Riverbend Journal

  Above is the tombstone for Ann Chicken which I had to probe though the pine needles and other debris to eventually find and unbury. I had known that it was there by previously seeing an online picture that had been taken by someone else and posted on the genealogy website Find-A-Grave. According to the credits, it had been posted on their site in 2016 but judging by the severe deterioration between my photo above taken in 2018, I suspect it had been taken many many years earlier. It says: Ann Wife of Joseph Chicken Was Born Aug 10, 1812 Died (Here is where the tombstone is broken obscuring what had been etched into it) Frances Daughter of J & A Chicken Born Apr 10, 1851 Died Feb 11, 1858 At the time, I didn't know much about Ann and up until recently, still hadn't. But now that it is cooling off a bit and outside work slowing down, I decided to remedy that. I didn't know much about my 4th great grandmother other than her name was Ann and that she died sometime in the

Forty-five minutes after being given lengthy instructions on how they were supposed to analyze the case against Lant McComb, the jury came back with their decision which was presented to Judge Trimble by the jury foreman, H.D. Hall. We, the jury, find the defendant GUILTY of murder in the first degree.  The defendant's lawyers immediately filed a motion for a new trial. The court appointed the following Tuesday morning for sentencing and recessed for the evening. On June 13, 1864, court resumed at 8 a.m. with Judge Trimble once again presiding. The Judge directed that prisoner be brought into the court and the Sheriff did so. B.A. (Lant) McComb was directed to stand up and Judge Trimble passed the following sentence upon him: "Benjamin A. McComb, you have been charged by indictment in due form found and presented to this court by a grand jury of the county of Wapello in the State of Iowa, with one of the highest crimes known to the law - the crime of murder. To this indictment

  I have somewhat tracked down the answers to the questions I posed at the end of my previous post on the orphan William W. Taylor who was adopted by my 3rd great grandparents Stephen B. and Frances M. Hubbard Cogswell from a New York orphan train.  Willie's mother died in 1876 at the age of 31 and I have been unable to turn up anything at all about his father. Willie and his two fellow orphan brothers were put on an orphan train which made it's way west until they were adopted by three farm families who all attended the same small church with the thought that they could visit each other on Sunday. Eventually Willie and younger brother Richard would emigrate to Iowa along with their adoptive families. In another instance of a small world, Willie would apprentice as a leather smith in another 3rd great grandfather John Kuck's leather shop. Dates are a bit iffy on the apprenticeship so by then, it could have been run by John's brother Frederick or even John's son Geor

  Stephen Bush Cogswell Above is a picture of my 3rd great grandfather Stephen Bush Cogswell. It is the only known picture of him that I possess and is a scan of a newspaper clipping that is pasted in my 2nd great grandmother's memory book that I inherited many years ago. I have written about my photo project of all my 3rd great grandparents on down, and as part of that, I decided to look for a better image and/or simply to source this newspaper clipping. I was successful in sourcing the newspaper clipping which turned out to be the Rockford Register published in Rockford, Floyd county, Iowa on 1 Nov 1906 on page two. Unfortunately, the commercially scanned image on the website is much worse than this scan that I made personally from the clipping my 2nd great grandmother saved. While looking for the picture, I came across a couple articles showing that my 3rd great grandfather Cogswell was involved in the Iowa orphan trains from New York. I have seen a presentation on them several

On the third and final day of the trial, things got underway with Morris J. Upright being sworn in. Mr. Upright was a former neighbor of the Harvey family when they had first arrived to Winnebago county in Illinois. Morris testified that he had been a former neighbor, that he had last seen Laura on March 1st of 1860 and that the ambrotype picture shown him looked remarkably like her. After that, he had next seen Laura in her grave at Ottumwa cemetery on April 14, 1860 along with her brother Frank Harvey. Morris testified that he also knew George Lawrence and had last seen him in Rockford on March 16. He was familiar with the horses, harness and bridle of Mr. Lawrence and had even gotten the harness repaired at one point. When shown the vest of Lawrence, Mr. Upright identified it as belong to George due to the unique buttons which had seven stars on each of them and the changeable material it had been made from. Mr. Upright was asked how long he had known Lawrence and testified that Law