#168--Picture--Meet the Family of John Wesley Hannah

I love family pictures, whether they are old or new.  This pictures was given me by my cousin, Alice.  It is part of my gallery wall of family pictures.  From the size of the two young girls, I suspect it was taken about 1884 or 1885.  It a photograph of the family of Captain John Wesley Hannah from Butler, Missouri.


From left to right they are:
Capt. John Wesley Hannah—he moved to Butler, Missouri after the Civil War and built and ran the Palace Hotel.
William Hannah—moved to Auburn, New York and then Brooklyn, New York.  Started the W. D. Hannah Shoe Company
Marinda Hannah—Also known as “Toots,” married Edward DeArmond, who became a Brig. General I the United States Army.
Gertrude Hannah—Married and divorced Harlan Turner. Moved to Colorado, where she ran a boarding house for students at the Colorado School of Mines. 
Cora Hannah--Also known as “Tim,” Married William Parke, an attorney, and lived in Brooklyn, New York
Anne Charlotte Hannah—Married Charles Ross and moved to Auburn, New York, where Charles was in the shoe business. 
Jennie Sophia Hannah—she came to Butler to visit her brother, fell in love and married John Wesley Hannah.

I love this picture.  I can just imagine them all getting all dressed up, going to the photography studio, and posing for this picture.  I would love to know why they decided to have this picture taken, what they did with it, and where it was taken.

#158--Naught Incident at the Palace Hotel

.Palace Hotel

My great grandfather, John Wesley Hannah (1838—1899) ran the Palace Hotel in Butler, Missouri.  I discovered that Chronicling American, a Library of Congress web site, had the newspapers for Butler.  When I searched for the Palace Hotel, I got lots of information.  The paper wrote about the parties that took place there, the renovation to the hotel, and the comings and goings of various guests.  It also reported on an event that I would classify as “naughty,” which is this week’s theme.

It appears in 1886 the town decided to hire two night watchmen—Wesley Jones and Decatur Smith.  Why they thought they needed them is not clear to me.  According to the reporter, shortly before February 3, 1886 Smith came to John Wesley Hannah and told him that a gang of thieves was coming
to Butler to rob Bernhard’s jewelry store.  To catch the thieves, Smith said that they need to book room 17 on the third floor of the Hotel so that they would be able to see the robbers arrive.  Hannah told Smith they he could have the room and that he would do what he could to help them.  Hannah told the Newspaper reporter that Jones and Smith had the room for six nights and were joined by Captain Davidson and a man by the name of Welsh. 
Then Smith told John Hannah that the burglars were going to wait to rob the jewelry store until the weather was warmer and would not need the room now.  Smith paid Hannah 50 cents per night for a total of $2.00

About a week later Smith told Hannah that they needed the room again because they got word the robbers were coming.  Hannah gave them room 17 again for 4 days.  Hannah said that he became suspicious of what was going on when he went to bed about midnight because there was a lot of noise coming from room 17.  He decided to investigate the next morning.   Before he was able to, the maid came down to tell him that there was a lot of blood in the room and in the wash bowl.  John Hannah got the Town Marshall and together they went to the room.  After looking it over, they concluded that one of the men had hit his nose on the chair below the transom while standing on it and looking out it down the hall.  When confronted, Smith told Hannah, that they were not looking for burglars but were spying for Captain Davidson on one of the lady guests to ensure her virtue and chastity!  Smith paid John Wesley Hannah for the room, but not for the $5.00 cleaning fee.

When interviewed Captain Davidson denied any knowledge of what had happened.  According to the reporter when “Captain Hannah tackled him (Davidson) about fooling him, he cried like a baby.”

I would love to know more about this, but there was nothing more in the paper.  I would like to know what the night watchmen were supposed to be doing, and why no one realized they were not doing it.  Were any of the other guests suspicious or have anything to say about the incident?  I was also impressed that the paper said they were  not going identify the woman who was being spied on, but I would like to know what she thought

#80 Chronicling John Wesley Hannah Part II

Last week I blogged about how I searched the newspapers in Chronicling America and the information I found about the Palace Hotel and John Wesley Hannah.  However, as I noted there were 86 other articles in the Butler Missouri papers about John Wesley Hannah, which did not involve the hotel.  As I read them, I learned that he was much more than a hotel owner and manager.

John Wesley Hannah with daughters

The Palace Hotel was not his only building.  He also owned the building on the north east corner of the town square.  I believe that is the building he used for the mercantile store that he ran when he first moved to Butler.  According to an article on March 7, 1888, the building was destroyed by fire; however, John Wesley Hannah had it insured for $1000 and that covered the cost of the loss.  In addition, in November of 1891 he in partnership with J. J. McKissick bought the new building on the south side of the town square.

In the late 1880’s John Wesley was involved in the politics of Butler and Bates County.  In 1888 he was nominated by the Republican Party to run for representative for the 12th election district.  He lost that election to a Mr. Stone.  However, he was not through with politics.  In 1889 in a local convention called by four of the leading citizens of Butler, he was nominated for mayor.  He seemed to be a somewhat reluctant candidate as he said he would accept the nomination only if the others, e.g. aldermen, also accepted their nominations.  Since two of the men declined to run, it appears that John Wesley did not run either.  It also seems that John Wesley traveled for political reasons.  In August of 1888 he travel to New York to welcome James G, Blaine home (Blaine was a candidate for president as far as I can tell.) and in 1889 John Wesley traveled to Washington, D. C.

Community affairs also took up time.  Beginning in 1884 until 1887, he was the chairperson of the committee that raised the money and negotiated for a railroad to come to Butler.  It does not appear that the committee was successful. In April of 1889 he and Representative Wade settle a dispute over who would become the next postmaster in Butler.  In that same year he was elected chairperson of the Gas and Water Committee.  In 1890 he was on a committee to beautify the nearby lake and land surrounding it.

I also found more personal information about him.  I learned that he was a founding member of the Butler Masonic Lodge, was involved in a physical dispute with another gentlemen, and was quite sick in March of 1888.  However, what surprised me the most was a small article from 1886 that read as follows:  “Capt. Hannah has brought quite a herd of cattle up from his ranch in Indian Territory and will stall feed them for the markets.”  While one of the censuses describes him as a cattle rancher, I had no idea that the cattle were on a ranch that he ran in Indian Territory.

While it took me a long time to get these articles organized, it was well worth it.  I now have a much greater understand of John Wesley Hannah.  However, there is more to learn.  The newspapers also have articles about his children.  In addition, I have finally figured out how to read the articles from the Butler Bates County Record, 1868-1878 on the State Historical Society of Missouri so there is more to search.

#79 Chronicling John Wesley Hannah in Chronicling America

When researching my ancestors, one of the things I like is to find out more about them than when they were born, married, and died.  Know how they earned a living, where they lived, if they traveled, etc. makes them come alive for me.

Last winter I was introduced to a wonderful source for adding other information.  The Library of Congress in Chronicling America has local newspapers on line.  Now if you are thinking they have newspapers from only big cities on line, you are wrong.  They focused on papers from small towns and cities all over the United States.  In fact they have 1967 papers which were published from 1836 to 1932.  As far as I can tell, they have papers from all the states with the exception of Hawaii and Alaska.

I love to read these local papers.  They give me a pictures of life in America at a simpler time.  Also they report all kinds of events that would never make it into the papers today.  I was pleased to find out that one of the papers on line was the

Butler Weekly Times and  the Butler Daily Democrat.  My great grandfather, John Wesley Hannah, moved to Butler in 1866.  Now I could search and see what the paper reported about him and his family.

There are several ways to search.  I think that the advanced search options are the best as you can narrow down the hits to those you are most interested in.  I learned that it is important to know how the paper referred to the person you are interested in.  When I tried John W. Hannah or J. W. Hannah, I got very little.  By reading what I did get, I discovered that the paper often referred to him as Capt. Hannah.  When I used that in the phrase box, I got numerous and appropriate hits.  It is also possible to combine two key words.  Because John Wesley Hannah was the proprietor of the Palace Hotel and I wanted to know more about the hotel, I put Palace Hotel into the search box and check the Butler

papers.  That gave me a very large number of hit.  When I looked, all the stores that were located on the first floor of the hotel and who advertised came up.  That was interesting, but not what I wanted. I narrow the hits down by adding Capt. Hannah.  I still got a large number of hits but they were all appropriate.

It is possible to save the entire page of the paper that has the article you are interested in or to use the snipping tool and just save the article.  The problem with the first strategy is that you will not know where on the page the article is and the problem with the second strategy is that you will not know the date of the article.  I ended up saving just the article, but putting the date into the file name.

There are 36 articles that focused on the Palace Hotel and John Wesley Hannah and 81 articles on John Wesley Hannah.  I have downloaded the articles on the Palace Hotel.  Some of them report on events that happened at the hotel.  There were parties, marriages and conventions.  Other articles described the improvements that John Wesley Hannah was making to the hotel—redecorating rooms, painting the outside of the hotel or adding a billiard table.

My next task is to read the 81 articles on John Wesley Hannah.  I know that there will be some overlap with the articles on the Palace Hotel but I expect to find out more about his life apart from the hotel.   Stay tuned.  Next week I will blog about what I found on John W. Hannah.

#69--George Newell Hannah--Farming in Three States

Everyone is pretty familiar with the census schedules that deal with people and describe their characteristics, but there are other schedules-- agriculture, industry, manufactures, or 1890 Union veterans. The Agricultural Schedule describes the farms and their products.   I like the agricultural schedules as they give you a picture of how the person made a living.

Previously, I blogged about Sarah Hannah and her farm (#18—Sarah Hannah—Farming on her Own and #12 John M. Hannah—The Farmer not in the Dell, but in Illinois).  So this week I am blogging about George Newell Hannah and the 1860 Agriculture Census Schedule.


George Newell Hannah is my great, great uncle.  He was born in Brown County, Ohio in June 27, 1828 to John M. and Charity (Mears) Hannah.  Along with his parents, he moved to Edgar County, Illinois about 1830.  On March 18, 1855, he married Mary Jane Markley.  By 1860, they had two children:  Susanna born in 1857 and Cassius born in 1859.  Six other children would be born between 1861 and 1875.

I found George Newell Hannah in the 1860 Agricultural Census in Prairie Township in Edgar County, Illinois.  According to the Schedule, he owned 180 improved acres of land and 7 unimproved, with a value of $1700.  The equipment needed to run the farm was worth $50.  In terms of livestock, George owned 2 horses, 2 mulch cows, 45 other cattle, and 301 sheep.  The farm produced 3000 bushels of wheat, 100 bushels of rye, and a ton of hay.  Also produced was 100 pounds of butter, 60 gallons of molasses, and $50 worth of slaughtered animals.

Unfortunately, The Agricultural schedules for 1870 and 1880 are not available for George.  However, it appears that George farmed his entire life.  The 1870 census lists him in Edgar County with farmer as his occupation while the 1880 census has George as a farmer, but now living in Bates County, Missouri where his brother, John Wesley lived and ran the Palace Hotel.  By 1900 he was living in Hampden, Coffey, Kansas.

If I were able to talk to George, I would like to know how much more land he acquired in Edgar County and what crops he grew.  I also would like to know why he moved to Bates County and then to Hampden Kansas.