Genealogy Jottings

Somewhere in Pennsylvania, a baby boy named John Davis Riddle was born to unknown parents in May, 1821. Family records give the date as May 10, but his cemetery marker says May 15. He was often known as J. D.

We know nothing about J. D.’s childhood or where he spent it. The first record of him appears in Summit County, Ohio when at the age of 21 he married Olive Hall Dunbar on the 12^th of January, 1843. Oddly, the name on his marriage record is simply “John Davis”, not John Davis Riddle.

J. D. and Olive remained in Edinburgh, Ohio for a few years after their marriage. There they had two daughters, Tamson Rebecca (1845) and Theodocia Orlinda (1847).

The autumn after Theodocia’s birth, the young parents made preparations to leave the state. In September, 1847 they sold land that Olive had inherited from her father, and sometime later they went to find a new home in Michigan.

The couple settled south of the small town of Mendon, Michigan in the southwestern part of the state. They began life as Michigan farm folk, and their first son, Isaac Newton was born there in 1849. Other children followed including Ethan Henry (1851), Laura Ruamy (1853), John Hoxey (1855), Seymour Alfonso (1858), and Olive Delila (1865).

Life was not easy. The Civil War period presented several difficulties. J.D. suffered an accident that resulted in the loss of an eye. In 1867, daughter Tamson became an unwed mother who could not provide for her child. J. D. and Olive took in the boy, Aden, and raised him as their own.

Another tragedy occurred when another grandson, Tamson’s second son Frank Blakesley, died in 1874. The four-year-old died of burns suffered while playing in hot spots where brush had been burned on the Riddle farm the previous day.

After that, J. D.’s troubles continued. He developed a cataract in his remaining eye. By 1880, the U. S. census reported that he was blind. Somehow, he continued with his farm, probably with the help of his son Newton.

The years went by. In 1896, he was 75 years old and could take it no more. On August 16, 1896, a despondent J. D. hanged himself in his barn. It was said he feared poverty.

John Davis Riddle was buried in the Mendon Cemetery. His widow, Olive, and all his children survived him.