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Updated: Mar 30, 2023 The question of the full identity of the father of Elizabeth Ann Lewis (1855-1923) has been a mystery to her descendants since her death 100 years ago. Family notes contained his name, Harry Lewis, and his burial location of Rosita Cemetery, Rosita, Colorado. Most of the difficulty in tracing Harry has been with the lack of finding him in Census records. Even when he was still alive, he seemed to be away from his family during the time of the census enumeration in his later years, and so far, I’ve been unable to locate any census records where he and his wife appear together. To complicate matters further, none of Harry’s decedents seemed to know exactly where Harry was born. Most of his children said he was born in Arkansas, but Tennessee, Georgia, Ohio and Illinois also appeared on some records. Previous generations of family researchers were seemingly unable to locate marriage records for a Harry Lewis and Martha A. and this work was difficult before the Internet and without a clear place to look. There was a last name noted for Martha in some family records, but there didn’t seem to be much documentation for it – Arrington. When I began the research, I think I had only the census from Pueblo, Colorado in 1870 in which Martha was listed as “married” but Harry was not listed at all, and the 1880 census from the same place and Martha was listed as “widowed.” To find out more, I started with a timeline utilizing the information from those censuses. Harry Lewis and Martha Arrington had at least 5 children – perhaps 6, but I have yet to find more than family notes for one child. 1854 ARKANSAS – daughter Elizabeth Ann Lewis born 1859, Dec 25 NEBRASKA – son William T. Lewis born 1862, May NEBRASKA – son James H. Lewis born 1865, April NEBRASKA – son John W. Lewis born 1867, April NEBRASKA – son Frank Lewis born 1870, Jun 30 – Pueblo, Colorado – Lewis family is listed except for Harry. Martha 1880 – Pueblo, Colorado – Martha is listed as “widowed.” Living with sons William, James, John, and Frank. 1885 – Pueblo, Colorado – “Mary” A. Lewis, “widowed,” listed on the Colorado State Census living with sons William, John W., and Frank Given the above information, the Lewis family must have moved to Colorado sometime between April 1867 and 30 Jun 1870. Also, according to this timeline, Harry must have died between 30 Jun 1870 and 1880. Unfortunately, as I’ll soon share with you, even the timeline isn’t quite a straight line. According to the family histories, Martha lived with Harry for a time in the mining town of Rosita, Colorado. She cooked meals and took in laundry. But eventually she moved (back?) to Pueblo and rented out rooms, as well as probably continuing to cook and take in laundry. But I have not yet found any documentation to link Martha or any of the Lewis family to Rosita. Nor have I been able to located Harry’s gravesite. I realized too that I didn’t actually have documentation for Harry’s name. Maybe it was a nickname? Knowing that William T. Lewis was born in 1859 or 1860 – a census year – somewhere in Nebraska, I started my search there. I scoured the state for the Lewis family, but could not find them in the census records there that year. Nor could I find them anywhere in Arkansas that year. Next, I looked for newspaper articles. This task would have been nearly impossible with such a broad range when my grandfather had searched before me. But with the internet, it’s been one of my best resources in teasing out stories. But again, I found nothing. I searched in Nebraska for all the known years that the family was there, but there was no mention of Harry or Martha. Frustrated, I decided to focus on Martha. At least I had a clue to her last name. Her birthplace was just as questionable as her husband’s. Arkansas or Tennessee or Illinois. I found Martha Marzee Arrington who married HENRY Lewis in Washington County, Arkansas in 1851. (Thank you to the few cousins who had this little hint in their tree!)  Marriage record for Henry Lewis and Martha Arrington, certified by George Lewis. With that information, I was able to really dig in. But it wasn’t an easy bread crumb trail! In Washington County, Arkansas circa 1830, there were several Lewis families. The largest of them consisted of two brothers, Bracken and George, and their sister Lydia who married John Van Hoose. These Lewis siblings came originally from Orange County, North Carolina but stopped over in Kentucky and Illinois before settling finally in Arkansas. The Lewis brothers both had very large families and they seemed to like to name the children the same names at around the same time. They lived just a few houses away from each other with the Arrington household right next to or perhaps even in between them. So, there is a Henry Lewis born in 1830 in one house and another born in 1832. And two girls named Lydia Lewis also born just two years apart. “Twin cousins,” as my daughter likes to call them. Finding the correct Henry Lewis is a matter of closely examining the marriage record which is admittedly very difficult to read. Near the bottom, Henry’s father also certifies the union – George Lewis. The marriage record also gives Henry’s age as 18 which would make his birth year 1832 or 1833. This also aligns with the 1850 Census of George Lewis’s household. In regards to Bracken Lewis’s son with the same name, there was an account written in Goodspeed’s History of Northwest Arkansas in 1889 about Brackin [Bracken] Lewis’s life. In it, it is said that of Bracken’s sixteen children, seven were still alive at the time. It lists Henry as well as his sister Lydia as two of the deceased children. So we know that Bracken’s Henry was deceased by the year 1889. Distinguishing between the two Henry’s throughout their years is mostly difficult due to the lack of documentation for either man. After the 1850 Census in Arkansas, there is almost nothing that I could find until the 1910 Census in Barron, Jackson County, Oregon. Here we find Lydia (Lewis) Powell, widowed, living with her brother, Henry Lewis who is also widowed and said to be 76 (birth year about 1834) and born in Illinois. This Lydia Lewis has a much better paper trail than her brother so I am quite confident in saying that she is the daughter of George Lewis. In fact, in his later years, George moved to Oregon to live with Lydia and her husband, Philander Powell and appears on the 1880 Census with them. Of course, we now also have DNA evidence to consider. I can confidently confirm that I share a common ancestor on the Martha Arrington’s line – I can link to 6th cousins who also trace their ancestry to her parents. And, I can do the same with the Lewis line. However, since we are looking at various Lewis brothers, it is less clear on which specific Lewis brother, George or Bracken, I can trace my ancestry to using autosomal DNA. However, I think I can safely say that their father, Zachariah Lewis is a DNA link for me. It may be more clear if I examined my mother’s DNA test since she is one generation closer, which I have not yet done. With the evidence I have found then, I must conclude that my original timeline was incorrect. At some point, perhaps as early as 1867, for reasons yet unknown to me, it seems like Henry “Harry” Lewis and his wife, Martha (Arrington) Lewis split. The children stayed with Martha and Henry went back to Arkansas. I do not know if Henry actually ever even made it to Colorado. I do not have any records of him in the state. His daughter, Elizabeth (Lewis) Moore’s obituary says that she came to Pueblo, CO on an oxen-led wagon with her parents, but obituaries are not always the most reliable sources of information. Martha’s obituary, for instance, says that her husband died. More likely, it was easier for her to say that she was a widow than to bear the stigma of a divorced woman. She did not ever remarry. Henry, however, did remarry. In 1870 he married Delila Haddix. Delila was born in Kentucky and lived in an area populated by many of the same families that seemed to moving around with the Lewis and Arrington families. She had been married twice before, but both husbands had died – one of them while serving in the Kentucky cavalry on the Union side in the Civil War. I’m not sure how many children she had with her first two husbands – there are nine or ten listed in the censuses, but some may have been from her husbands’ previous marriages. She did not have any children with Henry. By 1900, Henry and Delila moved to Shasta County, California. She had purchased a contract to buy some land for $150 early in 1902, but then on September 2, 1902, she died in her sleep. There was some question about whether or not her estate was actually hers as she’d only just purchased the contract. The court decided that she had, in fact, paid enough money toward it. However, by the time her burial expenses and administration fees were accounted for, the estate was left penniless.  Front page story about Delila's death. Weekly Searchlight, Redding, CA. September 2, 1902. Based on the newspaper reports of the story, Henry had moved to Oregon shortly after Delila had died. He appears in the 1910 Census living just outside Ashland, OR with his sister, Lydia, so I assume this is where he went after Delila’s death. Lydia had done fairly well for herself. She’d married Philander Powell when they were both still living in Arkansas. Her father must have liked Philander very much because he was even allowed to live with them before he and Lydia ever tied the knot. I believe Philander’s father actually came to Arkansas with Lydia’s father from North Carolina, so the families probably went way back. Good ol’ Phil and Lydia went west during the gold boom days (he was a farmer, not a miner though) and were apparently quite the pioneers. They had three daughters and they stayed close to their mother. In 1880 Lydia’s father, George Washington Lewis appears on the Census with them in Oregon, which was quite the trip for an 84 year old man from Arkansas at the time! Philander died in 1893 and Lydia managed their estate after that point. Based on her final accounts, it looks like she often loaned out money, so even though he had been “only” a farmer, he’d done quite well for himself. Lydia’s son-in-law leased out part of the farm and equipment. Strangely, in 1912, at the age of 78, Lydia married 85-year-old James Sexton Boyd of Dinuba, California. In her will, she left him $10 – which would be just under $300 today. And even that seemed perhaps only to be because she held a promissory note on James Boyd’s account for someone to pay Lydia $10. She may have just been ensuring that would get paid back to her husband so she wouldn’t owe him anything. Everything else was split equally between her three daughters. What about Henry, you ask?  Obituary for Henry Lewis - Ashland Tidings, Ashland, OR. February 22, 1915. Henry Lewis died a few months before his sister. He spent the last year and a half of his life at the Jackson County Poor Farm in Talent, Oregon. He died on February 18, 1915 at about 83 years old. He was buried at Hill Dunn Cemetery in Ashland, Jackson County, Oregon. He had four children from Martha that were still living at the time. Martha preceded him in death in 1900.  Jackson County Poor Farm circa 1930 near Talent, OR. All records from the farm were destroyed in a fire. This picture survived in a time capsule. As far as I know, he never saw his children, but that could just be because I don’t have the documents to show it. After they moved from Nebraska, his children seemed to stay in either Colorado or New Mexico and as far as I can tell, Henry never went to either of those states. I wonder if Martha told them that their father had died, too.
There is still so much more to research in the Lewis and Arrington family. I’ve already uncovered some fun stories I’m excited to share, in fact. I hope that along the way I can learn more about Henry. And more about his wife, Martha who had the difficult job of raising 5 children in a pioneer town as a single woman posing as a widow.
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I wonder if my great-granduncle Edwin Carr was the sort of person who had trouble with dates his whole life. I started writing the post to commemorate his death which was January 7, 1970. At least, that’s what his grave marker says. His funeral program has a typo and reads January 17th.  One of Edwin's favorite photos of himself - he wanted this one enlarged. He also never really knew his birthday. Or he changed it. When he reported his date of birth – on a census, military records, employment records, or reporting to law enforcement, he said it was February 7th, 1897. But his paternal aunt, Carrie Emma (Carr) Storz – Aunt Emm - wrote to the State of Colorado attesting that she was present at Edwin’s birth as she was there and it was in fact at her house in La Junta, Colorado on February 26th, 1899. I assume this was to attain a delayed birth certificate, but I have not yet tried to order one. The 1899 date actually makes more sense based on two pieces of evidence. One, is the photograph below. This is baby Edwin, his older half-sister Edith, and his their mother, Bessie May (Moore) Carr. Now, stick with me here because I’m going to throw some numbers at you.  Edwin Carr (right), less than a year old, with his half-sister Edith and mother Bessie May (Moore) Carr. Fall 1899. Assuming Edith’s birthday is correct, she was born July 31, 1896. If Edwin was born in February 1897, he would be only 7 months older which, while unlikely but perhaps possible, does not match the photograph. It certainly looks like they could be about 2 ½ years apart in the picture, though. Also, the date written on the photo says “Fall of 1899.” Secondly, Edith almost certainly had a different father than Edwin. Their mother Bessie first married Burrett “Burton” or “Burt” Bigelow (1872-1907) of Pueblo, Colorado. They divorced sometime in 1897 – not long after Edith was born. The next year Bessie married Thomas James Carr (1871-1920). If we are to believe Aunt Emm’s attestation, Edwin came along about 6 months later. If Edwin was born in 1897 like he told people, Burt Bigelow would be a more likely father. Edith did not spend much of her life with her mother and half-siblings. Instead, she lived mostly with her grandmother and when she was old enough to work she was basically taken in with a doctor and his wife. I believe that if Edwin was not Thomas J. Carr’s son, he would have also been sent to live with someone else. At least until he was old enough to work.  Edith and Edwin Carr My first thought when I hear about young men stretching their age is that they lied to join the military. Well, in fact, Edwin did join the Army. He sent the postcard below to his sister, Bessie (Carr) Coleman. The photo was taken in Denver but then sent from Camp Kearney, California. On the top is written, in what I believe is Bessie’s handwriting, “Edwin Carr age 17 years.” So, he wasn’t yet 18. Why age himself two years instead of one? He probably learned that trick from his brother-in-law, Bessie’s husband. William Oaks Coleman also aged himself two years to join the Army in WWI. He was really 17, but he said that if he told them he was 18 they might question it. If he said he was 19 though, they’d surely believe it.  Front of postcard. Writing at top says "taken at Denver." Edwin Carr on right  Back of postcard. Top says "Edwin Carr age 17 years." Text: "To my Sister From, Edwin Carr Co. E. 157th Inf 48 div. Camp Kearney Calif." Addressed to: "Bessie C. Westcliffe [cut off] Colo" Even if he purposefully fudged the year of his birth, I don’t think Edwin knew which day he was born. More on that in a bit. Edwin was part of the machine gun troop of the 1st Colorado Cavalry. It joined the 1st Colorado Infantry and became the 157th Infantry. Unfortunately, Edwin’s military files were lost in the National Archives fire in 1973. We do know he was discharged with the rank of Private.  Machine Gun Troop, 1st Colorado Calvary. Edwin Carr at front right (marked with arrow). I was really hoping for those records, because here is where things get weird. I have a WWI Draft Registration card for Edwin Carr signed Sept. 12, 1918. That’s just two months before the armistice. Had he already been discharged by then, and if so, did he really still have to fill out a registration card? The details fit, including his favored birth year though this card says he did not know the day and month of his birth. The nearest relative is listed as “Tom Carr” of Costilla, New Mexico. I don’t have another point of reference to place him there at the time, but Thomas J. Carr frequently roamed all over New Mexico and I would not be surprised at all to find him just outside of Taos. According to this card, meanwhile, Edwin would have been working as a janitor at the elite Hotel Virginia in Long Beach, California – less than 40 miles from the location of his final resting place over 50 years later. The physical description matches up to an employment card later in life as well: Medium height and build, light brown eyes (sometimes described as gray or hazel), dark hair. While we’re talking about physical descriptions here, let me drop in one more: I also have a WWII draft registration card for Edwin on which it is noted that he has a scar on his stomach. Remember that. In May 1918, Edwin started to find some trouble. He was hanging around billiard parlors and bowling alleys schmoozing folks up. He was a big spender, according to the newspapers. He told his new friends, who all knew him by the name “Edward Carr,” that he had struck it rich from a Colorado gold mine. In actuality, he’d been burglarizing some of the same establishments. One stunt even involved an employee by which “Edward” would fake a holdup and the two would split the earnings. He was found out only because he was caught entering a shell factory nearby where he was apparently sleeping at night. Police found stolen goods as well as keys to the bowling alley. He served 51 days for his crimes.  Article about Edwin, alias "Edward" Carr in the Long Beach Telegram and Daily News, May 18, 1918. Edwin’s father, Thomas James Carr died in 1920. I don’t know where Edwin was that year, but I suspect he stayed in California. He might not have stayed out of trouble, but as far as I can tell, he didn’t get caught. Not until September of 1921, at least. According to the many, many newspaper articles – it was a huge story in multiple states – on September 11, 1921, Edwin Carr and Ralph Hewitt assaulted a hired driver in order to steal the car worth $3000 (about $50,000 today). It was said that Edwin struck the old man with a full beer bottle to knock him unconscious before they threw him into the road and drove away. They made their escape from the Long Beach/Anaheim, California area to the little town of Tonopah, Nevada. They knew they needed to get rid of the car and only had 72 cents between them, so Ralph spun up a story about needing to sell the car fast to get money to travel by train to see his dying mother. The mechanic at the first garage they went to accepted their offer and gave them a $10 deposit with the promise to pay the rest the next day. Of course, he immediately notified the police who arrested them. Getting them back to Los Angeles required an extradition order from the Governor of California. As I said, it was big news. Once police started looking into their records, of course, they not only found out that Edwin was still on probation from those previous robberies, but they were also pretty sure that both young men were part of the “Bridge Gang.” This group was known for robbing people, but earned their name after lining up seven unsuspecting people all along a bridge and stripping them of any valuables. Edwin pled guilty to grand larceny and assault with intent to kill. He was sentenced to one year to life imprisonment and was sent to San Quentin State Prison. Ralph faced the same charges, but I have been unable to find any further articles or prison records for him. Of note, Edwin’s intake paperwork mentions that he has a large scar at his waistline. Told you to remember.  Edwin Carr's mugshot when he was booked into San Quentin California State Prison in 1921. On Aug. 27, 1928 – 2,515 days later – Edwin Carr was paroled from San Quentin. According to a newspaper article, he was discharged due to “serious illness.” In a twist of fate or karma, no train ticket could have gotten him to the bedside of his own ailing mother. She died suddenly in Colorado from a previously unknown heart problem the very next day. Edwin probably hadn’t seen her since he’d joined the Army. I wonder if he wrote his family from prison – no living family members knew he was ever there, so if his family at the time knew, they kept it a secret from later generations. After his release, Edwin did return to Colorado. He got a job at the State Hospital in Pueblo. At the time of his employment, the mental institution housed around 3,000 patients. He would have been employed there for a year or less before he moved on to the largest employer in town – Colorado Fuel and Iron, or CF&I. In Pueblo, CF&I ran the Steelworks. But they also owned mines for iron, coal, coke, and limestone throughout the state so they could control their own resource supplies for the steel making process. The company kept employment records on cards which included their date of application (Oct. 7, 1929), physical attributes (which again generally match Edwin’s military and prison records), nearest relative (he listed his brother, George Carr who lived in Rye, Colorado at the time), and their address (740 Veta Ave., Pueblo, CO). If an employee was laid off, changed jobs, or had any issues at the company, everything was saved on this one card. Edwin’s job was listed as “miner” at the Wagon Wheel Gap mine near Creede, Colorado – almost 200 miles away from Pueblo and much colder in October than the California he’d likely become used to. Edwin worked for the company as a miner for 7 days. His reason for leaving is noted on the card as “Quit, going to Pueblo.” He apparently never went back to CF&I.  Edwin Carr - unknown date and location. Back reads "New picture of Ed outside our home." I haven’t been able to find him in the 1930 Census, so I’m not sure what he was doing the following year, but on July 11, 1931 Edwin married Anna Dick (b. ~1903) in Pueblo, CO. I don’t know much about her, but they were married still in 1935. By 1942, Edwin was single again and had moved back to California. He was working at a restaurant on Sunset Blvd. called Bit of Sweden owned by Kenneth Hansen and his sister-in-law Teddy Hansen. The restaurant was well known because it was the first or one of the first smorgasbord style restaurants. Being on Sunset in Hollywood likely also attracted some interesting customers – I bet Edwin liked that.  Bit of Sweden Restaurant around the same time that Edwin worked there. The 1950 Census has Edwin still in the Los Angeles area, but with a new job as a finish carpenter in a furniture company and with a new wife – Rose Z. I believe this is Rose Zella Cerra, but I need to do some more research to really be sure. This is also the only time I see Edwin use a middle initial – J. He did not have a middle name and so far as I can tell never tried to use one before. Still, other details on this census do match – born in Colorado on Edwin’s preferred birthday of 1897, WWI veteran, but not WWII, and just about 2 miles from his last known residence. His father’s middle initial was also a J – coincidence? June 26, 1958, Edwin married again, this time to Elsie. I do not have a marriage certificate for them, and know very little about her including her maiden name, but I do have their wedding photo and some correspondence between Elsie and Edwin’s sister, Bessie. I hope to find out more about her as I go through more records and documents that have been passed down to me.  Wedding of Elsie and Edwin Carr - June 26, 1958. Probably in or near Huntington Park, California. There was also a note somewhere along the way of a marriage when he was younger to a woman named Amanda. I have not been able to locate any documentation of that marriage either, but if true, Edwin would have had 4 marriages throughout his life. He had no children that I am aware of. In the late 1920’s in California, the Eugenics movement was really starting to ramp up in California. Forced sterilizations were becoming more common and were often a requirement for parole especially in cases of violent crimes. Although minorities, women, and mentally disabled people were much more heavily targeted, with Edwin’s assault charges, he may very well have been one of the nearly 6000 recorded institutional sterilizations that year. I always think that someone who marries multiple times must be very hopeful. If they were not optimistic, they would not bother trying. But each new marriage holds new hope. I would like to think that this one with Elsie was the real deal. It may have taken him 59 years, but then he found her. I don’t know yet what happened to Elsie. But on January 7, 1970, Edwin Carr passed away at his home where he lived alone. His obituary lists one surviving relative – his sister Bessie in Colorado – Mrs. W. Coleman. He is buried in Valhalla Memorial Park in North Hollywood, California. Bessie made sure that her brother was laid to rest under a veteran’s marker denoting his service in WWI, and as you’ll see it includes the birthday Edwin always used – Feb. 7, 1897.  Edwin's funeral program with a typo for his death date - it should read January 7, 1970.  Edwin's grave marker at Valhalla Memorial Park, North Holllywood, CA. In order to get the veteran's marker, the birthday likely would have had to match his military records. |
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