When Life Teaches You Genealogy

I had a horrible thought the other night while writing yesterday's post. This morning, something happened to change all that...

I've heard insanity defined as doing the same thing over and over again, yet expecting different results.

Perhaps, in my case, it has seemed insane to keep poring over the same people's history, hoping to find the smoking gun evidence to answer my question of how it was that two single women in the northwestern frontier of 1800s Ohio would have the guts to travel yet farther west to an outpost near present-day Saint Louis. After all, no matter which way I attack the research problem, I keep coming up with the same result: no documentation that I can find, yet indications that others are saying with certainty the exact date and location for the wedding of Sarah Howard Ijams (the Ohioan) and John Jay Jackson (the quartermaster stationed at Fort Belle Fontaine).

How did they find those details?

How come I can't find that documentation?

And so, wearyingly, I linger over lists of possible proofs, dawdle amidst details of military campaigns—over and over again, rehashing the obvious in hopes of culling the minutest details that would help narrow the focus of my search. And, hopefully, point me to some indication that, yes, it really was true: this couple did actually get married at the right place and the right time.

Insane, I know. But I keep at it.

So, this morning, I awaken to my daughter asking me if I know how to turn on the shower.

I know: that is an unusual request. After all, showering is one of those activities of daily life that we repeat mindlessly. It seems like insanity to have asked such a question.

But today, we are not at home. I'm actually writing this post from the hotel where our family is staying while my husband attends a business conference.

To set the stage for my daughter's un-insane request (after all, if doing the same thing repeatedly yet hoping for differing results is insanity, wouldn't that make doing the same thing expecting the same results the opposite of insanity?), let me remind you that such mundane details as how a bathroom is designed may remain standardized, say, if you were traveling in the same country as that in which you live. For those who have traveled internationally, however, it is very obvious that the engineering of such customary conveniences may turn out to be quite unexpected. Witness my daughter's travels to Ireland last year, when in her first day's sleep-deprived stupor, she couldn't figure out how to do something as routine as turning on the lights in her hotel room.

I assure you, the same sort of thing happens when encountering foreign bathrooms.

Lest you think I am now traveling in Zimbabwe or Kazakhstan, let me put your mind at rest. I'm really only three hundred miles away from home. Yet I'm staying in a rather nice hotel—an impeccably landscaped property where the management chose to customize their shower design.

This is where the definition of insanity kicks in. Roused from my sleep to answer my daughter's question, I go in to inspect the shower design. As I suspected, it was one of those configurations without separate faucets for cold and hot water. One knob did it all. One customized knob.

That knob and I had quite the pre-coffee morning encounter. I twirled it to call it to action. I got action: water coming out the bathtub spout. No shower.

I pulled it. I pushed it. I rotated the knob further. I tipped it. I pressed it. Like a blind soul trying to locate the braille readout, I worked my fingers along every edge of that knob, as well as along the spigot. All I could find was one streamlined design: no hint of abberations. No clue to reveal the magic button.

It was after the third attempt at doing the same thing—turning the knob the full extent of its range, hoping it would click over to routing the water upwards through the shower head—when I remembered that definition of insanity.

Why would anyone choose to be insane?

I stopped.

But that just killed me. After all, we were going to need to take a shower at some point. So we hit upon a different course. We brilliantly deduced that, in the wee hours of the morning when dutiful conference attendees have to get up and prepare for a full day of education, my husband had surely already fought this battle. He obviously engaged the enemy and overcame him. He certainly smelled shower-fresh when he kissed me goodbye through the sleep-deprived haze.

We were about to text him for the secret password to shower operation when it just overcame me: I was not about to succumb to an unconquered shower head. Insanity or not, I was going to head back to that bathroom and get the best of that customized snobbery. I was going to make that shower submit.

And here was just the point at which I learned that doing the same thing over and over again hoping for different results is not always insanity. This time, something in that streamlined, customized design—something that had gotten stuck the other three times and didn't function quite the way it was supposed to work—sprung loose from its moorings and dropped into place.

It was a small, rectangular steel bar. With gravity—and, obviously, pointed in the right direction—the bar was supposed to drop into place and redirect the water stream from its downward flow to the bathtub upward through the pipes to the shower head. This time, a delicate stream of diffused water emerged from just the spot I had anticipated the other three times I had tried this trick.

As I crawled back into bed, trying to orient myself to the fact that it was now a fresh new day, the experience reminded me of another attempt I had been making—one that I was sorely tempted to re-dub as insanity. It snatched me away from the brink of giving up on this Jackson-Ijams pursuit, gently reminding me that, sometimes, doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results is, in fact, not insanity.

Sometimes, those prissy little customized steel bars that malfunctioned the other three times finally decide to fall right into place.

Whistler's Forts

Just like John Jay Jackson—my husband's fourth great grandfather whose life history we are trying to piece together—Captain John Whistler was a man assigned to build military outposts. It may well be this very propensity that led to Jackson's meeting and, ultimately, marrying Sarah Howard Ijams.

To check this possibility, let's review John Jackson's fort-building itinerary, and then move on to that of the Captain.

When I first began researching John Jackson, one narrative providing a listing of his service was in the book, Pioneers of Perry County, Ohio, by 1830, published by the Perry County Chapter of the Ohio Genealogical Society. I had first written about this discovery after my return from a visit to the Allen County Public Library, where I had found the entry. (It was, incidentally, the excerpt that clued me in that my husband's sisters are eligible to join the Daughters of the American Revolution.)

Basically, once John Jackson enlisted in the army as part of the 4th Regiment of U.S. Riflemen, he was eventually sent down river from Pittsburgh to Fort Belle Fontaine near Saint Louis, then up the Mississippi to Prairie du Chien, where, among other assignments, he participated in the building of Fort Crawford.

John Whistler, enlisting in the United States Army much earlier than John Jackson, had also been sent to the western frontier. He was involved in battle there as early as the Harmar campaign in 1790. His first assignment in the area that was to become Fort Wayne—the location at which I suspect these families eventually met—was in 1794.

That was an assignment specifically to build the fort there in Indiana territory. Whistler was not stationed there for long, however, as by July of 1797, he was transferred to Fort Lernoult in Michigan, and then again, by the summer of 1803, he was assigned to participate in building yet another fort.

This time, he was part of the company building Fort Dearborn, which location later became the site of the city of Chicago. All the while, John Whistler was being promoted through the ranks, and by the time of his stay at the new Fort Dearborn, he became its first commandant.

That was far from his final assignment, however. Due to a dispute with a prominent local trader, Whistler was transferred back to Detroit—a fortunate "setback" for him, personally, as it preceded the Fort Dearborn massacre by about two years.

After his service in the War of 1812, John Whistler eventually returned to Fort Wayne—this time, with the charge to rebuild the now-decaying old fort.

Tracing Captain Whistler's military whereabouts, however, was not entirely a straightforward endeavor. Depending on which narrative we follow, we'll see other forts were part of his tour of duty—but they are not clearly specified in reports of his assignments.

Some of these forts, as we'll soon see, have significance to our exploration of the personal micro-history involving John Jackson. Some of these assignments may help us determine the time and location of the Ijams-Jackson nexus. Others may reveal the possibility of a younger William Ijams—likely, Sarah Howard Ijams' brother—being the go-between leading either to the marriage of Whistler to Sarah's widowed mother, or to that of Sarah, herself, and John Jackson.

Exploring further records about Fort Wayne may also provide hints about these connections. Perhaps you remember my stumbling upon the newspaper article, written back in 1990 in Toledo (of all places), reporting on a roleplaying exhibit in which the main characters stationed at Fort Wayne were named John Whistler and William Ijams. Who picked out names like those? That couldn't have been a script writer's choice based solely upon coincidence or artistic whimsy.

Then, too, it may be the records of Fort Wayne—and also, possibly, those of Fort Washington by Cincinnati—will help us more closely place both the times of the Whistler family's interface with the Ijams family and the timeline of Whistler's first wife's death.

Keep in mind: at one point—either at the first, when Whistler enlisted with the U.S. Army, or at a later point—Whistler was posted at Fort Washington, located at Cincinnati. This assignment becomes important when, recalling the custom back then of wives moving along with their husbands during their military assignments, the locations where they stayed as families may reveal possibilities of the families' social connections. I've also ended up tracing Whistler's service based on his children's birth places. Knowing where he was stationed—and when—will become necessary when I need to zero in on details related to our Ijams and Jackson stories.

It may be the timeline of Whistler's first wife's death will help us pinpoint the date and location of his second marriage to the Ijams widow. More than that, due to the possibility of these women—Anna Whistler and Elizabeth Ijams—living with their husbands at these same forts, it may be likely that, long before that second marriage, Elizabeth Howard Ijams already knew John Whistler.

Above: Image of the signature of Captain John Whistler, from B. J. Griswold's 1917 volume, The Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, Indiana; in the public domain.

Tracing a Third Connection

Whistler is a name that has embedded itself in the American consciousness in a small but indellible way. If you have ever heard of the portrait known as "Whistler's Mother," you are more likely to be able to tell me that it was painted by James Abbott McNeill Whistler than that it was officially named, "Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1."

However, for our purposes today, it is not Whistler's mother I'm seeking—nor James Whistler, himself—but Whistler's grandfather, Captain John Whistler.

As we've already seen, all my research contortions, in hoping to discover just how it was that John Jay Jackson in Saint Louis would come to meet Sarah Howard Ijams of central Ohio, have up to this point proved fruitless. However, a chance discovery in the military records from the War of 1812 yesterday led us to someone bearing the exact same name and Maryland whereabouts as Sarah's father, William Ijams.

It just so happened that this younger William Ijams at one point served under Captain John Whistler at Fort Wayne. As far-fetched as it may seem at this point, the connection between this other William Ijams and John Whistler may be the very point leading us to an explanation of how John Jay Jackson met up with William Ijams' daughter, Sarah. Before we can contemplate the possibilities, though—and why they might be useful to our current research mission—we first need to explore what can be discovered about John Whistler, himself.

John Whistler had an interesting military career—actually, in one way, unusual. Although ridden with conflicting reports, his was a story in which most of the inconsistencies do not detract from what we need to know about his career path.

Born about 1756 in Great Britain—most likely, in or near Ulster in Ireland—John Whistler was reported to have run away from home as a teen and joined the British army, serving under General John Burgoyne during the years of what their colonial American enemies might have referred to as the Revolution. With the surrender of the British general at the Battle of Saratoga in 1777, Burgoyne's entire captured army became prisoners of war, including John Whistler.

Though at this point, there are conflicting reports of Whistler's timeline, after the war's conclusion, he eventually married and settled in Maryland.

Before 1790, however, Whistler had joined the army again—only this time, it was the United States Army—and in its service was stationed at various outposts in their western frontier over the course of the next two decades.

With the start of the War of 1812, he served with his company in the First Infantry, under General William Hull, who had charge of the United States Army in the northwest. That particular general had been instructed to prepare for an invasion of Canada, but ended up surrendering to the enemy at Fort Detroit despite outnumbering the British forces, thus putting John Whistler in the ironic position, during his military career, of having become a prisoner of war on each side of America's two early wars with Great Britain—as a British soldier captured by the colonists in 1777, and as an American soldier captured by the British in 1812.

What makes John Whistler of interest to our story, however, is that he served in the capacity of building or rebuilding forts in various locations along the waterways of the then-western portions of the United States—not unlike my husband's fourth great grandfather, John Jay Jackson. Here we stumble upon a possible nexus—not only with this other, so far unidentified William Ijams, but with John Jackson, as well.

There is yet another event that strengthens this possibility—though just as lacking in documentation as the other connections. This one involves the Captain's own bereavement of his wife, Anna, and remarriage, within the next few years, to none other than the widowed wife of the elder William Ijams, Sarah Howard Ijams' father.

So now we have three parties, somehow connecting: Captain John Whistler, various members of the William Ijams family, and John Jay Jackson, the quartermaster stationed at Fort Belle Fontaine near Saint Louis. It will take a closer look at Captain John Whistler's assignments before, during and after the War of 1812 to discern where that connection between the three parties might have occurred.

Above: Illustration of Captain John Whistler from B. J. Griswold's 1917 volume, The Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, Indiana; in the public domain.

Another William Serving

While it appears our William Ijams was too old to serve during the War of 1812, there was another man by that same name whose file showed up in the archives of War of 1812 records. This William Ijams enlisted at Pittsburgh for a period of five years, beginning March 2, 1812.

According to his record, he was a man of dark eyes, dark hair and dark complexion, standing about five feet seven and a half inches tall. William Ijams had been a laborer and farmer, born in Washington County, Maryland. At the point of his enlistment, he gave his age as thirty two, thus giving us an approximate year of birth in 1780.

This William Ijams was assigned to serve in the First United States Infantry under the company's commander, Captain Hugh Moore.

Though this most likely was not our William Ijams, what was interesting about this man with that identical name was the description of his service, as provided in the Records of Men Enlisted in the U.S. Army.

Appointed Corporal May 1/13. Present Sept. 25, Nov. 1, 14, Dec. 20/13, May 1 & Oct. 20/14. D.R. Capt. John Whistler's Co. Feby. 15 & I.R., June 30/15, Sergeant, Present. D.R. 3d U.S. Infy. Oct 1/15. Present, Joined from 1st Infty. Book 570. Discharged from Capt. C. Larrabee's Co. at Fort Wayne, March 2 or 3/17. Term expired. See Pension case.

While I've unfortunately been unable to locate that pension case mentioned in the summary transcribed above, the War of 1812 pension papers are still in the process of being digitized and posted online. Hopefully, this William Ijams' record will soon be accessible—and in a place where I can find it.

Even though this William Ijams was likely not our Sarah Howard Ijams' father, since he also came from Maryland as did our family, there is a possibility of a relationship with our Ijams family. At least, this is a lead to check out.

But more than that is a different detail that catches my eye—that of the location from which he was discharged. And one other name mentioned in this summary of William Ijams' service: that of his captain, John Whistler.

Before I can explain why that connection might be significant, we first need to explore a bit more about just who John Whistler was, something we'll begin with tomorrow's post.

Which William—and Which War?

If one approach to a research question doesn't yield results, the best tack is to switch tracks and try a different approach. Thus, in seeking to find the smoking gun which would demonstrate how John Jay Jackson in Missouri Territory managed to meet—and ultimately marry—Sarah Howard Ijams from central Ohio, I've jumped from trailing the path of Jackson's military service to exploring any possible military service of Sarah's own father, William Ijams.

I know very little about William Ijams—mostly, the fact that he was buried in a small cemetery in Fairfield County, and that his sons were known in nearby Perry County, Ohio. That, of course, provides me very little information to intuit how his daughter became smitten with a soldier stationed nearly five hundred miles away.

Now, however, is just as good a time as any to find out more.

My theory is that William Ijams must also have been a military person. After all, what were the chances, given that time period, the relatively small number of settlers, and the opportunity for land grants in the northwestern territory, based on prior military service?

Since his Find A Grave entry pegged his year of birth as 1748, it seemed unlikely that William would have served in the War of 1812. By then, he would have been in his sixties. But the Revolutionary War was a more reasonable possibility. He would have been a young, vigorous man in his late twenties at that point.

So, first stop on this Ijams foray must be the repository for all resources Revolutionary: the website of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Indeed, there was an entry for a William Ijams, handily matching the dates I had found at Find A Grave. According to the D.A.R. Ancestor Search, William Ijams was born "circa" 1848 and died "ante" March 9, 1816. There is no explanation given for the reasoning behind the estimation that he died precisely before March 9 of 1816, though seeing that, I wonder if that is the date when his widowed wife remarried.

The D.A.R. record shows the place of his passing to be Fairfield County, Ohio, so that entry agrees with the burial record. The D.A.R. file also showed his place of birth to be Anne Arundel County in Maryland. In addition, it confirms that William's wife was the former Elizabeth Howard, likely also from Maryland.

Did he serve in the Continental Army? While I haven't yet found any record for Ijams' service, the D.A.R. records show his status as Patriot was owing to his having taken an oath of allegiance in 1778.

Still, that patriotic moment wouldn't necessarily have led to a lifelong military commitment—the type that would have ended up permitting his daughter Sarah to have met a young soldier by the name of John Jay Jackson.

Perhaps there was another connection.

Above: 1897 lithograph published by G. H. Buek & Co, New York, showing the Infantry of the Continental Army, 1779-1783 as depicted by artist Henry Alexander Ogden; courtesy United States Library of Congress via Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Where's William?

If following the assignments of John Jay Jackson's military officers couldn't enlighten me on his whereabouts when he made the decision to marry out-of-town visitor, Sarah Howard Ijams, perhaps following another line of reasoning could yield answers to how they connected.

At least, I can hope.

As the story went, concerning the marriage of John and Sarah, he was stationed at Fort Belle Fontaine near Saint Louis, and she had recently lost her father in Fairfield County, Ohio. Not exactly living in the same neighborhood. Something had to connect them.

Apparently, during the course of his military service, Jackson's captains could be found in Pennsylvania, upstate New York, Upper Canada, up the Mississippi, and even in Indiana—but not in Ohio. How could John have met Sarah?

Perhaps the answer lies more in the camp of Sarah's family and their whereabouts. Remember the post wherein I described my discovery of women—and even children—following the men enlisted in the army during that era? As the men were still building some of the outposts in those western territories, their families sometimes lived in the very quarters the soldiers did.

What if Sarah's dad was one of those enlisted men? Admittedly, I know very little about Sarah's father, William Ijams. About the only detail I've been able to find so far has been a photograph of a very sunken headstone, resting quite precariously in a small cemetery, back in Ohio. According to the records there, William was born in 1748 and died in 1815. He was buried at the Stevenson Ruffner Cemetery, once the site of the Stevenson Methodist Campground in Fairfield County, Ohio.

Admittedly, it was unlikely that women and children followed their men during the height of battle, but after the war was over, would the Ijams family have reunited somewhere near a fort where he might have been stationed?

Then, again, which war would we be discussing? After all, with William's date of birth being back in 1748, his era would more likely be that of the Revolution than the War of 1812. Would he still be in service, as late as 1812?

First step in checking out William's whereabouts would be to see if there was any paperwork on military service for him at all—regardless of which war. Then, to see whether we can ferret out indications of where he—and thus his family—might have been living. Hopefully, these might yield us some clues as to how the Ijams family might have crossed paths with John Jackson.

Above: "Landscape," 1915 oil on canvas by Canadian-born artist, Ernest Lawson; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Before Moving On

Exploring the military history surrounding the life of one individual—my husband's fourth great grandfather, John Jay Jackson—was edifying for several reasons. While it didn't help me uncover the pressing question I need answered—just how it came to be that John Jackson met up with a gal from Maryland who was living in Ohio, when he had been stationed near Saint Louis—the pursuit has been edifying.

Besides gaining an understanding of the times and customs surrounding military service in what was then the western outposts of the United States, the search armed me with several resources which I can now add to my bibliography of go-to references for that time period.

Two of those resources which I didn't get to use specifically—and thus didn't include the hyperlinks in this recent narrative—I want to mention before we move on with our pursuit of the Jackson-Ijams wedding story.

One of those resources is a handy listing of army personnel, published in 1837—not long after the years in question in my study. Assembled by William A. Gordon of the United States War Department, its title tells all: A Compilation of Registers of the Army of the United States From 1815 to 1837, Inclusive.

Admittedly, this volume makes for dull reading. What it lacks in drama, it makes up for in utility. It is mostly a listing of names of men in their companies, divided by assignments and years. The added bonus is revealed in its subtitle: "A list of officers on whom brevets were conferred by the President of the United States, for gallant conduct or meritorious services during the war with Great Britain." Perhaps the high point of the volume is when you turn to the page which contains the entry on your own ancestor.

The second resource, which I stumbled upon only thanks to Google, was a website—no, actually, it is officially a blog. Prepared by someone who obviously spent a lot of time assembling useful links and anecdotes simply because of personal interest, it is called, in a rather straightforward manner, "My Military History Research Interests."

In a post devoted to the Rifle Regiments—that specific interest which drew me to the website in the first place—the blogger explains,

This is a work in progress based on my curiosity about the more obscure individual riflemen as found on the open web. It is not intended to be an all inclusive or definitive listing....

While I was, of course, disappointed that my Rifle Regiment representative didn't make the cut among this blogger's listing of "more obscure riflemen"—I guess he wasn't "obscure" enough—when I find a neat resource, of course I want to share it.

Now that I've bookmarked those two resources for future reference—and shared it with you, in case you, too, want to pursue further study on your War of 1812 veterans—I can face the next step in pursuit of an answer to my question.

That, however, will once again require a detour. Answering such questions never seems to be quite as easy as we hoped.

Above: "An Indiana Road," 1889 oil on canvas by American Impressionist painter of Indiana landscapes, Theodore Clement Steele; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.