Genealogy Jottings

Thomas (Lane?) Sherman always reported on the census records that he was born in Ohio on November 23, 1841, but most of his siblings hailed from the state of Kentucky. The family lived in various Kentucky counties, including Bath, Clark and Madison before and after his birth. His father Daniel worked as a blacksmith, and the sons, including Thomas, all followed him into this profession. Thomas’ precise birthplace in Ohio has not been found, nor is it known why the family briefly resided in Ohio around 1840.

The first record of Thomas outside of the census records appears during the Civil War when his name appears as plaintiff on a court record in Madison County, KY in the case of Sherman v. Raines. Thomas alleged that in September, 1862, Deft Raines had taken a grey horse for use in the Confederate Army. Thomas sued for the value of the horse, $240.

Shortly after this case, the Shermans left Kentucky and relocated to Johnson County, Indiana. There Thomas and his brother Anderson registered for the Civil War draft in June, 1863. Whether Thomas actually served remains unclear. According to his obituary, he had enlisted in Louisville in 1861. No record of his service has been found, nor did he or his third wife apply for a pension based on his service.

Family tradition says that Thomas married for the first time during the Civil War. His bride was said to have been a German girl named Katherine Stillenbaugh or Stanabaugh, but no record of this marriage has been found. Their daughter Anna Petronellia came into the world at Indianapolis in 1865, and Katherine died shortly afterwards.

Thomas’ obituary says he lived at St. Louis after the war, but by 1870 he resided in Hunter Township, Edgar County, Illinois. His four-year-old daughter Anna lived nearby with his mother Rebecca while he worked as a blacksmith in the Fawcett Keyes household. His siblings John, Evaline, and Jasper also lived in Edgar County at the time.

On March 21, 1872, Thomas remarried. His second wife was Mary Scott. They lived with his daughter Anna in Edgar County in 1880 where he continued working as a blacksmith. Mary Scott Sherman disappears from the record after that.

Thomas married for a third time a year later on September 8, 1881 in Moultrie County, Illinois. His wife, Alice Farris, was half his age. The couple appears to have relocated to Missouri after the wedding, and their oldest son Charles Frederick Sherman was born there in 1882.

Afterwards, they returned to Illinois and lived there for the rest of their lives. They had four more children:

1. George Raymond, born in Coles County in 1884,
2. Ethel, born in Coles County in 1887,
3. Claude, born in Cumberland County in 1889, and
4. James Walter, born in Cumberland County in 1891.

By 1900, the family had returned to Coles County where Thomas worked as a blacksmith in Seven Hickory and Morgan Townships. Sometime in 1910 he suffered a work-related accident when he was hit in the head with a hammer. This head injury brought on acute insanity, and in May of that year his son George petitioned for his commitment to the Illinois Eastern Hospital for the insane. Thomas was released five months later. When he returned home, the court ordered George and Claude to each contribute $1.50 a week toward the support of their father.

Thomas lived for another year and a half in poor health. He passed away at his home in Charleston, Illinois at the age of seventy on February 3, 1912. He reportedly was buried in the Mound Cemetery in Charleston but the cemetery office there has no record of his interment .

Oddly, his obituary does not name his eldest daughter Anna Petronellia as a survivor. Who provided the information for the obituary? Anna and Thomas’ third wife Alice were said to dislike one another. Was the snub deliberate?

If one of the other children prepared the obituary, perhaps her half-siblings did not really know her and forgot to include her name. Anna had lived far away in southern Missouri since the time of Thomas’ marriage to Alice. Their obituaries did not list Anna as a survivor, either, and they may have lost touch. Yet she seems to have remembered the connection, always keeping photos of them. And she outlived them all.

We have no photos of Thomas, but there may be cousins out there who do. I would love to see them! In the meantime, I do have this photo of three of Thomas’ sons (George, Claude, and Walter) that gives me a clue as to what he may have looked like.