Convergence of History

 

St. Louis Fire, illustrated by Henry Lewis in Das illustrirte Mississippithal (The Valley of the Mississippi Illustrated) from 1857

One of my goals in my spare time is to update a "book" I wrote on the Chicken side of my family. It is 42 pages long but only the first 9 pages were creatively written and detail the immigrant Chicken who came from England to Wisconsin in 1849 and his descendants. When I wrote it more than ten years ago, that was as far as I could trace the line. Since then I have pushed it back two, possibly three more generations and have a lot more information to include.

Before starting that process however, I have been creating research documents for each of my ancestors, listing all the documents I have found, what facts they contain, etc., so that everything is easily found in chronological order. Just the act of compiling all that information, usually means I discover overlooked factoids that were skipped over earlier because they didn't pertain to the question at hand at the time, namely who is the next generation back. Seeing those rediscovered facts in a new light though adds a lot of depth to the story of that family. This time was no different.

Joseph Chick Sr., my 4th great grandfather, set sail on 10 March 1849 from Liverpool England aboard the ship Hartley with 238 Saints aboard under the leadership of Elder William Hulme of Manchester. I've blogged about this trip in the past so won't go into great detail other than to say that it was a fairly pleasant 7-1/2 week sail to the port of New Orleans where they arrived on 28 April 1849. One person died and one child was born in route on what others described a leisurely cruise. After a couple days of respite to resupply, the Saints transferred to a steamer called the Mameluck and set up the Mississippi River on May 2. According to various accounts 30 to 80 Saints died enroute in a cholera outbreak before they arrive in St. Louis on May 12, itself undergoing a cholera outbreak that would kill over 10% of it's residents. In the ensuing days, those that could afford to, bought teams and provisions and set out for Council Bluffs where they were going to meet up before making the push to Utah the following spring. My 4th great grandfather Joseph was in Wisconsin the following spring so I'm guessing he parted ways at this point and headed north on another boat.

Newly discovered factoid one. While rereading some of the accounts of this journey, especially the last part up the Mississippi River, I found an account of one of the Saints who was waiting on his wife who was sick in the hospital with cholera. He said a great fire broke out on 18 May 1849 burning 36 boats in the harbor and one-third of the entire city of St. Louis. A quick search leads to a Wiki article of that very fire. It sounds like another boat initially caught fire and after burning it's mooring ropes, drifted downstream setting other boats and eventually St. Louis on fire. To this day, it is still the largest fire in St. Louis history. To close a loop, the wife of the Saint who wrote the account died about five days after the fire and was buried in St. Louis.

Perhaps my 4th great grandfather was there to witness it. Joseph Chicken was traveling alone so he didn't have family to worry about and may have gotten out fairly quickly or he may have had to do some work to earn fare for the rest of the journey. I can only speculate how long he was there. I haven't found immigration records for the rest of his family so I don't know exactly when they came or by what route. All I know is by October of 1850, they were all together safe and sound in southwest Wisconsin. Based on the horrors of the journey up the Mississippi, I would like to assume they arrived somewhere on the east coast and came by train.

Factoid number two. Regardless if Joseph was still there in St. Louis when the fire broke out, he undoubtedly saw the masses of people that spring and summer who were using St. Louis as a staging point to load up on gold mining tools before heading overland to California to participate in the ongoing gold rush. Unbeknownst to Joseph, a man by the name of John Bolton might have been there doing exactly that. By the following year, John Bolton would be documented in California participating in the gold rush and a few years later, he would be deceased and his family working their way back to England. John Bolton's daughter Frances Ann, who had been born in Wisconsin, would sail back to America alone, travel to Wisconsin and marry the 3rd son of Joseph Chicken Sr., Joseph Chicken Jr. who would later change his name to Joseph Baker for reasons I have never found. All of this would eventually produce me. 

All this history suddenly came crashing together, weaving a story that had been hidden until I reread one account of a voyage while putting together a research document for Joseph Chicken Sr. 

Fate indeed.