An interesting news day (from 1896)

Before the main topic of this post, a couple updates. I forgot to mention in the last post that the members of the County Council had kind words to say about Ronald Spikema, who died Monday. He had served 11 years on the County Council and had been president. Two current members of the Council served with him.

The Wreathes Across American event, which is locally sponsored by the General Van Rensselaer Chapter of the DAR, has raised enough money to honor all the veterans in the cemeteries in Barkley Township. They will start in Smith Cemetery at 10:00 on December 19 and from there travel to the other cemeteries. All are welcome to attend.

The domes are back at Embers.

An entrance gateway is under construction for the Blacker Fields.

 I have been searching old microfilm, doing preliminary research for next year's cemetery walk. Along the way I sometimes find interesting items that are unrelated to what I am looking for, which is usually obituaries or reports of death. The Rensselaer Republican issue of July 16, 1896 was especially interesting. The Court House had its last meeting and was being torn down. Attached to the reports on that were a report of a historic wedding and a robbery.

I did not copy the bottom of the page but it did not seem worthwhile to go back and find it.

I had not realized that the Makeever House had contributed to the racial diversity of Rensselaer. I found mention of one other non-white employee but did not copy that page.

Finally, there was a report of a fire at the Sparling residence. The Sparlings were among the very earliest settlers of Rensselaer and are an interesting family. The house became what was known as the White House at Saint Joes. It was located just to the south of the former Youth Center. (That building needs a new name.)

I did find one small obituary on the page, though not one I was looking for.

Out of curiosity, I checked the 1900 census to see how many black people were in Rensselaer. I found four. On page 2 of the 46 pages was Charles McDonald, 32 years old, a servant in the household of Thomas McCoy. In 1904 McCoy would be in the news when his bank failed and wiped out his considerable fortune. As a result of the bank failure, McCoy Avenue was renamed Milroy Avenue

Page 15 listed Mary Pinkerton, 24, as a servant in the household of Elizabeth Guss. Vintage Views had an article about her and it said that Mary was raised by Elizabeth, so I am not sure why she was listed as a servant. Mary is buried in Weston Cemetery.

There are two black servants listed on page 23. In the household of Delos Thompson is 24 year old William Corter. Delos was a banker and built the large gothic mansion on north Front Street. Next door across the driveway lived James Ellis, who served as a mayor of Rensselaer (as did Thomas McCoy) and ran the opera house. In his household was 28-year-old Julius Taylor. Julius was a long-time resident of Rensselaer working as a carpenter and is buried in Weston Cemetery along with his wife.

Mention of Ellis reminds me that I never gave an answer to the trivia question I posed a few posts ago. It was Grover Mackey who carved the names in the base of the Milroy statue. You can read more about him here. James Ellis Jr writes about him in his book, The Jumping Frog from Jasper County: Hoosier Boy Lands on Madison Avenue.

One final note about Weston Cemetery. There are many veterans of the Civil War buried there, including several who were killed in the War. Two of the veterans fought on the side of the South: Morris Gosnell and William Scearcy.