OFFORD Roots

No. 4, Web Version, February 2003

Roger C. Dugan, Editor, 344 Sweetgum Dr, Knoxville, TN 37934

Introduction

It has been a year and a half since the last edition of this newsletter in the Summer of 2001. A lot has happened since then! Peggy and I have been busy chasing after our scattered children and welcoming our first grandchild. And I've been distracted by nagging health problems with evidence now pointing to that durned Offord arthritic back. Most of my writing effort last year was devoted to the 2nd edition of my book Electrical Power Systems Quality, McGraw-Hill, which is hot off the press and available to all you electrical engineers out there. (We have at least two that I know of.) So I haven't had time until now to do this.

Since the last newsletter, we as a nation have weathered the terrorist attacks on Sept 11, 2001 and are now poised for war with Iraq. Our son, Kevin Dugan is in the 82nd Airborne and has been deployed to the Persian Gulf. I have no knowledge of others in the family that are presently serving the nation. We have had several in the past and I will try to write about them from time to time. We need to keep all our servicemen in our prayers.

A Buckeye Fan in Big Orange country, night of the big game, Fiesta Bowl,

Jan 4, 2003. It was a long, but fruitful night.

One passion for Offord descendants from Ohio continues to be Ohio State Buckeye football. I can testify to this truth about those I know in Ohio. Joseph Offord, who lives in Knoxville and is the adopted son of Grayson Offord, remembers riding with Grayson from Indiana to Columbus for the Ohio State-Michigan game. In honor of the great victory over Miami in the Fiesta Bowl on Jan. 4: Way to go Bucks! I did my part. Here is a photo of yours truly with my serious game face on watching the game wearing my scarlett and gray along with my Ohio State hat. It has given me no little pleasure to aggravate my colleagues here who tend to display a lot of orange around the office, especially given UT's outcome against Miami.

My genealogy research strategy is to post our genealogy to the Web and wait for cousins to find us. This is continuing to bear fruit. Our primary interest here is in the descendants of Alexander and Hannah Callaghan Offord. In 2002, I was contacted by cousins from two collateral lines within the same week. One was the Callaghan/Lee line consisting of Hannah's family. The other was from the John (Johnny) Offord line, a nephew of Alexander and a frequent visitor to the farm in McConnelsville, Ohio. There are articles on both in this issue.

More Connections to Fame (?)

In the last newsletter, we started a feature that would be interesting to continue. One of the pleasures of genealogy research is to see what famous people you are related to or at least connected to. If you know of such connections, please let me know.

Last issue, we described our connections to the famous artist Howard Chandler Christy. What do you think about probably being related to Robert E. Lee? It pains a lot of these Southern sympathizers here in Tennessee when they think a Yankee like me is more related to the General Lee than they are. Robert Bowen, a Callaghan descendant now living in California, makes a convincing argument in the following article on the Callaghan and Lee families written for this newsletter. I'm not so sure what I think about the part where we're related to Russell Demster, though. (He was a school teacher for several of us.) Interestingly, we lived in Washington Co, PA for 15 years without knowing we had a connection there.

Callaghan/Lee Families

Robert Bowen, January 2003

On July 29, 1850, Alexander Offord married Hannah Callaghan in Morgan County, Ohio and they began a long fruitful life together. Hannah was a 21-year old girl who lived on a farm near Hackney, Ohio about ten miles or so from McConnelsville. Her father, Thomas Callaghan, had died the year before. Hannah was a devout Catholic and Alexander a staunch Protestant but somehow they managed to live in religious harmony each keeping their own faith. Hannah’s father, Thomas Callaghan, emigrated from St. Bams Parish in County Cork Ireland in 1814 at the age of 28. According to letters written by his oldest daughter, Thomas left Ireland so he would not be drafted by the British to fight against the United States in the war of 1812. Reportedly Thomas converted to Catholicism, along with his children after he was cured of cancer while living in Hackney, Ohio. He died in 1849 and is buried in St. Margaret’s Cemetery.

Thomas probably landed in Baltimore, Maryland where he met his wife Mary Lee, a young girl of 16 or 17. Mary was the daughter of Samuel Lee and Margaret Rush Lee. I do not know much about Samuel’s background nor his father’s name. I know he had a brother Thomas, a sister Sarah, and maybe a brother John. Samuel married Margaret Rush in Baltimore on November 19, 1787 and they lived in Soldiers Delight Hundred, MD where they had five children: Arnold, Samuel, Thomas, Mary, and Hannah who was the namesake of Hannah Callaghan Offord. In 1797 they moved to Brooke County, VA to live on the farm with Samuel’s brother Thomas. Mary and Thomas Callaghan also moved to Brooke County and several of their 12 children including Hannah were born there. The Lee children inherited Thomas’s farm on his death.

There is a widely held belief among descendants of both the Lee and Callaghan families that Mary Lee was a descendant of the famous Lee family of Virginia who signed the Declaration of Independence. Some say Mary was a descendant of Francis Lee; others say a descendant of Richard Henry Lee. In either case, that would make Mary a cousin of the Confederate General Robert E. Lee. Although that belief is almost universally held, I have not found the exact link between Samuel Lee and the Virginia Lees. I found a letter written by one of Mary’s granddaughters, Nettie Shoop Sherwood, indicating that her brother, Charles Callaghan White, who was an attorney and vice-president of Land Title Co had researched the matter and had provided proof of this relationship sufficient to allow Nettie and her daughters to enroll in the DAR. They never did and the “proof” has been lost.

Sarah "Kate" Callaghan White Family

I have found, however, that Richard Henry Lee broke with his family over the issue of slavery and moved from Virginia to Washington County, PA where he had a son, Francis Lightfoot Lee. Washington County PA borders Brooke County, VA (now West VA) and is only a few miles from where Mary Lee’s family lived. After the death of the father, the Lee children all sold their share of the family farm in Virginia and moved. Arnold and Mary moved to Morgan County Ohio; Thomas and Hannah moved to Washington County, PA near to the farm of Francis Lightfoot Lee.

This leads to speculation that Samuel Lee and Francis Lee were related. The records show that Francis’ father, Richard Henry Lee, a member of the famous Virginia Lee family had a brother, Thomas Ludwell Lee who had at least two sons and a daughter. Their names are not known, but their ages on the census indicated they could be Samuel Lee, Thomas Lee, and Sarah Lee—Mary’s father, uncle, and aunt. If that were the case, then Mary Lee would in fact be related to the signers of the Declaration and a cousin to Robert E. Lee. This matter needs to be researched further.

Mary’s brother Arnold Lee lived on a farm in Bristol TWP, Morgan County. He is buried in a cemetery on the Rex farm along with some of his 12 children. Her brother Thomas Lee lived with his wife Rachel in Washington County, PA and raised their children but then moved to an undisclosed location around 1860. Her sister Hannah never married. She had at least one child, an illegitimate son according to court records. The boy’s father was Joseph Duncan but he was given his mother’s surname and speculation is that the son’s name was Duncan Lee. Duncan moved to Iowa where he raised his family. According to the census, Hannah also had a daughter. I believe her name was Provey Lee. There was a Provey Lee who moved to Morgan County with her aunt and uncle Ben and Kizzie Wells around 1824. Ben and Kizzie Wells lived next to Samuel Lee in Maryland, then lived next to Samuel Lee in Brooke, County VA; and finally moved to Morgan County where they lived near Mary Lee and Thomas Callaghan. In fact, when Thomas and Mary Callaghan sold their farm in VA to move to Ohio, they sold it to Ben Wells. This certainly would indicate that the Wells and Lees were related. There is a grave in the Wells plot near Millgrove that I believe is the grave of Mary’s sister Hannah. Provey Lee married George Demster son of Noah Demster who lived on the farm next to Arnold Lee in Bristol TWP. So if in fact Provey Lee were the brother of Duncan Lee and the daughter of Hannah Lee, then the Demsters and the Offords would be related. The similarity of names, the closeness of ages, the proximity of residences that transverses several states would certainly indicate this relationship.

Provey Jane Callaghan Laughery Earl, 1920

Thomas Callaghan and Mary Lee had 12 children: Clarissa born 1816; Margaret born 1824; Samuel Lee Callaghan born 1825; Mary Callaghan born 1827; Elizabeth born 1828; Hannah Agnes born 1829; Susan born 1832; David Rush Callaghan born 1833; Sarah Catherine born 1836; Provey Jane Callaghan (named after Provey Lee?) born 1838; Rachel born 1840; Thomas Callaghan JR. born 1845.

After the death of Thomas, Mary sold the farms near Hackney and Millgrove and moved to Coal Valley, Illinois near Rock Island along with several of her children: Samuel, Susan, Provey, Rachel, and Thomas. Clarissa and David already lived in Illinois. Clarissa moved there with her husband and children in 1840 and David ended up there after leaving Morgan County to work on the steamboats on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Mary is buried there next to Samuel, Susan, and Thomas. Sarah, Hannah, Margaret, and Elizabeth remained in Morgan County where they married and raised their families. Mary moved to Parkersburg, W. VA where she married and raised children until her death from TB in 1860. Rachel and Provey moved with their families to Montana and David settled first in Iowa then in Colorado.

John Offord Family Contact

For many years, I had heard stories about "Johnny Offord" and tales about the rabbit hunting on the farm (see the website). My father remembers him and his son, Grayson, visiting the farm from Columbus, OH. Here is a photo of part of the family page when Grayson was young. This is from my grandmother's collection. So it was exciting to receive an e-mail on last July 5 that began with "My name is Marcia Hovenden and Grayson Carney Offord was my grandfather."

Marcia has since sent me much material. I do not have room to include all of it, but I have edited some interesting things together from her contributions regarding some of the older generations. Hope you enjoy it.

Johnny Offord with children Grayson (L) and Edith (R) about 1905.

John Offord Family

By Marcia Hasson Hovenden

Grayson Carney Offord was born in Columbus, Ohio on July 27th, 1897 and died in Muncie, Indiana on September 13, 1956. I never got to know my grandfather as he was living in Indiana before I was born and the last time that my mother ever saw him was when he came back to Ohio for his father's funeral n February 1948. My oldest brother Ray was the only member of the family that ever saw him, but would not remember him since he was a baby. My brother was only fifteen months old at that time. Grayson married my grandmother, Elsie Berniece Stein on January 1st, 1920 and they divorced on January 30th, 1924 when my Aunt Ruth was a year old. My mother said that my grandmother was the apple of Grayson's eye. My mother couldn't understand why they got divorced when he said that. My mother doesn't like to talk about her father, but John Offord truly loved his granddaughters and treated them better than Grayson did. My mother (Elsie Lucille Offord) remembers when my grandmother took my grandfather to court for not paying child support and the judge made him take his daughters to the store and buy them some school clothes. My mother remembers being introduced to his wife, Virginia at the time. Last year we visited the cemetery that Grayson is buried in and next to him is the last wife that he was married to and she was born on April 10, 1894 and died in August 1974. Her name was Frieda E. Kelly. I got her maiden name from cousin Barbara Denham, whose grandmother was Helen [Johnny's youngest dau].

Grayson was the third child of John and Zula. Zula's birth name was either Sally C. or Julina. Zula or Sallie was born on June 11, 1869 and died from breast cancer on October 25, 1929. She is buried in Greenlawn Cemetery [Columbus, OH] along with her mother, Sally J. Ball, her two young children that died before Grayson was born and her husband John Offord.

Zula and John Offord were married over the grave of Zula's sister, Effie who died of TB.

Zula was born in Ashland, Kentucky and lived in Grayson County, Kentucky. I was wondering if this might be where the name Grayson came from.. Zula's father Warren H. Devore shot and killed Sallie J. Ball's brother, James on Christmas Eve in 1872. Warren and Sallie divorced and Zula would not talk to my grandmother about the family. Warren's second wife was Emma Havens and they had two or three daughters together. Can't get any proof of who was the mother of Ida, since she was born after Warren and Sallie's divorce. He claimed Ida as his daughter as she was living with Warren and Emma at the time that she was sick in the fall of 1875. The reason why her birth mother can't be proved is because the birth records were destroyed in a fire at the Cincinnati Ohio Court House as Emma tried to get copies of her birth certificate. Altogether between the two marriages he fathered seven daughters. Warren died in July of 1878. He was born in Kentucky in 1840. The cause of death was from having his lungs and heart damaged from the Saltville Raid of October 1864. Sallie married her second husband James Washington Bevins and had three more children with him. She died in Columbus in June 1896 from Typhoid Malaria.

Zula said that we are related to George Washington. I have my family names traced back to George Washington and his sister, Betty. Betty married Fielding Lewis, whose Aunt Martha Anne Lewis married my sixth great grandfather, William Mitchell Clay. Also, we are related to Thomas Nelson who signed the Declaration of Independence. Also, since Betty Lewis's son married Nelly Custis, George Washington's adopted granddaughter, the Hasson's are related to them that way, too. The closest that we are related to Robert E. Lee is through his Uncle Robert Carter. It is neat living around all of these historical houses, since I'm related to famous people in history. Hasson's are also related to Henry Clay, the great orator and anybody related to all of the Clay's is invited to join the Clay Family Society. The next Clay Family Gathering one will be held the last weekend in June 2004 in Beckley, West Virginia.

My mother has a picture of Grayson sitting on a table in her living room. I think this family tree stuff is great.

Marcia Hovenden : x43r2z8@aol.com.

Line Reports

Frank Offord Line

New leaves on the tree since last issue:

· Adria Morgan Galles, dau of James and Keysa Dugan Galles.

· Samantha Kate Schumann, dau of Scott and Kathleen Dugan Schumann.

· Riley Autumn Kinney, dau of Jim and Jeri Bernat Kinney.

· Natasha Suzanne Zimmerman, dau of John and Meighan Dugan Zimmerman

Kevin Dugan now serving with 82nd Airborne in the Persian Gulf.

The David and Joanne McCormick Myers family is currently in Germany working with OC International, supporting Christian missionaries.

Richardson Line

"I was surfing the net and was surprised to come across my name on your geneaology web site. I was Cynthia Kay Jones (now I am Cindy Cole) and I suppose we are related somehow. Our family is located mostly in Alabama and Georgia, although I am living in Pennsylvania. If you email me, I can fill in some information about the generation that follows my father, David Edward Jones. Look forward to hearing from you! " ‑Cindy Cole: CinAmaznPA@aol.com

Also, got a nice note from Jim Richardson, Magalia, CA, who mentioned that he also had the red beard and body hair attributed to the Offords.

Fouts Line

New leaves on the tree since last issue:

· Gabriel Thomas Abraham, son of Jay and Julie Dinsmore Abraham.

· Calvin Howard Hoffman, son of Frank and Mindy Abraham Hoffman.

Tim Abraham married Stacey Lieser on Nov 23, 2002. According to Hazel "then we all went on the honeymoon Jan 18 to Puerto Vallarta" where they got to experience the earthquake.

Peairs Line

Still no progress.

Devol Line

I noticed in the Morgan County Herald that two descendants in this line passed away in the same week. Wava Corrine Roberts Clay, 80, a daughter of Fred and Dessie Devol Roberts, passed away Nov. 5, 2002. My database lists Elmer Roberts and Dessie Frances Roberts Matas from that family still living. Her grandson, Robert A. Clay died on Nov 1 at the age of 39.

Sharon Clay sent me a well-researched database on this line and their ancestors. Maybe one day, I will update the website. This may be the best documented line represented in this newsletter. If you would like a copy, contact Sharon at "sharoncl@ix.netcom.com".

McLucas Line

This line appears to have terminated.

Gregg Line

Still no new knowledge of this line.

Call for Photos and Articles

Please send articles regarding the history of descendants of Hannah and Alexander to the address below. My thanks to those who have already done so. Copies of old photos (digital scans are satisfactory) are also deeply appreciated as we strive to learn more about our ancestors.

Roger Dugan, Editor, 344 Sweetgum Dr, Knoxville, TN 37934, 865-966-9914

E-mail: r.dugan@ieee.org