal Jackson and his prisoner in January 1917; courtesy Library and Archives Canada via Wikipedia; in the public domain.   

One More Stop

Genealogists sometimes find themselves grumbling when they discover the ancestor they're seeking may have been known by more than one name.

Think, then, of the task facing law enforcement officials in no less than six cities across the United States in seeking to apprehend the man who was known as James Stewart. That man came with at least four other aliases—and that was just the intel gleaned from his handiwork during the year of 1916.

After James Stewart blew open the safe at Arthur B. Mitchell's Billiard Hall in Battle Creek, Michigan, that March, his trail led officers to both Detroit and Toledo. With communication devices one hundred years ago much more limited than our instantaneous connections today, this was not an easy process to track Stewart's whereabouts. The effort to catch up with Stewart in Toledo—just after his release from detention by city police there—may have been a process taking days. Maybe even weeks. No wonder they lost his trail.

Though Stewart did, eventually, feel the need to skip the country—an astute conclusion reached by a fugitive sought by a half dozen law enforcement agencies—he didn't leave right away. It turned out that at least one of the law enforcement agencies hot in pursuit was the police department of Madison, Wisconsin. They didn't even realize they wanted him until two months after his escapade in Battle Creek.

And for good reason: on the night of May 7, 1916, Stewart found his way into the Orpheum Theater in Madison, broke into the box office, slid the small, movable safe into the coat closet to muffle the sound, blew it open, lifted its contents—one thousand dollars—and made his getaway. Nobody noticed anything was amiss until the next morning.

After that incident, wanted posters described the criminal as an "inveterate cigaret smoker," a gambler and "a dope fiend." Notice was posted to every law enforcement agency in the county and surrounding area. James Stewart's "Bertillon Views"—the mug shots from the scientific identification system developed by French policeman Alphonse Bertillon—were even published in the Madison newspaper.

All to no avail. The next time there was any mention of James Stewart was when he surfaced in Canada. And that was only because he had been arrested in Winnipeg, Manitoba—but not until the middle of January in the following year.

Above: Example of "Bertillon Views" of mug shot inventor, French police officer and biometrics researcher, Alphonse Bertillon, taken in 1913; courtesy Wellcome Library, London, available under Creative Commons Attribution only license CC BY 4.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/; via Wikipedia.

Revisiting Resources and Ryans

If there is one thing I've learned this year—and most recently, from following the lines of the Ryan and Guinan families—it's to remember to go back and look again for more records. If you are stumped with any of the ancestors you are researching, make an appointment with yourself to return to this same turf in a year, or even in six months, to revisit all the sites where you previously had struck out. Chances are good to very good that you will, upon your return, find new resources that hadn't been there previously.

It was good, taking this Guinan detour while muddling over my Ryan family connection. Granted, the connection seemed to become more and more tenuous. First, I moved from my husband's direct line, which went back to John Tully of Ballina in northern County Tipperary, to John's sister Johanna. With Johanna's marriage to Edward Ryan, somewhere in Ontario, Canada, I picked up the Ryan trail as the family surfaced in the Dakota Territory—later to become the state of North Dakota—and then abruptly vanished as mysteriously as they had appeared. To find clues on what had become of them, I branched out further to examine their in-laws, the siblings in the Patrick Guinan family, who, as I discovered later, moved back to Canada, just like the Ryans.

The end result—now that I've found additional newspaper holdings at various online repositories—was that I located obituaries on those related Guinans, providing just the explanation I was seeking. Now that I've found a source for Winnipeg area newspapers, I also have come full circle, back to the Ryan family that was first in question.

I had suspected that, as had the Guinan family, much of the Ryan family had returned to Canada. The Ryans, however, seemed to branch off in two directions. One side went further west, settling in Saskatchewan, with some of their descendants eventually going all the way to British Columbia. The other side gravitated toward the more urban setting of Winnipeg in Manitoba, almost directly north of their former home in North Dakota.

Edward and Johanna Ryan's son James was one who headed for Winnipeg—well, at least that is where he eventually landed. Just as I had discovered for his brother-in-law, Thomas Guinan, James left behind one item of interest to genealogical researchers as well: a thorough obituary.

There may well have been reason for this, as you will see in a moment. Apparently, James was connected to someone who also not only had ambition, but managed to accomplish what he dreamed.

Like his brother-in-law, Thomas Guinan, James Ryan had both a news report of his passing, and a follow-up article on his funeral. The latter, published in the Winnipeg Free Press on September 25, 1939, described him as a "pioneer resident of Manitoba." However, though it was interesting to read that the Monsignor sang the high mass, the only detail that seemed to provide any family connections was one listing a pallbearer as Stanley "Guiman"—likely, Thomas Guinan's second-oldest son. The brief mention that James Ryan had died at the home of "his daughter, in Chicago, Ill." was almost useless, omitting a key ingredient for genealogical research.

Thankfully, an earlier article, published in the same paper on September 20, provided more detail. It named the daughter—Margaret—and indicated that James was "a resident of Manitoba for more than 60 years."

The September 20, 1939, article nearly mirrored the life's history of James Ryan's brother-in-law, Thomas Guinan. James was

born in Paris, Ont., and was raised on a farm in Huron county. In 1878 he moved to western Canada and landed in St. Boniface from a Red river boat.

Of course, just as was necessary for the news report on Thomas Guinan, it seems the story on James Ryan may also need some fact-checking. The numbers don't seem to correspond with what I've found on census records, either in Canada or in the United States. However, according to the Winnipeg Free Press,

For a time he worked as a carpenter with the construction department of the C.P.R., and served in various capacities in the building of the line between Cross Lake and Jackfish Bay. He later returned to farming and for many years farmed in both Manitoba and North Dakota. In 1911 he retired and moved to Winnipeg, where he resided until recently.

Of course, there was the obligatory—and eagerly sought—section on those in the family who survived him.

Surviving, besides his son Joe, are two other sons, Patrick E., in Winnipeg; and Daniel F., of Vernon, B.C.; a daughter, Margaret, of Chicago, Ill., and Ann, in Winnipeg. 

 
For what seems to have been such a pedestrian life, it seems unusual to see, not merely an obituary, but an actual news report—the headline alone ran for three lines—of James Ryan's death. One might wonder why he rated so many valuable column inches—complete with photograph insertion—for what must have been a life story shared with many of his peers.

The answer to that question was likely provided with one small detail included toward the beginning of the article.

Mr. Ryan was the father of Joe Ryan, manager of the Blue Bombers rugby football team, and a member of the Winnipeg Free Press sports department.

 

Remembering an "Old-Timer"

When the long-sought obituary finally materializes for the ancestor one is researching, the question uppermost in mind, of course, is: will the newspaper report include that coveted list of relatives?

In the case of research on Thomas Guinan of Winnipeg—and formerly of Ontario and North Dakota—the answer was, thankfully, yes.

I'm not sure I would like to be remembered as an "old-timer," but that is how Thomas Guinan was presented in the long write-up published on May 5, 1937—three days after his death. Headlining the article, plainly enough, "T. Guinan, Old-Timer of Winnipeg, Dies," the Winnipeg Free Press devoted a good portion of two columns to a review of the man's life accomplishments.

Small wonder. The paper characterized the man as a "prominent figure in the development of Winnipeg and the west in the early part of the century."

Thomas Guinan's age was given as eighty—right away providing a warning to remember that all newspaper reports are suspect, when it comes to pristine accuracy. An earlier article had indicated that he was born six years earlier. Typo?

Still, the overall picture provides a guide for retracing the steps of Thomas Guinan's personal history.

Born in Huron county, Ont., on Nov. 10, 1856, he spent his early days on a farm near the village of Blake in Stanley county. Educated in the public schools of Ontario, he remained in that province until the late seventies, when he moved with his parents to North Dakota, where his family was one of the early settlers in the Langdon district.

Some of the details of his business dealings as a young adult we have already stumbled upon, thanks to newspaper reports in North Dakota, where Thomas had settled with the rest of the Guinan family.

Mr. Guinan later went into the hotel business at St. Thomas, N.D., where he lived for many years. Beginning in 1896, he served four years in the North Dakota legislature.

Of course, the main focus of Thomas Guinan's obituary would be his years spent back in Canada. Many of these details we've already uncovered, as well, including his original settlement in the Elm Creek area and his later involvement in the real estate business, headquartered in Winnipeg, as president of the Red River Land & Loan Company.

Remembering the article I had found yesterday on the court case calling some of his real estate deals into question, I was interested to see how the newspaper—now in retrospect—would portray that rough stretch of the Guinan history. In the circumspect graciousness reserved for the eulogized, the Free Press said merely that he "was instrumental in bringing many settlers to the west" and that "the present suburb of St. James was largely developed" by the Guinan company. However, the paper couldn't resist the understated reminder that

Mr. Guinan was a Conservative in politics, and was a staunch supporter of the late R. P. Roblin during his long term of office as premier of Manitoba.

Coming to the statement that all genealogists live for, the Free Press reported that Thomas Guinan was

survived by his widow and five children, Anne, Ethel, Thomas, Jr. and Stanley, all of Winnipeg, and Lawrence, of The Pas, Man.; three sisters, Mrs. Margaret Franklin, Grand Forks, N.D.; Mrs. Hector Falconer, Portland, Ore.; and Mrs. Thomas Graber, Regina, Sask.; and two brothers, Hugh, of Teulon, Man., and Daniel, of Moose Range, Sask.

Other than omitting the actual name of his widow, Thomas' obituary turned out to do a fine job of orienting us to the Guinan family constellation. As if wishing to further confirm the connection, the paper went on to include a post-funeral report on May 6, 1937, which added the names of the pallbearers, including Dan "Rayan" and Pat Ryan, likely nephews of Thomas Guinan through his by-then-deceased sister, Annie and her husband, James Ryan.

Newspapers being newspapers, that this obituary might have been embellished is a risk we have to take in seeking more information on the man. The political hot water swirling around the one episode of Thomas Guinan's career, though in this article presented quite innocuously, may well have led to what the newspaper benignly mentioned as the time when

he retired from business during the Great War and since then has lived quietly with his family....

However, dates and details of political analysis aside, the Guinan obituary provides us a guide through the underpinnings of Thomas' personal life, for which I am grateful. Between this tedious newspaper search, involving both the publications in North Dakota and in Winnipeg, and the outline of his family constellation, despite some discrepancies in details, I was finally able to locate a possible census record for the intact family before they left Ontario for North Dakota.

Not exactly in the "Stanley county" residence identified by the Free Press—and indexed under a spelling off by one critical letter—this 1871 census entry for the "Gainan" family in the Stanley district, still in Huron County, finally yielded the list of family members I had suspected would be the way it was. With Thomas at a promising fourteen years of age at that point, the list included the two brothers I had wondered about—Will and Joseph—as well as sister Annie and baby brother Hugh, likely named after the "Uncle Hugh Quigley" I had seen mentioned in various newspaper entries. Eight year old Margaret became the "Maggie" Guinan who later was wed to John Franklin in North Dakota. And Mary most likely later became Mrs. Falconer, mother of the unfortunate ten year old Stella, returned to her childhood home in North Dakota for burial.

Above: The "Gainan" family—likely the Guinan family—from the 1871 Canadian census for the Province of Ontario, Stanley township in Huron County. Image courtesy Ancestry.com.

Land Grabs: Doubting Thomas

Sometimes, it helps to go with your gut instincts.

Yesterday, I mentioned having that vague feeling, when looking at the Guinan brothers' enthusiasm over moving north from their Grafton-area farms to Canada. "Times are booming and he likes the country," reported the November 18, 1906, Daily Herald, out of nearby Grand Forks, North Dakota, concerning former resident Joseph Guinan. "Reports of the good climate and soil in that part of Canada are not exaggerated," affirmed another Daily Herald story about his brother, William Guinan, later on February 10, 1911.

Really?

I couldn't help but think that maybe, just maybe, someone had a vested interest in getting rid of some property.

While GenealogyBank.com gave me the scoop on what was happening among the Guinan brothers, back home in North Dakota, I had to turn to NewspaperArchive.com to scour the reports from the Winnipeg side of the story. Sure enough, there was land to be sold and money to be made, and apparently at least one of the Guinans was in the midst of the deal.

Of course, I can't entirely be sure this is one of our Guinans. After all, trawling through 196 hits from my Guinan search at GenealogyBank gifted me with information overload. After diagramming and time-lining who was related to whom—a multi-hour project, I assure you—at least I can say I think this is one of our Guinan brothers.

The furor all seemed to center around the business savvy of one Thomas Guinan. He, in turn, was apparently related to both Joseph Guinan and our William Guinan, husband of the by-then-deceased daughter of Edward and Johanna Ryan (you know: either Margaret or Mary).

The trail northward started, sadly, with a report of the death of a ten year old girl, Stella Falconer. Though she had died in Elm Creek, Manitoba—due north about one hundred miles from the Guinan properties near Hoople, North Dakota—her parents had chosen to return her body to the family burial plot at Saint Thomas. Thus, her obituary appeared in the newspaper of the nearby Grand Forks, North Dakota: the Daily Herald of October 19, 1902.

Frustratingly, that obituary did not exactly mention the precise relationships between the Falconers and the Guinan family, but both Thomas and Will Guinan were mentioned as joining the funeral party on its journey southward from Canada, including the detail that they would be staying at the home of Joe Guinan.

So, who was this Thomas Guinan? As it turns out, following his trail through archived newspaper reports not only painted a colorful picture, but yielded the back story, once I arrived at his own obituary, later in 1937.

I had made a mental note about one entry I found early on, which hadn't specifically mentioned Thomas' name; only in retrospect was I able to go back and retrieve it as ours. From "The City: Bits of News" in Grand Forks' January 23, 1897, Daily Herald:

Representative Guinan, of Pembina County, tarried in the city yesterday. Guinan is good looking and a blamed nice fellow.

The good-looking representative, evidently, left his position before the time of the Falconer funeral in 1902. At least, we can assume. In the next news report I found of him, a decade later, he was billed as president of the Red River Loan and Land Company, presumably out of Winnipeg, where his ads were spotted in The Manitoba Free Press. Here's a sample of the copy from his ad run on March 21, 1912:

For Sale: Bergen and Rosser lands. 1840 ACRES—Known as the Clarke Howe Farm. This splendidly equipped farm is owned by me and I am offering the same for sale. All the land is under cultivation. Two sets splendid buildings, 3 windmills and water for unlimited stock. 1,000 acres ready for crop. For a quick sale $65.00 an acre. $25,000 cash; balance 5 years, at 6%.

It was a politically-instigated article appearing a few years earlier, though, that cast Thomas Guinan in a different light. Headlines from the March 3, 1909, Manitoba Free Press—only three years before the "postage stamp province" had its current borders established—shrieked, "Land Transaction Should Be Investigated."

The headlines went on to explain,

Sixteen thousand acres of swamp area transferred to the Province in December, 1907, were immediately sold to Thomas Guinan, who resold at a profit of from $2 to $3 an acre.

And that was just the headline.

From what appeared to be a politically-motivated vendetta against the then-current province premier, Sir Rodmond Roblin, a "public accounts committee" launched a "preliminary hearing" into a particular land transaction which was considered to have "some peculiar features."

That transaction, of course, was the land swap masterminded by none other than Thomas Guinan, the one whose brothers were so enthusiastically endorsing the popularity of moves north to Canada.

In that same March 9, 1909, Manitoba Free Press article on page five, every detail of the hearing was reported, down to the haggling by the Attorney General over questions plied during cross examination, and offense taken over insinuations that "a prominent Liberal" might have been somehow implicated in impropriety during the land transactions.

Whatever came of that episode in Mr. Guinan's life I haven't been able to determine. However, later newspaper entries of a more mundane nature did help to reveal some of Thomas Guinan's life history. From the Manitoba Free Press of November 9, 1912, a benign article entitled "Birthday Congratulations To," provided a helpful sketch:

Thomas Guinan (Winnipeg); born, Huron County, Ont., Nov. 10, 1850; member of North Dakota legislature, 1896-1900, when he moved to Winnipeg; president of Red River Loan and Land Company. 

The unfortunate report, July 22, 1916, of the death of Thomas Guinan's eldest daughter, Kate—then twenty five—revealed the detail that she was "born at St. Thomas, N.D., and removed with her parents to Winnipeg about 15 years ago." She, like the Falconers' daughter in 1902, found her final resting place at the family plot back in North Dakota.

But it was discovery of Thomas' own obituary, when his own last moments had arrived in 1937, that provided the complete road map of his life's travels—and, as you may have guessed, the story of how the rest of the Guinan family and their associated in-laws had made the journey from their original home in Ontario to the American farmland of North Dakota and then back again to Canada.

That, however, includes enough detail to merit a post of its own—tomorrow.