Henry Burden, Horseshoes, and the Civil War

By Michelle Shocklee

Researching genealogy can lead a person to so many fascinating things! My family has always known that my great grandfather on my mom's dad's side fought for the Union Army during the Civil War. It's with some pride that we speak of Isaiah Charles's willingness to join the Indiana volunteer army. He participated in some skirmishes and left the service after his 100 days was complete. Last week, however, a cousin posted a picture of my great-great-grandfather on my grandmother's side of the family with information that came as quite a shock. Lewis had been a farrier during the Civil War...for the Confederates!

Horses used in the Civil War; Library of Congress

Of course, being a history nerd and researcher, I had to read up on the Civil War, farriers, and such. I discovered some interesting things!

Photo of a hipposandal (Gallo-Roman horseshoe).
On display at the Musee d'Ermont, France.
Photo taken by NantonosAedui.

People have attempted to protect horse hooves for centuries. Early foot coverings were made from leather or rawhide, often shaped like a sort of boot. Some of these devices were referred to as hipposandals. In the writings of the Roman poet Catullus in the 1st century BC, he mentions a mule losing its shoe. This could mean something like a hipposandal, or it could possibly be a reference to the first type of horseshoe that we are familiar with today. Some historians don't believe it was made of iron, however, since that metal was not as plentiful as it is today. But whatever the "shoe" was made from, it was probably crafted as a single shoe by someone with farrier skills. 

Henry Burden; Public domain

Over the centuries, horseshoe making was refined and eventually became what we use today. In 1835, however, a man named Henry Burden would revolutionize the process. Mr. Burden, a Scotsman who immigrated to the United States in 1819, was an engineer, inventor, and businessman, eventually opening Burden Iron Works in Troy, New York. It was here that Burden came up with the idea to mass produce horseshoes. His invention ultimately had the ability to produce 60 horseshoes in one minute.  Like any wise businessman, Henry kept the details of his invention a secret. When the Civil War started, Burden became the main supplier of horseshoes to the Union Army. 

As you can imagine, millions of horses were used by both sides during the war, requiring millions of horseshoes. It's been said that one of the South's downfalls was its lack of industry and its reliance on Northern and foreign imports, and that included horseshoes. When Union blockades prevented shipments from reaching southern troops, the Confederates grew desperate. They sent spies to New York in the hopes of obtaining the plans for Mr. Burden's horseshoe-making machine so it could be replicated in the south. The plot failed, forcing the Confederates to send raiding parties north in efforts to steal shipments of horseshoes from Yankee railroads and wagon trains. Many people believe Mr. Burden's horseshoes played a significant role in the Union's ultimate victory. 

Farrier at work; Public domain

I don't know any details of what my great-great grandfather experienced while he served as a farrier for the Confederacy. He died in El Paso, Texas in 1862, soon after the New Mexico campaign, leaving behind a wife and a nine-year old son, my great grandpa. While I wish he had chosen to fight for the other side, I'm glad to learn more about him. 

Your turn: What surprising discoveries have you made about your ancestors? Tell me about them!

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Michelle Shocklee is the author of several historical novels, including Count the Nights by Stars, winner of the 2023 Christianity Today Book Award, and Under the Tulip Tree, a Christy Awards and Selah Awards finalist. Her work has been included in numerous Chicken Soup for the Soul books, magazines, and blogs. Married to her college sweetheart and the mother of two grown sons, she makes her home in Tennessee, not far from the historical sites she writes about. Visit her online at www.MichelleShocklee.com

               COUNT THE NIGHTS BY STARS

*2023 Christianity Today Book Award Winner*

1961. After a longtime resident at Nashville’s historic Maxwell House Hotel suffers a debilitating stroke, Audrey Whitfield is tasked with cleaning out the reclusive woman’s room. There, she discovers an elaborate scrapbook filled with memorabilia from the Tennessee Centennial Exposition. Love notes on the backs of unmailed postcards inside capture Audrey’s imagination with hints of a forbidden romance . . . and troubling revelations about the disappearance of young women at the exposition. Audrey enlists the help of a handsome hotel guest as she tracks down clues and information about the mysterious “Peaches” and her regrets over one fateful day, nearly sixty-five years earlier.
https://www.tyndale.com/p/count-the-nights-by-stars/9781496459930

     

Solving a Mystery on an Indian Reservation

This post is brought to you by Janalyn Voigt.

Traveling the Oregon Trail Backwards, A Road Trip Adventure, Part 9

Along with a female family member and our children, I was headed to Missouri for a family reunion. It seemed fitting that an exploration of my national heritage should dovetail into the celebration of my personal heritage. The reunion was of my mother's relatives, but I hoped to solve a mystery on my father's side of the family when I stopped at the tribal seat of the Sac and Fox nation of Missouri. My grandfather, whom I’d never known, came from the Iowa branch of this tribe, also known as the Meskwaki, which means ‘people of the red earth.’ I wasn’t sure I could find out anything about ‘Eddie’ (the only name I had for my grandfather), but I wanted to try.

The road led through farm lands from the Sod House Museum in Nebraska to Reserve, Kansas, headquarters of the Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri in Nebraska and Kansas. The unprepossessing town boasted a small museum. This seemed the logical place to inquire about my grandfather. A local man held the door for my family group as we entered the museum. He listened without apology while I explained to the woman behind the counter the circumstances surrounding my father’s birth. He introduced himself and his interest seemed friendly, so I didn’t mind.

I explained that my Scottish grandmother, Minnie, fell in love with a Meskwaki man at the tender age of sixteen. Her straight-laced father refused to allow his daughter to marry an Indian. Eddie and Minnie decided to force the issue by conceiving a child. This did not work out as they planned. Minnie was sent off to live with an aunt in Springfield, Missouri. She later told my father that her brothers had tarred and feathered Eddie and run him out of town on a rail. During my teen years, Dad confided to me that when my grandfather realized he would never marry the woman he loved, he committed suicide. When I mentioned this story to other family members years later, none of them had heard it.

By then, there was no one to ask for clarity. Grandma had guarded her secrets, even from her son. She died when my father was fourteen. Now Dad was gone too. Mom couldn’t verify what my father had told me. My grandmother’s family held the ‘filthy Indian’ who had ruined her in a contempt that, unfortunately, extended to my father. He’d once looked up his aunt. She’d ordered him off the porch and warned him never to return. I’ve come to believe that Dad wasn’t sure he knew the truth about his father. He died without ever solving that mystery, despite making several trips to the reservation in Iowa.

I've always thought that my father, Carl Thomas Weise (named for his step-father), resembled Chief Black Hawk of the Sac tribe in the image on the right from George Catlin [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

The tragedy of his birth shaped my Dad’s life and, in some respects, my own. Racial prejudice comes up repeatedly as a theme in my writing. I dedicated Cheyenne Sunrise (Montana Gold 2) to my father's memory and gave the hero, Nick Laramie, my father’s and grandfather’s struggles. Nick, the son of a French trapper and Cheyenne woman, belongs to neither of his parent’s people. He resists falling in love with Bryanna Brennan, the beautiful Irish widow traveling West for a fresh start, certain he can never marry her.

Back to my visit to the museum. The Sac and Fox tribe is actually two interconnected tribes combined into one. The close relationships this would seem to indicate may be why I thought the southern tribe would know about members of the northern branch, two states away. The woman in the museum (whose name I’ve since forgotten) told me gently that they didn’t. Apparently, many people contact the museum trying to prove a genealogical connection to the tribe. I was just one more. Considering the prejudice my father encountered in his lifetime, it’s ironic that having Native American ancestry is now glamorous. The woman explained that most of the claims of Sac-Fox ancestry she fielded didn’t pan out, and researching them added to her workload. She hastened to add that my story had the ring of truth. Given the sparse information I was able to give her, she probably couldn’t find out anything to help, but she gave me her contact information. The man who had listened silently pressed me to buy a sweatshirt emblazoned with the tribe’s logo. This seemed important to him, and my throat clogged when I understood his intent. He wanted to give me a shred of the heritage I’d lost.

The logo that graces my sweatshirt comes from the flag of the Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri in Nebraska and Kansas.

It struck me as I drove away that I no longer needed to search for my grandfather. With their small kindnesses, the two people who had shared my story in the museum had given me what I’d been searching for. In Cheyenne Sunrise, Nick Laramie’s yearning to belong echoed my own unrecognized desire.

I purchased one of the tribal sweatshirts before leaving town. Whenever I wear it, I remember the small kindnesses given to me that day. Whether the tribe ever acknowledges me no longer matters. I've adopted them.

Cheyenne Sunrise releases February 1, 2018. 

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• Learn about Hills of Nevermore (Montana Gold, book 1).

About Janalyn Voigt

My father instilled a love of literature in me at an early age by reading chapters from "The Wizard of Oz," "Robinson Crusoe" and other classics. When I grew older, and he stopped reading bedtime stories, I put myself to sleep with tales I "wrote" in my head. My sixth-grade teacher noticed my storytelling ability and influenced me to become a writer.

I'm what is known as a multi-genre author, but I like to think of myself as a storyteller. The same elements appear in all my novels in proportions dictated by their genre: romance, mystery, adventure, history, and whimsy.

 Escape into creative worlds of fiction at http://janalynvoigt.com.

Pamila Draper White - Upper Canada Heroine

I'm continuing my series on interesting Upper Canada pioneers who happen to be ancestors, and in that vein, this post is about Pamila Draper, my husband's 2nd great aunt, whose claim to fame is defending her home against drunken men using only a pair of tongs. As someone who was born on the trail while her United Empire Loyalist parents fled into the untamed Canadian wilderness, Pamila's life is worth passing on in this modern world of ours. 

Researching Pamila's father, Rev Joel Draper Sr, born in/near Boston, Mass, around 1889, and the families of several Draper siblings who made the journey into Upper Canada together is very difficult as the siblings never revealed the names of their parents on any documents such as birth or marriage records, simply referring to them as Father Draper, Mother Draper, or left blank.

Pamila's mother, on the other hand, was Mary Crittenden, born in Oneida, New York around 1886. Mary's lineage is well documented and my research has taken it to the shores of Connecticut where a ship of Puritan Crittendens landed, and then farther back to Henry Crittenden/Cruttenden, born 1530 in  Kent, England.

As for Pamila, she was born somewhere in New York on Aug 20, 1804. We don't know exactly when the family crossed into Canada, but a family record at the Georgina Pioneer Village & Archives shows that on Aug 14th, 1807, Joel Draper bought land in North Gwillimbury, in the northern part of York county, Upper Canada. Joel and Mary farmed their land and raised all 10 of their children into adult-hood - somewhat of an accomplishment in those dangerous times. 

As records are scant from those early days, we don't know exactly when James White claimed Pamila Draper for his bride, but she was 25 yrs old when their first child was born - far from her loving family in North Gwillimbury. 

A History of Simcoe County: Volume II, its Pioneers by Andrew E. Hunter says that James White was born in 1800 in Cornwall, England, and emigrated to Canada in 1819 . According to the Upper Canada Land Records, James and his brother, Peter White, landed in York, Upper Canada on July 31, 1819 and petitioned for land as follows:

Upper Canada Land Petition No 103 for Peter White and James White.
Courtesy of the Public Archives of Canada

Included with Peter and James's land petition was a signed letter of reference by Alexander Montgomery, a farmer, and his son, John, stating that Peter and James had been sober and faithful harvest workers. What's fascinating about this letter is that over the years, John Montgomery owned several York taverns, and would eventually own the infamous Montgomery's Tavern which will forever stand in Canada's history as the battle site of the 1837 Upper Canada Rebellion.

August 10, 1819 Letter of Reference signed by Alexander Montgomery and John Montgomery

Upon receiving their grants for 100 acres each, James claimed Lot 26 on the east side of Simcoe County Concession 1 (now Hwy 93) in the Township of Oro, while his brother, Peter also claimed Lot 26, but on the west side of Concession 1 which put him in the Township of Vespra, and so the place became known as White's Corners. 

Peter White, a Wesleyan Methodist lay minister, was the first to conduct religious services in the area and in 1855 built a Wesleyan Church on his property. 

I thought it very interesting that James built a tavern first, and then a decade after his brother's church opened, James donated a portion of his own land for a Congregational Church. However, according to census and death records, James and Pamila remained Wesleyan Methodists.

This is the only photo I've found of this historic corner with White's Tavern (far right).
Photo taken from The Story of Oro, Second Edition 1987.

In 1830 when James and Pamila's first child was born, White's Corners had officially become Dalston. The following map shows how far Pamila moved away from her family when she married James White (blue star to red star). 

As you can see on this 1800 map, compared to the United States in the bottom right, Upper Canada is barely settled except for along the shores of the St Lawrence River, Lake Ontario, and Lake Erie. All the open space you see is Indian country. In the upper left corner beneath the insert it shows the label, Chippewa Hunting Grounds. And Huron trails criss-cross land that settlers were now moving onto. 

In the aforementioned A History of Simcoe County, Hunter says, 

James White's wife, (Pamila Draper), was of U.E. Loyalist descent, being a daughter of Joel Draper, of North Gwillimbury. Like other people born in this country, and used to its hardships, she made a sturdy, progressive, pioneer's wife. In the early days, the Indians travelled the Penetanguishene Road in considerable numbers, as it was the well beaten highway between the two lakes. Once when a pack of half-drunken Indians called at their place and became troublesome, she chased them with a pair of tongs, which they feared more than a tomahawk, as they did not know what the tongs were, or what injury they might inflict greater than a tomahawk might do.

It doesn't state what type of tongs Pamila brandished on the men, but these images show two types that would have been in use during this time period. 

The Pioneers of Old Ontario by W.L. Smith, 1923, rephrases the words, but gives Hunter the credit for Pamila's story. Also, local history books for both Oro and Vespra townships recount this story of Pamila Draper White. 

This past June I visited White's Corners. There is a historical marker in front of the Dalston United Church and Cemetery dedicated to James's brother, Peter White who owned the land and started that first church so many years ago. His memorial is the white plaque on the grey headstone beneath the historical marker.

A few days previous, I had bought the cemetery directory and so I knew who was buried where, yet I still spent time exploring the graveyard. I don't think I can adequately explain the profound emotion I felt as I stood in front of the combined headstone for Pamila Draper and James White. 

The woman buried beneath my feet was my husband's 3rd great-aunt, and therefore my children's 4th. But it wasn't just that. As a historian, I have a deep respect for Pamila and women with her inner strength and character. Women who accept life's challenges, wherever they lead. Women who take a stand against threats to their home and family.

Pamila couldn't have known that the liquored-up men would run from a pair of tongs. History doesn't say if there was a real confrontation or simply a perceived threat. It doesn't matter. Pamila probably grabbed the first thing she could think of at the time, and in doing so, she wrote herself into the history books as a pioneer of note. 

I hope you've enjoyed this walk through historic Upper Canada with me. 

Do you have someone in your family tree that deserves to be talked about in today's 21st century? Please share with the rest of us. 

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Anita Mae Draper's stories are written under the western skies where she lives on the prairie of southeast Saskatchewan with her hubby of 30 plus years and the youngest of their four kids. Romantic Refinements, a novella in Austen in Austin Volume 1, WhiteFire Publishing, will be released January 15, 2016. Anita is represented by Mary Keeley of Books & Such Literary Management. You can find Anita Mae at  www.anitamaedraper.com

HIGHLAND GAMES: FUN AND RESEARCH - Cynthia Hickey

Early Spring in Arizona brings the Highland Games. Having grown up being told by my mother that I'm Scot-Irish, and being told by my father that our family name used to be Muldoon, then changed to Melton during the 1700s. I had lots of questions. Not only did I enjoy the view of men in kilts, I was also curious as to why my family name wasn't called during the Calling of the Clans. So, I did what any historical writer does and headed to the geneaology tent. I explained the facts I knew to a lovely elderly gentlemen. He got very excited and proceeded to tell me that the reason my name wasn't called, is that we never pledged to a clan! Also, not only does my family have a plaid, they have two. One under the name Muldoon, the other under Melton. The gold plaid is Muldoon and the red is Melton. I never could find out exactly why my ancestors changed their name, only that they have been fighters from the beginning and were from the Tweedside District of Scotland. That sure explains alot about my family. Most of the men served in our country's military at one point in their life. My next search involved the Melton coat-of-arms. Here is a photo my father snapped in the Scotland airport during his Army careerThe helpful gentlemen at the booth couldn't help me much with the meaning of my coat-of-arms so I headed to the internet. I couldn't find it anywhere! I was only able to find variations. Throughly into my research now, I decided to find out what the lion and the unicorn meant. The lion (a symbol of England) is a sign of loyalty. The unicorn is a sign for diversity. Loyalty under Diversity. Makes sense since finding out my family never pledged to a clan, yet were loyal to England. My next search was to decipher what exactly was Scot-Irish. Since I married a Hickey, who's ancestors are from County Clark, I figured you had to be eigher Scottish or Irish. Well, turns out Scot-Irish are Scottish criminals sent to repopulate Ireland after the famine. So, there you have it. I come from a long line of criminals! My mother got a chuckle out of that one. I also grew up with family saying Abraham Lincoln is my fifth cousin on my mother's side, but that's research for another day. Research should, and can be fun. Happy researching!