Our Family Genealogy Trip to Belleville, Wisconsin

Here we are, the intrepid genealogy students, in front of our Bed and Breakfast (The Cameo Rose) where the lilacs were in bloom and the gold finches were flying.

The first night we were there we went to a cemetery chosen for no other reason than we had seen it on the way to the B & B. There we found graves of our Great-great-grandfather (William Caldwell) and second wife (Mary Jane Shepherd Caldwell).

as well as Great-grandfather William Norris Caldwell and his wife Emily Maria Shepherd Caldwell (yeah, those Shepherd women!!). To be fair, Larry found this cluster of Caldwell and Shepherd graves, but my time would soon come. We also found a stump grave where the engraving was so worn that nothing could be read. This cluster also had an obelisk with several Shepherds on it as well as a grave of two Carterons (related to us by marriage).

We then drove west of town past the Caldwell land that we had identified from 1861 and 1873 plat maps (link to 1873 SW Montrose Twshp map with W. Caldwell’s land indicated). Here is a picture of part of that land from the western end.

On the way we saw a likely looking house that we thought might date back to the mid-19^th century and belong to William Caldwell. Later, we stopped by and talked to a Mr. Marty and found that it did, in fact, date from the 1850s-1860s.

We continued on, led by two cranes in flight, to a place where we knew there had been a church and we thought an accompanying cemetery (actually if you look on that 1873 plat map it shows a school there, what was I thinking?). With the help of a farmer who gave us directions (see men do ask for directions) as the sun was setting and the light fading we found the Montrose Pioneer Cemetery on a road next to the church (which is still there, but is not a church any more). It is a small cemetery across from a dairy farm. Again, Larry and I split up to search and I found a white gravestone lying on the ground that said William Norris. This is our Great-great-great-grandfather, father of Margaret Norris and a large landholder. The stone indicated that he had died on July 7, 1868 at age 72, so this puts our family back an extra generation and back to the 1700s, I believe for the first time.

Next to that stone in the ground, I saw another obelisk-like monument still standing and this is covered with information about Norrises. Here is one side.

The one above is of a James Norris and several other Norrises who died young. At least two of these were probably cousins and playmates of William Norris Caldwell. But there was no mention of Margaret Norris there. However, I looked to the left and there in the ground was a very dark stone. This was covered with grass and very hard to read, but I got down on my knees, pushed grass aside and scraped and made out the words “Margaret Ann Norris”!! Died age 18 years, 10 months and 27 days. This was it! This is our Great-great grandmother who died within a year of giving birth to William Norris Caldwell. Sad.

This was all in our first night in Belleville!! Incredible!

The next day we spent mostly at the Belleville library, which is just across the street from the building that was the Presbyterian Church that was attended by William and William Norris Caldwell, where Emily Maria Caldwell (our Great-grandmother) was Assistant Superintendent of the Flower Committee (we actually found this in the Sugar River Record). This is now the American Legion Hall.

Here is a picture of Larry searching diligently through the microfilms of the Sugar River Recorder (later Belleville Recorder) from 1887 to 1900.

Some of the information revealed by this search was a part of a commencement speech upon graduation from High School by our Grandfather Raymond Caldwell entitled “The Union”. We also found ads for “Caldwell’s Store” that indicated decreasing expenditures on ads from 1887 to 1891 when, on Christmas, the store apparently closed. We also found W. N. Caldwell had his house on Pearl Street painted before he moved “his stock” to Galva Illinois in 1899. Larry hypothesized that the railroad companies may have bought W. N.’s store out. We both speculated that alcohol may have played a role in his diminishing business prospects.

On Monday (May 8, 2006) local Belleville historian Jerry Remy was a tremendous help to us, so much so that we took him to lunch at Bleoni’s Café on Main Street in Belleville.

Jerry taught us that one way to view and photograph gravestones that were fading, such as the aforementioned ‘stump stone’, was to spray it with shaving cream, which sticks in the indentions, then squeegee off excess and the indentions will look very white. Below are some gravestones we later photographed with this technique.

Here is the west face of the Shepherd obelisk showing Roger Shepherd (born December, 1821) with a reference to Harriet Witherden (born in March 19, 1820 in Dover, England) as the wife of Robert Shepherd.

Here is the north face of the obelisk showing Robert Shepherd (Died July 25, 1860 at age 78 years, meaning he was born in 1782, so perhaps this is the father of brothers Robert and Roger) and it refers to Elizabeth who was daughter of John and Jane Swales of Yorkshire England (you can see that the second letter is hard to read so I think it is Swales and Larry thinks Scales). The Shepherds are quite confusing, partly because there were at least two Roger and two Robert Shepherds, but also because of the question of who was wife to whom.

You can see that several people are dying in 1855 and 1856. Roger Shepherd is married to Elizabeth Swales Shepherd and she died January 12, 1855 and her child of 3 years 6 months, also named Elizabeth (see south face of gravestone below), died six days later. We know from the 1960s “base document” that these Shepherds were all dying of scarlet fever. In that same document it says that Robert Shepherd and Harriet Witherden (they always call her Harriet Witherden) came to raise the children. Apparently, Uncle Robert (who didn’t die until October 30, 1881) and Aunt Harriet (who didn’t die until 1909) the parents of our Great-grandmother Emily Maria Shepherd raised the surviving children of Roger and Elizabeth.

Here is a picture of the W. N. Caldwell family taken in 1897.

This is Back Row: Raymond (my grandfather), Norris (Raymond’s brother), Emily Maria Shepherd Caldwell (Great-grandmother). First Row: Mary Shepherd Caldwell (second wife of William Caldwell), Robert Caldwell (youngest brother), William Norris Caldwell.

Above is a picture of William Caldwell taken in 1888, three years before he died. On the left is Raymond and on the right in a dress is his younger brother Norris.

One disappointment was the William Caldwell house. In our “base document”, which was a letter from the 1960s with 7 pages of family information, it said that William Caldwell’s house was a grand country home and that it was still standing in 1955. Apparently, it was torn down by the Millers in around 1988 to put up this house, replete with asphalt.

Below is the view, with soccer fields, looking west from their house. There are now modern McMansions on the ridge in the distance. This was definitely William Caldwell land and, since Belleville is only 20 miles from Madison and growing fast, anyone who does not go to see it soon will probably not be able to see it.

From plat maps we now believe that the Marty house was on land once owned by William Norris Caldwell, but we don’t know if he ever lived in that house. There is also a house on the ridge that shows up in an 1891 plat as being on William Caldwell and later W.N. Caldwell land. Here it is.

Here is a view from the house on the ridge, but we don’t know if any of our ancestors lived there. In any case, the ridge was quite beautiful.

A mystery solved.

Remember the “stump stone” which was unreadable. We found a grave map that showed this as the grave of Arthur Burton Caldwell, who was the younger brother of Raymond who was born May 2, 1893 died (was “Taken Home”) at less than a year old in March, 1894. We used the shaving cream method and the words on this grave really stood out.

Another mystery.

Also on the Belleville Cemetery map was a group of three Norrises. This led us back to that cemetery. There was only one grave in the designated Norris area and that is below.

Again the shaving cream helped greatly. This stone says Maggie Daug (daughter) of ?? C. and Elizabeth Norris. Died March 22, 1865 aged 9 months, 19 days. I believe the letters before the C are “Wm” and at the bottom of the stone is Caldwell. This is really a mystery and Larry and I disagree on the implications of this. My theory is that William Caldwell between wife #1 (Margaret Norris) and wife #2 (Mary Jane Shepherd) had an illegitimate child by Elizabeth Norris. We know nothing yet about Elizabeth. This child dies at 9 months of age. Larry thinks that the Wm C. refers to William C. Norris (so far no other record of a William C. Norris though) and wife Elizabeth who have a daughter Maggie who dies. However, his theory does not explain why it says Caldwell at the bottom. Is there anyone out there that can help with this mystery?

Larry dropped me off at home and continued on to Galva Illinois, where W. N. Caldwells moved to in 1899-1900. In Galva and Kewanee they had stores. Here is one of them, a Cash Grocery (taken from a copy, who has the original?).

While in Galva Larry found that W. N. Caldwell bought a house in 1902 that was, as of 1977, still called the Caldwell House. In 1977 it was featured in a book about the houses of Galva (see article). Speaking of articles, Larry found an article from the Galva paper describing a pennant victory for the local baseball team which, from the box score at the bottom, included Raymond Caldwell as second baseman (click to see). The athletes in the family will be sad that he was 0 for 3 in that crucial game.

Here is a link to a picture taken at the 50^th Anniversary of the William Norris Caldwell and Emily Caldwell.

Here is a family tree put together by our mother, Mildred T. Caldwell in 1971. Either Larry or I will work on a more web-friendly version of this.

Some understanding.

We have heard for years that our Great-great-grandfather was the “town drunk” in Galva Illinois. The story goes that they called his son Raymond “mother” because he often had to leave his baseball games (he also played “ball” at Belleville High School) to go and get his father out of the bar. Harsh and convicting stuff. I, for one, have come to have much sympathy for W. N. after this trip. Consider this about his life: at less than a year old his mother dies, he is taken by his Norris grandparents to be raised rather than by his father, in his childhood at least two children who are likely his cousins and playmates also die, he attends the University of Wisconsin and is forced to quit after three years because of “failing health” and goes to live with his, possibly licentious, father who soon marries a woman five years older than him, he gets married to a relative of this woman and goes to Topeka Kansas where his house is flooded, he returns to Belleville where his business fails (possibly due to his own drinking), has four children the fourth of which also dies. Talk about abandonment issues. This guy had more abandonment in his life than Harry Potter.

A couple of political thoughts

From an 1835 ordinance book of the English Army, the farms in Northern Ireland at the time were tiny, maybe 10 acres at the most. There was no hope of getting more, which was a legacy of the royal ownership of land. Perhaps our Great-great-grandfather William Caldwell came to America, like so may others to escape this stratified society. I have no question as to what they would think, even though he was a “good Republican”, about the current re-stratification of this country. Also, in our “base document” it states that a British branch of the family, the Swales, offers to take Roger Shepherd’s children back to England to take care of after his wife and child die in 1855. He refuses because “in this country any of my children can become President, if the people so desire.” Is that still true?