James and Annie (McIntyre) Vandervort Enjoy Golden Anniversary 100 Years Ago

150 years ago today my great-great grandparents got married, partly as a result of the Civil War.
Anna Mary's parents, David and Louisa (Huff) McIntyre were both born in Maine and married in Boston, Massachusetts.  After a three year whaling adventure, David joined the Navy and ended up on a ship that participated in the Mexican War.  When he got out of the Navy back in Massachusettes in 1849 he and his wife moved first to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and later to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. There they had two daughters and Anna was the eldest.  Her official name may have been Mary Anna, but everyone knew her as "Annie."

James was the next to the last of five children born from second marriage of both James Robert Vandervort and Mary Baker Moon.  Both of his parents were born and married in New York State. Before he was 10 years old his family  moved to Wisconsin and when he was 19 and living in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin the Civil War began.

James Baker Vandervort enlisted as a private in Co. B, 16th Regiment Wisconsin Volunteers at Oconomowoc, Wisconsin on Oct. 18, 1861.   He looks SO young in this photo. At that time he was described as having gray eyes and brown hair, 5'7" tall and worked as a Farmer in Waukesha county. A typed and transcribed newspaper article (no attribution) said that he was discharged on Jan 4, 1864 at Treadbone [likely Redbone], Mississippi. He then reenlisted with Company A 16th Wisconsin Volunteers.  During his four years in the service, he apparently was involved in Siege of Cornish,MS; Bumpkin's Mills, GA, Chattahoochee River, GA, Siege of Atlanta, GA; Decatur, GA, Jonesboro, GA, Lovejoy's Station, GA, Siege of Savannah, GA; Pocatalico, SC; Whippy Swamp, SC; Orangeburg, SC; Columbia, SC; Bentonville, NC; Capture of Atlanta and March to the Sea.  The newspaper article  noted that when asked about his time in the War, he felt his most important service to the country was at the battles of Shiloh and Bald Knob and the capture of Atlanta. 

He was in the Civil War for most of it's duration and near the end came down with a fever (Yellow, Malaria, Dengue, Encephalitis?? -- no idea). He was hospitalized and ended up convalescing at the Swift Hospital facility associated with Fort Crawford at  Prairie du Chien. The Swift hospital was one of three hospitals in Wisconsin to care for wounded and ill Civil War soldiers. It opened in the fall of 1864 and closed September 1865. In the one year that soldier's convalesced there, the hospital served 1468 men from Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa.  There he somehow met Annie McIntyre.  We can only conjecture how that happened.  Did she work or volunteer at the medical clinic?  Did their local church send parishioners to visit soldiers and comfort them while away from home?  Did they have mutual friends who introduced them?  No way to answer those, but we do know that on July 3, 1865 they were married in Prairie du Chien. He was discharged from the service on July 29, 1865 in Madison, Wisconsin. James and Annie moved to LaGrange, Wisconsin where his extended family then resided.  They farmed there for 25 years and then moved a short ways to Tomah, Wisconsin. They had six children together, five of which lived to adulthood.  They include Sarah (Brown); Dora (Root), Charles, Earnest and Otis.   Their last child, Clinton, lived less than a year.  I was so glad when another family history buff shared the photo at the top of this entry because it included little Clinton.

Annie was described by their grandson Charles F. Vandervort, based on recollections of Annie's son

Ernest and Maude as a "lady with a good sense of humor, the kind with the twinkle in the eye."

On their 50th wedding anniversary they had a celebration at their home which was attended by their children and his Grand Army of the Republic Post and her Ladies Relief Corps members.  At 8:00 in the evening their pastor of the Methodist Church, Rev. Mr. Hoisington, performed a ceremony repeating their vows and joined in celebrating this wonderful milestone.  According to the newspaper article, Annie was attired in a gown of tan silk poplin and carried a bouquet of yellow roses.  Their porch and lawn were "decorated in the national colors" as befits a celebration of a wedding brought together because of his service to help save the Union and their 50th anniversary taking place on the Independence Day weekend.

 This later photo of their home in Tomah includes  from left to right Mary Anna McIntyre Vandervort, Kathryn Mae Vandervort, Ida Radloff Vandervort (2nd wife to Charles L Vandervort and stepmother to Kathryn), Charles Lorenzo Vandervort, Isaac Vandervort and James Baker Vandervort. I love these Italianate homes and particularly enjoy the personality added to the photo by the faithful dog and the horse and buggy.  Charles was my Great-Grandfather, Ida his second wife, and the young Kathryn was my wonderful maternal grandmother.

New Immigrants Fought for the Union

One of the surprises that I have had in learning about my family's past is that my father had two grandfathers who had immigrated to Wisconsin in the mid-1800's who fought for the Union in the Civil War. They must have had some pretty strong motivation in the middle of making their way in a new country to put down their plowshares to pick up swords. Both men were farmers near what is now the Kendall and Elroy part of Wisconsin.

Richard William Sherwood, my grandmother's grandfather, Enlisted in Co. E, 1st Wisconsin Heavy Artillery on August 19, 1864. He mustered out on June 5, 1865. Philip Weber, my grandfather's father, enlisted in Co. B, 17th Wiconsin Infantry. He was in from November of 1864 to July 29,1865.

Richard Sherwood had come to American from Kent County,England in 1851 when he was 21 years old. He was first married in England to Mary Ann Gulvin with whom he had seven children, and later in Wisconsin to her sister, Grace Gulvin, with whom he had three more. Philip Weber had come to America from Germany in 1853 when he was 22 years of age. He also had consecutive wives, Alberdian Doerning and Louise Retzloff and had four children with his first and seven with his second. Apparently there was slightly less risk to survival if you went off to war than if you were staying at home raising children (she says tongue-in-cheek).

These families converged when my grandmother Susan Sherwood, granddaugther of Richard, married Herman Weber, son of Philip Weber. They had a much smaller flock of only four children.

In both cases the pioneering families had come to American and had rented or bought farms in which they had invested much of their resources in the decade before they were called to serve their new country.

They must have seen something worth preserving when they looked at the civil war tearing at the fabric of their adopted homeland. Each of them answered the call. Fortunately both lived to turn their swords back into plowshares and lived long lives, surrounded by family in the green, rolling hills of Monroe and Juneau counties in wonderful Wisconsin.

Great Great Great Uncle Henry C. Richardson

I'm amazed at all the family history that I've discovered in the past few years. Uncle Henry was in the Civil War for nearly four years and was injured twice. I was also pleased to discover this photo of him.

Henry C Richardson was the son of Robert and Rosina (Healy) Richardson of Topsham, Vermont. He was born November 20, 1838 and died Aug 15, 1910.

Rosina, his mother, wrote a poem for Henry when he left to go off to war, although I don't know that she actually gave it to him; she may have just written it for her own comfort. Henry enlisted in the Army in December 1861 to fight in the Civil War; so this was likely written before December of 1861. He came home in 1864. He was married three times, his first wife died within a couple of years, but they did have two children. He then marrried Lydia Whitehill who was his dear love and next to whom he is buried. They had six more children, Robert, William, Mary, George, Margaret and Albert.

To Henry

Pen can’t portray nor Language tell
How hard it is to say farewell
Yet your Country calls and I bid you go
A Mother’s grief you will never know

Shun temptations, be of courage strong
I trust the conflict will not be long
Choose your associates; bind your Bible to your heart
And from its Holy precepts ne’er depart

And though on earth we meet no more
May we united be on that blessed shore
Where parting, sorrow, pain and woe
In that happy home we never shall know.

A Mother’s prayers shall ascend each day
To God to guide you on your way
And if it is “His will” may you return again my son
If not enable us to say “Thy Will be done.”