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Louisa Mary Pottgen was born in Alton on 30 July 1836 (this still remains to be proven by me, because I don’t have a birth record).  Her parents, Francis and Sophia (Ross) Pottgen were immigrants from Germany.  Louisa married James Patrick Thornton, an Irish immigrant, in the early 1850′s.  They moved to Nebraska probably in the late 1870′s.

Here is a little history of this town that they spent a good deal of their lives in (the majority of this is from Wikipedia)…

Alton was founded in 1818 by Rufus Easton, and was named after his son.  Easton ran a ferryboat service from Alton to Missouri.

It became an important town for abolitionists, since Illinois was a free state and just across the river from Missouri, a slave state. Escaped slaves would cross the river and look for shelter in Alton before moving on to safer places. There were many stations on the Underground Railroad in this little city. You can read more about it here.

On November 7, 1837, the abolitionist printer, Reverend Lovejoy, was murdered by a pro-slavery mob while he was trying to protect his press. Lovejoy became the first martyr of the abolitionist movement.

The Alton and Sangamon Railroad was chartered in 1847 and finished in 1852.  It had service from Alton to Springfield and eventually to Chicago.

On October 15, 1858, Alton was the site of the seventh and final debate between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.  There were 5,000 people in attendance.  You can read the full transcript of this debate here.

The first penitentiary in Illinois was in Alton, and during the Civil War, it was used to house close to 12,000 Confederate prisoners. Many of them died in a smallpox epidemic and are buried in a cemetery in town. You can actually search through records here to see if your Confederate ancestor was in the prison (they aren’t complete).

And something fun (which has nothing to do with my ancestors since they didn’t live in Alton in this same time period) – Robert Wadlow, the tallest human being, was from Alton.   There is a statue of him in town and a room dedicated to him at the local historical museum.

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I was able to make a very short, rushed visit to Alton last year.  I ended up finding my ancestors’ gravestones, but didn’t have time to stop for anything else, unfortunately.  I’m hoping to make a longer trip there in the future.

I had never really given much thought to the history of Alton before and how it may have affected my ancestors’ lives.  I now have some questions I’ve been thinking about:

• Did they moved to Alton because they were abolitionists?  Did they ever help escaped slaves? I know that this is a long shot, but with the large amount of abolitionist activity in the area, I have to wonder.
• They were living in Alton in 1858.  Did they attend the Lincoln-Douglas debate?  How exciting!!
• How were their daily lives during the Civil War?  Were they scared of having such an overcrowded prison in their town?  I know that Louisa Pottgen Thornton’s brother, Henry Pottgen was killed during the War.  He had fought at Vicksburg, but ended up dying of chronic diarrhea – which I have noticed was quite common amongst the soldiers of this era.
•  Did they travel to St. Louis very often?  It was only a ferryboat ride away.  Did they have family that lived there?  The majority of Pottgen names I’ve found in the US happen to be in the St. Louis area.  Makes me wonder.
• James Thornton was a RR agent in 1870 in Alton.  Did the railroad bring him to Alton?

One of the places I really want to go is Norway – specifically to the Inderøy region where my ancestors lived, and the neighboring city of Trondheim.

There are two churches that I really want to see – the Old and New Sakshaug Churches.

The Sakshaug “Old” Church dates back to around 1150.  That is a seriously old building!!

It was decommissioned in 1871, when the new church was built. After sitting for many years with no roof, it was renovated from 1910-1958.  Many of my ancestors were christened in this church.

{Both of the following pictures and the above info were found on Wikipedia}.

And this is the new church, which was built in 1871.  My great-grandmother was born in the area in 1881, so it is most likely that she went to this church before they emigrated.

_I wonder if any of my ancestors are buried around one of these churches.

Delphos is near the town of Mount Ayr, which is the county seat of Ringgold County, Iowa.  Mount Ayr is a small, but quaint town with some neat old buildings.  We ate lunch at a really cool diner, called Peggy Sue’s.

Delphos on the other hand seems to have languished over the years.  It is no longer an incorporated town.  We drove through what used to be the town on our recent trip to Iowa.  It made me sad to see all of the run-down buildings.

My great-great grandparents, Ari Austin and Sally Jane (Lee) Agee lived in Delphos from 1904 till their deaths in 1938 and 1934.

Ari was a blacksmith and they owned a lot in the town, where he had his shop.

When I read through Ari’s probate records, I found bills from the local store – Seaton Store.  And here it stands today.  Obviously no longer a store.  I wonder what it looked like when it was open for business.

This is the Baptist church which they attended.  It didn’t appear to be in use, although I read online that there was a small museum inside, if you called a lady to open it.  If I had more time to spend in town, I would have pursued that.

And here is the other local church next door.  It’s definitely not open.

It makes me so sad to see towns like this – that reached their peak a hundred years ago and have since died out.  It makes you wonder what causes a town to disappear, when other areas are thriving and overpopulated.  Any ideas?

The town motto, which welcomes you from the main road, says “Where Friends Meet”.  That may be true, but there sure aren’t many of them!  It is a small town, with about 800 people living there.  My great-great grandparents lived on a farm just north of town – from the 1860′s until she died in 1918.

It was never a very large town, but it had a quaint downtown with gorgeous old buildings.  I saw pictures of parades going down main street from late in the 1890′s.

We drove through town last week, looking for the cemetery where they were buried.

The downtown is now like a ghost town.  The old buildings are still standing, but they are boarded up and neglected.  There are weeds growing through the sidewalks.

The farms in the area seem to be thriving, but I think that everyone drives to the larger towns to shop and do business.

There are people living in the town.  The post office is open, as is the city hall.  The lady at city hall was really nice and helped me find the cemetery I was looking for.

It just makes me so sad to see a town in such a state of decay.  I would love to see someone invest in restoring the old buildings down main street – much the way they do in Savannah, GA.  It would be such a quaint town!

Did any of your ancestors live in what has now become a “ghost town”?

I know very little about his parents, Henry and Sarah Woods.  They were both born in England and must have immigrated sometime in the 1850′s. (That is my guess at least. I don’t have immigration papers on them.)

Sarah remarried to a George Hanscomb in 1860, so Thomas’ father must have died either when his mother was pregnant with him, or else soon after he was born.

I decided to do a little research on the history of Lockport to learn what life might have been like during this time period (1850-1930′s).

Lockport is in Niagara county, and as you can see on the above map, is located just a short distance from Niagara Falls.

I found a book on Google, entitled Lockport: Historic Jewel of the Erie Canal, by Kathleen L. Riley.  It states the following:

In a Souvenir Program Commemorating the Lockport Centennial 1865-1965, former Niagara County historian Clarence O. Lewis wrote of the genesis of the Lockport story: “Any history of Lockport should begin with the digging of the Erie Canal and the construction of the ten combined locks because our city was born of the canal and received its name from that tremendous engineering feat which proved to the skeptics that boats could ‘sail up hill’”

And here is a brief timeline I put together of the history of Lockport and Thomas Woods:

1808 The county of Niagara was established.
1817 Construction started on the Erie Canal in Rome, New York.
1825 The canal was finished and they had a great celebration.
1829 Lockport was incorporated as a village.
1835 Manufacturing had become very important. There were many mills in town. The population of Lockport was over 6,000.
1840 Construction work started to enlarge the canal.
1842 The steamboat arrived on the canal.
1850 The population of Lockport was about 12,000
1851 The first gas street lights were turned on in town.
1852 The Railroad opened.
1854 There was a large fire in town. 26 buildings and ten acres of the village were burned.
1855 The Clinton Street Methodist Church was organized. {this is significant, because Thomas later lived on Clinton Street and his son married the minister’s daughter.}
1859 Thomas Woods is born in Lockport.
1859 Henry Woods must have died sometime around here.
1860 Thomas’ mother, Sarah, married George Hanscomb.
1865 Lockport was incorporated as a city with 4 wards.
1879 The first phone in Lockport was installed.
1892 Thomas Woods was 34 and living with his mother, Sarah Hanscomb.
Abt 1892 Thomas Woods married Mary Spencer
1893 Thomas’ mother, Sarah died.
Abt 1894 Thomas started working at Thompson Flour Mill in Lockport.
1897 An earthquake rocked Lockport
1900 Thomas Woods and his family were living in Lockport.
1910 Thomas and his family were living in Lockport.
1915 Thomas’ son Henry died in a fire in their home.
1918 Thomas’ daughter Florence died from Spanish Flu.
1920 Thomas and his family were living in Lockport.
1929 Thomas retired from the flour mill.
1930 Thomas and his family were living in Lockport.
1934 Thomas Woods died in Lockport.

I used the following sources for many of the timeline dates:
History of Lockport, New York FROM LANDMARKS OF NIAGARA COUNTY, NEW YORK, EDITED BY: WILLIAM POOL, PUBLISHED BY D. MASON AND CO. PUBLISHERS, SYRACUSE, NY 1897
Official Lockport, NYsite

I actually visited Lockport last May to do some research.  I really wish that we had been able to stay longer.  There was so much I wanted to see.  I only hit the library and the historical society.  The courthouse was closed by the time I finished there and then we headed out of town and on to Pennsylvania.  I’ll make it back again someday!

So, even though the Woods family wasn’t involved in building the Erie Canal, it must have been an exciting place to live during this time period – with ships passing by all of the time.  I’m thinking that I may order a book or two to read about this area so that I can glean some further details.  Many of the ones I read online were only available for the first portion of the book, therefore I missed out on the time period I was looking for!

I decided that I wanted to learn a bit more about the town of Herencia, where the Sanchez-Tereso family lived for at least a couple of hundred years.  Nicanor’s ancestor, Juan Sanchez Tereso, was born there in 1620. (Related families that also lived in this area were: Gomez-Lobo, Lopez-Naranjo, Fernandez-Canadas, Martinez-Ojeda, Rodriguez-Polanco, Martinez-Oxeda, Garcia-Navas, Rodriguez Del Tembleque, Diaz De Ubeda, Martinez-Viveros and many more hyphenated names!)

Herencia is in the Province of Ciudad Real in the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha, about 150 km south of Madrid. It has about 9,000 inhabitants.  Fairly small.

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I found a couple of websites for Herencia: www.herencia.net and www.herencia.es. The first seems to have more local news/events.  The second had information on history, a  map of the town,  and pictures.

I had to use Google Translate to figure out what the sites said.  I have taken Russian, German, and a little French, but Spanish is an absolute mystery to me.  The words were translated so that I could get the gist of it, but it just sounded awkward.  It’s much better than pulling out a dictionary though, isn’t it? I won’t complain.

What I could pick up from the translation was this: (Here is the direct link to the site.  They have old pictures, which are neat to look at, even if you don’t speak Spanish)

1. Herencia is translated as “Heritage” or “Legacy” (according to Google Translate).  Now, isn’t that a cool name for a town?
2. In 1239, after the Battle of Los Navas de Tolosa, the Kingdom of Castile began the repopulation of the Southern Plateau.  The town of Herencia is given its charter.  It has about 150 residents at this time.
3. In 1568, a granary was built.
4. They had vineyards and produced a lot of wine.
5. In 1604, there is a population crisis because of poor harvests and typhoid epidemics.
6. In 1786 there was an epidemic of malaria.  Life expectancy at this time period was about 50.
7. In 1790, the first of the windmills was built.  By the early 1800′s, there were 11 windmills in/around Herencia.
8. I love this translation: “In 1,798, the master of the alphabet, D. Alfonso García Rosel, teaches 90 children of all ages, including 12 of the poorest, who do not receive any money.”  I wonder if my Nicanor (who was born in 1791) may have been one of these children.
9. In 1808, they record that there are only 3 remaining windmills. It says that this may be due to the destruction by French troops during the War for Independence.

I also found a site that has an album of pictures from the area.  Lots of windmills, reminiscent of Don Quixote.   Actually, the setting of Don Quixote is in this vicinity.  It was neat to see what the area looks like.  I would love to visit someday!!

Here is a translation of what the Herencia.es site had to say about the relation of Don Quixote to the area:

If the heirs of Cervantes had to collect intellectual property rights for the use of the names mentioned in Don Quixote, his would be one of the largest fortunes. In Legacy there is no corner that does not contain any reference to Cervantes’s fiction, from the stamp of their handmade cheeses, until the inevitable street and Plaza Cervantes. The very name of the people is in itself a valuable legacy.It is best to walk to the Plaza of Spain, where is the Church of the Immaculate Conception, then visit the Church of Our Lady of Mercy and walk the streets, that have a certain symmetry, with white as dominant color of the cityscape.. At the time of rest and food it is essential the presence of cheese Inheritance of universal popularity. Surely there will be no better place to buy a manchego cheese and taste

The most exciting thing that I found is a bit of information on the church where my ancestors attended: the Church of the Immaculate Conception.  The church that is currently standing was built in the 18th century, which means that it is the same one that Nicanor and his family attended.

I have added visiting this place as number 153 on my life list.

Other questions I have about this area are: How was it affected by the Napoleonic Wars?  This is the time period that Nicanor (later known as Nicholas)  was living there.  He would have been 16 when the Peninsular War started and 23 when it ended. Was he a soldier?  Would he have gone to Germany as a soldier? Did he move there after the war, looking for a new life? He married in 1815 in Germany, after the wars ended.

I really know very little about this time period/place.  I think that I only briefly studied it in high school and obviously didn’t retain anything. Everything I know about the Napoleonic Era was learned from watching BBC movies and reading Jane Austen novels. Not a complete education, for sure.

Luckily, we will be studying Napoleon and the world in his time this January in our homeschool.  Hopefully I will learn something too!  I have a wonderful book entitled Historical Atlas of the Napoleonic Era. It has so many wonderful maps and paintings in it. I highly recommend it if you are looking for a book on this time period. I’m obviously not an expert though.

I looked at the map of Spain in the chapter titled “The Spanish Ulcer”, and there was definitely chaos all around where the Sanchez-Tereso’s were living. Even if they didn’t fight in the wars, they had to be affected by the things going on around them. Another thing I need to research is Nicanor’s siblings. Other than their birth and baptismal dates, I know absolutely nothing about them. Did they stay in Spain or did they move also?

I wonder if there are records of soldiers for this time period.  Hmm. Things to think about.  Any suggestions on where to look for further information? Does anyone know of any good books (in English) that give a good overview on daily life during this time period in Spain? Anyone want to speculate on why Nicanor moved to Germany?