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Aderhold, Lt. Col. Jacob Wilson

Lt. Col. Jacob Wilson Aderhold of Kissimmee, Mexican and Civil War Veteran

Researched and written by Lisa K. Slaski

Lieutenant Colonel Jacob Wilson Aderhold was born on 28 Nov 1826 in Bibb or Dekalb county, GA. Much of his early life was spent in and around Macon, GA. As a young man of about 20 years of age he enlisted, apparently under the name Wilson J. Aderhold, as a private in the Georgia Regiment of Volunteers for the Mexican War. He stayed with the company throughout the war, survived battles and disease, earning a fine record as a soldier.

After the Mexican war Jacob returned to Macon and was married on 1 Jun 1848 to Miss Harriet Jane Wagnon also of Macon. She was born about 1830 in Georgia. In 1860 they were living in Godfrey, Bibb county, GA where he is listed as a "sportsman". They had at least one child, a son Henry, who was born about 1854 in GA.

At the start of the Civil War, Jacob organized a company at Macon with himself as Captain (also known as Company A 1st Battalion GA Inf, CSA) on 15 Mar 1861. He was promoted to full Major on 18 Nov 1862 and then to Lieut. Colonel on 20 Nov 1862. Though the company records drop him from the roll on 02 Sep 1863 in Chattanooga, TN , he himself stated that he served until the close of the war and his obituary states that he was awarded a badge of honor for his bravery at the end of the war.

After the war, he again returned to his family in Bibb county where they are found in 1870 residing in Macon. In both the 1870 and 1880 census Jacob has no occupation listed. In 1880 his son, Henry, is living nearby with his wife Rosa and 2 children. There is also a daughter, Ella, age 13 living with Jacob, but she was not in the 1870 census. Jacob and his family remained in Macon until 1880 when, according to his obituary, after his business in Macon failed the family moved to Kissimmee, FL. Harriet died in 1883 and is buried at Rose Hill Cemetery near Kissimmee. On 2 Oct 1883 Ella Aderhold married Robert J. Sears in Orange county, FL. On 8 Sep 1885 Jacob married Miss Mary J. Cross in Orange county (Osceola county was not formed until 1887). She was a generation younger having been born Nov 1865 in GA and was also from Macon. Jacob and Mary had four more children: Viola (born Jan 1889 and possibly married Charles B. Green); Wilson (died about 20 Aug 1896); George (born Oct 1895, died 7 Oct 1907); and Frederick (born Feb 1898).

Jacob's house is said to have been among the first to settle Kissimmee and he built the second house on the site. When Kissimmee's population had risen to several hundred, Jacob built the "Kissimmee Hotel" which later burned down in 1883. In 1887 Jacob was a notary public in the firm of Aderhold & Johnston, real estate agents on Broadway southwest corner Darlington. His residence was on Park between Main ave and Aderhold. He later embarked in the drug business, under the name of Aderhold & Burley.

Jacob was a leader in the growth and development of the city and held many political offices. Among them, he was an early mayor of Kissimmee holding the position in 1891, 1892, a supervisor of registration for the county in 1900 and again mayor for seven years in succession from 1900 to 1906. Because of his interest and encouragement in building the Osceola county seat, he had been called "The Father of Kissimmee" during his own lifetime.

The family was hit by grief in early 1907 when Ella Aderhold Sears died on January 14th. As stated she had been listed as a daughter of Jacob and Harriet Jane Aderhold in the 1880 census, but in her obituary she is stated to be the sister of Mrs. J. W. Aderhold. Then sometime in the spring or summer of the year Jacob's eldest son, George, was afflicted with "affection of the head" which eventually developed into meningitis and he died on 7 Oct 1907. Shortly after this, at the age of 81, Jacob's health was failing and he applied for a pension for his Civil War service from the state of Florida on 19 Oct 1907.

Just before 2 Aug 1909, at the age of 83 and suffering from Brights disease and a cancerous growth on his face, Jacob left Kissimmee to live with his daughter in Tampa (by 1910 she was Mrs. Charles B. Greene). Upon his death in Tampa on 3 Apr 1911, he was the only remaining charter member of the Friendship Lodge No. 10 of the Knights of Pythias of Kissimmee. A large number of those members met his remains at the railroad station and laid them to rest in Rose Hill cemetery with the beautiful and impressive rites of that order, in the presence of a large concourse of sorrowing friends.

Ella Aderhold Sears husband Robert Joseph Sears was the son of Dr. William Joseph Sears who also moved from neighboring Schley county, GA to Kissimmee. Robert and Ella had one son Joe who died in 1956 in Duval county. Robert died in 1953. All three are buried in Rose Hill cemetery. It is uncertain what happened to Henry Aderhold who was living with wife Rosa and 2 children in the 1880 census, but Jacob's obituary states that he has two grandchildren living in California. Jacob's children George and Wilson had died young, prior to Jacob's death. His daughter Viola is likely the daughter in his obituary that is said to be the wife of C. B. Green and Frederick was only 13 years old at the time of his father's death. Henry, Ella, George and Wilson, all having died prior to Jacob's death, are not mentioned in his obituary, nor is Ella's son mentioned.

Sources:

Obituary of Jacob Aderhold, Ella Aderhold Sears and George Aderhold all from the Kissimmee Valley Gazette
The Osceola Centennial Book
Civil War Service Records online at Ancestry.com
Civil War Pension file (Confederate) online at the Florida State Archives
1860-1880 census records, Bibb county, GA
1900 census record, Kissimmee, FL
1910 census record, Tampa, FL
Georgia Marriage Records online at Ancestry.com
Richards Orange County Gazetteer, 1887 (online at Central Florida Memory / University of Central Florida Library Collection (Kissimmee starts on page 146)
Marriage Records of Orange County Florida Vol. 1
Rose Hill cemetery burial records
Migration of Schley County Families - GA (online at Migration of Schley County Families)
Historical Collections of Georgia by the Rev. George white, M.A., Pudney & Russell, publishers, New York, 1854, under Names of the Officers and Privates of the Georgia Regiment of Volunteers who went to Mexico.

Update History

Updated 1/1/2006: corrected name of Robert Joseph Sears father from Dr. John Sears to Dr. William Joseph Sears - correction sent in by Harris Hill, Coordinator, Schley Co., Georgia GenWeb Project

Bullard, James

James Bullard - How Jeff Davis, President Of Confederacy, was Captured

Researched and Donated by Anza Bast

Transcriber's Note: As you may know, Bullard served in the unit that captured Jeff Davis, was the last surviving member of that unit (at the time just prior to his death) & Bullard also claimed reward for the capture (according to his military record info given by a descendant). Bullard was also elected Dept. Commander of the GAR at the 1915 encampment in Jacksonville. (J. B. Westocott was elected Chaplain & J. I. Cummings - Adjutant & Quartermaster General at that same encampment.)

Source: ST. CLOUD TRIBUNE, April, 1, 1920

Named on the Council of Administration, Department
of Florida, at the Encampment here this week.

Member of L. L. Mitchell Post, No. 34, Department of Florida,
Grand Army of the Republic, and was Commander in 1914.
Was Senior Vice Department Commander of Florida for 1914;
Department Commander in 1915; Chief of Staff for 1916,
Department of Florida, and was installing officer of his Post.

Source: ST. CLOUD TRIBUNE, April, 1, 1915, pg. 11

HOW JEFF DAVIS, PRESIDENT OF CONFEDERACY, WAS CAPTURED

St. Cloud, Fla., Jan. 18, 1915

Col. John McElroy,
Washington, D. C.
Dear Sir: -
        In response to your request of some time ago I will give you a history of the capture of Jeff Davis.
        On the evening of May 7th, the 4th Michigan Cavalry, under command of Col. B. D. Pritchard, left Macon, Ga., with 419 men and 20 officers. We marched all night until 8 o'clock in the morning of the 8th, when we halted for five hours and rested, got breakfast and fed our horses, moving on again at 1 p. m. We marched 15 miles further and went in camp for the night three miles from Hawkinsville. At 4 a. m. of the 9th we moved out on the Abbeville road and reached that place at 3 p. m. and learned that 12 wagons and 2 ambulances had crossed the Ocmulgee river at Browns Ferry, one and a half miles above Abbeville, about 12 o'clock, and were moving in the direction of Irwinsville. At the forks in the road at Abbeville we met Colonel Harnden, of the 1st Wisconsin Cavalry with 70 men, and by mutual agreement Col. Harnden took the road to Irwinsville and Col. Pritchard the road to the Ocmulgee river, where he was to guard the ford, picket the river and scout the country. Before reaching the river we learned more about the party that had crossed the river and Col. Pritchard detailed 128 men and 7 officers and moved down the river to a point known as Wilson's Mills, a distance of 12 miles, thence by a blind road through an unbroken waste of pine forest in a southwesterly direction, 18 miles to Irwinsville, which we reached about 1 o'clock in the morning of May 10th. Here we learned from the inhabitants that a party answering the description of the one reported at Abbeville was camped about one and a half miles out on the Abbeville road, so we marched out there under the guidance of a negro. After getting within a short distance of camp we halted and waited for the moon to get down, and just at break of day Col. Pritchard dismounted a part of his cavalry and sent them on ahead, following on after them with his mounted cavalry. George Munger, of Company C and myself were with the mounted men, and on the extreme right, after entering the camp. Munger and myself came up against their horse line, and as we had not very good mounts, I said to Munger: "Suppose you and I stop and trade horses." He said "alright." We therefore stopped and picked out what in our judgment were the best in the bunch and proceeded to saddle them.
        Munger had got his horse saddled and had mounted and we saw what we supposed were three women leaving the camp. Munger said: "There go some women out of camp; they ought to be stopped; you ride out and stop them." I said: "You go; you are mounted and I will come as soon as I buckle my girth." But before he had got to them I had mounted and got there just as he halted them, but before either of us got to them we saw that one of them had on cavalry boots and spurs. One of them turned around and said: "My mother and I are going to the well for water." Munger says: "What is your mother doing with cavalry boots on?" At that Davis threw off the shawl and water-proof that he had been wearing, and Mrs. Davis put her arms around his neck and said: "Please don't shoot him.: And Davis said: "Let him shoot, I may as well died here as anywhere."
        About that time Agent Dickinson and a number of others came up and the agent took them in charge. Soon after that the 1st Wisconsin Cavalry, under command of Col. Harnden came up and passed through the camp, and that was the last I ever saw of them. They left us to guard Davis back to Macon, and we were nearly one hundred miles from our lines, but we got him there alright, and turned him over to General Wilson.
        On May 13th, Col. Pritchard, with three officers and twenty men stared with Davis and party for Fortress Monroe, Munger and myself being part of the guard. We went to Atlanta, Ga., thence to Augusta, Ga., and from there down the river to Savannah, thence to Hilton Head, where we were transferred to the Ocean steamer William Clyde and started for Fortress Monroe, under the escort of the United States man of war Tuscarora. We arrived off Fortress Monroe on May 9th [sic], just 9 days after the capture. While at Fortress Monroe Col. Pritchard was ordered to procure from Mrs. Davis the shawl and waterproof that Davis wore at the time of his capture, and she gave them to him. Munger and myself gave our testimony before Secretary Stanton in Washington, D. C.. Then we got furlough home. While at Paw Paw, Mich., the rest of the troop discharged at Nashville, Tenn., and we went to Detroit and were discharged and paid off there, so the last duty done by us was guarding Jeff. Davis.
        The names of the captured were: Jefferson Davis, his wife and four children; John H. Reagan, his postmaster general; Colonels Johnson and Lubbock, A. D. C.'s to Davis. Burton N. Harrison, Davis' private secretary; Major Maurand, Capt. Moody, Lieut. Hathaway, Jeff D. Howell, midshipmen in the Southern navy and 13 private soldiers; Miss Maggie Howell, sister to Mrs. Davis; two waiting maids (one white and one colored) and several servants.
        We also captured 5 negroes, 3 ambulances, fifteen horses and 25 or 30 mules. The train was mostly loaded with commissary stores and with private luggage of the party.
        There are many who claim to have been present at the capture of Jeff Davis, but none outside of the Fourth Michigan Cavalry took any part in the capture, and had not Colonel Pritchard taken the course he did Davis would surely have made his escape for the 1st Wisconsin were following in his rear and went into camp about one mile from Davis' camp where he had his horse saddled ready to fly at the first alarm, and he had men patrolling the road in that direction, but he was not looking for an attack from the front.
        While the Wisconsin regiment and company of Ohio infantry received the same reward that we did, it was an injustice to the 4th Michigan Cavalry, especially to that part of the regiment that was left to guard the Ocmulgee river, who were nearer the place of capture than were the men who were back at Hawkinsville. If they were entitled to any of the reward because they were watching for him then all the army of the Cumberland were entitled to it because they were all watching for him, but they gave the reward to the 4th Michigan Cavalry, to those who were actually present at the capture. When without the help of those who were left to guard the river and look after our pack mules it would have been impossible for us to have made the capture.
        I could give you more of the details but think this will cover the ground and if any one doubts the truthfulness of this statement I can furnish the proof of the whole affair.

Yours in F. C. & L.,
J. F. BULLARD
Sen. Vice Cmndr., Dept. Fla.

Source: ST. CLOUD TRIBUNE, 20 Jul 1916

Comrade Bullard Hale at the 72nd Milestone

        On Thursday, July 13th, a jolly party gathered at the home of Comrade J. F. Bullard, it being the occasion of his seventy-second birthday, and at the same time the anniversary of his wedding. All present enjoyed the day immensely, as Comrade Bullard has a beautiful home, with many shady cool nooks, where one can sit round under the umbrella trees on grass softer than a velvet carpet. Brother Bullard's house fronts on the lake, where one can see across it for from six to twelve miles. We saw the excursion boat Maud, crowded with passengers, about three miles off shore, and many smaller boats with pleasure-seekers taking advantage of the Thursday half-holiday.
        All present enjoyed every minute of thier stay, some playing croquet on the lawn, some singing and having other amusements. Mrs. Bullard, with her assistants, served an ample supply of delicious refreshments.
        Mr. Bullard is Past Commander of this great State of florida, and also had the honor to be on eof the guards who guarded Jeff Davis and assisted in the capture of the Confederate President.
        This jolly crowd returned to their homes with lighter hearts, hoping to meet Brother Bullard again annually until he attains his one hundredth anniversary and the writer of this expects to be present, for one. All declared it was a day to be long remembered. One Who Was There.

Source: ST. CLOUD TRIBUNE, August 17, 1916, front pg.

MRS. KENDALLEITER AND J. F. BULLARD HAD A CLOSE CALL

Were Thrown From Buggy When Horse Got Tangled In Rope Stretched Across Street
        J. F. Bullard and Mrs. Kendelleiter had a narrow escape from serious injury Monday evening at 7:30 o'clock when they were thrown from a buggy near the corner of Eighth Street and Kentucky Avenue, while driving into the business section of the city.
        The horse driven to a buggy by Mr. Bullard became entangled in a rope that had been stretched across the street by another horse that had been tied by the side of the street, and the Bullard horse stopped suddenly, pitching Mr. Bullard over the dashboard and under the horse's feet. The animal then backed the buggy sideway, throwing Mrs. Kendelleiter to the ground, and damaging the buggy, which was completely overturned. Due to the fact that Mr. Bullard's horse was very gentle and stopped as soon as called to, Mr. Bullard escaped with no greater injury than a bruised shoulder, caused from striking the ground, while Mrs. Kendelleiter suffered a sprained ankle.
        Mr. Bullard took the horse that caused the accident to the city pound, and the owner called and paid the costs and settled with Mr. Bullard for the damage to the buggy. Mr. Bullard says there has been two or three persons who have violated city ordinances by permitting animals to graze along the streets of the city, and that accidents are likely to occur in the same manner if the practice is not stopped.

Fell, E. Nelson

E. Nelson Fell - Founder of Narcoossee

Articles by Jim Robison

Originally published in the Orlando Sentinel

Jim Robison has graciously given permission to post the following articles which originally appeared in the Osceola section of the Orlando Sentinel on 29 May, 5, 12 and 26 June 2005. The original publication may have additional photos accompanying this text.

New Zealand native engineers big part of Osceola prosperity

This is the first of three columns on E. Nelson Fell, founder of Narcoossee. Today: A world-traveling family comes to Florida.

It's one thing to make an impression in one town. It's quite impressive to do so over and over.

Osceola County's history has many examples of people who became leaders here and elsewhere.

Cracker cattle king Jacob Summerlin was a modest man of wealth whose influences shaped early Kissimmee cattle heritage as well as the frontier life from Orlando to Bartow.

Steamboat captain W.J. Brack became one of Osceola's first county commissioners during the boom times of the 1880s when canal dredging drained flat wetlands and Brack's 35-foot side-wheeler Spray opened commerce from St. Cloud and Kissimmee to Fort Myers on the Gulf of Mexico.

Brack, who had been one of 22 men who voted in 1875 to incorporate Orlando and later became that city's first mayor, had moved to a two-story house west of Peg Horn at Brack's Landing on Lake Tohopekaliga. He owned a sawmill and general store and a cattle ranch near Narcoossee.

R.E. Rose, trained as an engineer and brought to Kissimmee by swamp-drainer Hamilton Disston, was Osceola's first County Commission chairman. He had come from Louisiana. In Osceola County, he raised prize-winning sugar cane and later wrote the state reports that promoted Florida's sugar industry. Disston was widely known for his Philadelphia tool-manufacturing business. By draining Central Florida swamplands, he saved post-Civil War Florida from bankruptcy and became the biggest land owner in the nation.

Railroad executive James Ingraham brought the South Florida Railroad to Kissimmee. During his long career, he worked for the three best-known Henrys in Florida's late 1800s and early 1900s, Sanford, Flagler and Plant.

Historians have focused many books on these men, but one of their contemporaries, while not unknown, has not drawn as much attention.

BORN IN NEW ZEALAND

Edward Nelson Fell, for whom Fell's Point on East Lake Tohopekaliga and Fellsmere in Indian River County take their names, had seen most of the world before arriving in Florida. The youngest son in a British family of entrepreneurs, Fell already had an impressive worldwide resume before coming to Florida, where he founded two communities, the English colony of Narcoossee and the farming town of Fellsmere.

Fell's father, Alfred, was an Englishman who in the mid-1800s took his wife and children to New Zealand, where he ran a successful wholesale business. Gordon Patterson, a humanities professor at Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne writes about Fell's early life in a 1997 article, "Ditches and Dreams: Nelson Fell and the Rise of Fellsmere," for The Florida Historical Quarterly. Fell was born in Nelson, New Zealand, in 1857. The family, then including seven children, returned to England two years later.

Alfred Fell's business was successful enough that the family could afford prestigious private schools in England and continental Europe. E. Nelson, or thereafter just "Nelson Fell," would attend the Rugby School, followed by the Royal School of Mines, Patterson writes.

The Fell children and their mother traveled throughout Europe each summer, writes Teresa Rushworth in a February article for Vero Beach Magazine, "From Orange Groves to the Cherry Orchard."

Along with the family came "nannies, tutors and a governess," Rushworth writes. "They studied French, German, and Italian and became familiar with the art and architecture of the places they visited. Their musical interests took shape a bit later as they explored Austria."

Nelson Fell listened to compositions by Bach, Wagner and Gilbert and Sullivan. As an adult, Nelson Fell would take a prized piano on extended business assignments throughout the world.

The poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, a neighbor when the family was living on the Isle of Wight, mentored Nelson Fell on the arts and literature, including his own poetry.

Fell's father later sent him to Heidelberg for a year to learn German engineering techniques. Nelson Fell's first job would be working for his older brother Arthur.

"Over the next thirty years, the elder Fell dispatched his brother around the world to supervise numerous mining and engineering projects."

His first overseas assignment for the family mining investments was in Brazil, followed by Colorado, which Rushworth notes was still very much the Wild West.

"His experiences in Colorado may have served to prepare him for what he would find in late 19th-century Florida, where cattlemen toting Winchester rifles frequented saloons in which they played poker, drank whiskey and fought each other."

Fell had made his choice early in life. He had six older brothers and sisters, greatly reducing his chance of inheriting enough to live a life of leisure. Arthur Fell, the oldest son, would be a knighted member of Parliament and the head of the family-owned businesses.

To make his mark, Nelson Fell would have to make his own money.

LINK TO DISSTON

He was 27 and working as a mining engineer in Colorado when his brother decided the family should invest in Florida land.

"Central Florida underwent a British invasion in the 1880s," Patterson writes. "Governor William Bloxham's sale of four million acres of land to Hamilton Disston, a Philadelphia industrialist, in 1881 launched a second, albeit unofficial, English period in Florida history. Within a year, Disston had sold half of his holdings to Sir Edward Reed."

It would be Reed and another British capitalist who lured English and European entrepreneurs to buy land in Florida. English newspapers spread the word.

"Publicists told prospective buyers that Florida was a place where pleasurable surroundings, commercial opportunity and a healthy climate combined to create a veritable paradise," Patterson writes. "By the mid-1880s, a contemporary observer noted, "every train and steamer from the north bears hither its English party. Some come to this sunland of palm and pine for pleasure, some for health; some -- and these are the majority -- come bent on making here the fortune they failed to make in the Old World."

The Fell family and partners bought 12,000 acres of raw frontier Florida east of Lake Tohopekaliga, including 2,000 acres that would become the English colony of Narcoossee. Nelson Fell and British Lt. Col. William Edmund Cadman took charge of dividing the land into small farms for sale. Also, Nelson Fell began plans to drain 2,500 acres of marshland.

His brother's instructions were to establish a community "commensurate with his family standing."

Nelson Fell prospered in Florida, enough to attract the attention of Anne Mumford Palmer, whose father was a New York judge known to all the right people. She grew up in what Rushworth calls a "cosmopolitan lifestyle," spending much of her childhood abroad, mostly in Paris.

They married in 1885, the year after Arthur Fell sent his young brother to frontier Florida. Their first child, Marian, was born in 1886 in Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y. Another daughter and a son followed, but the Fells would rear their children in a land known for mosquitoes, rattlesnakes and alligators.

Next Sunday: The Fell family at The Point in Narcoossee.

Englishman shapes his 'dream of paradise' in Narcoossee

The name Narcoossee comes from Maskoki, one of the languages spoken by tribes of the Southeastern states who became the Seminoles of Florida. It means "bear."

That was the name selected for an English colony on East Lake Tohopekaliga. The founder was a New Zealand-born Englishman named E. Nelson Fell, the youngest son in a British family with worldwide mining investments in the late 1800s.Fell, for whom Fell's Point on East Lake Toho and Fellsmere in Indian River County take their names, started both the Florida communities at opposite ends of his long career as a mining engineer. He was a well-traveled but still young man when he started Narcoossee. After retiring, he founded Fellsmere.

At age 27, Fell was "a seasoned engineer with experience in England, Brazil, and the American West," writes Gordon Patterson, a humanities professor at Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, in a 1997 article in the Florida Historical Quarterly, "Ditches and Dreams: Nelson Fell and the Rise of Fellsmere."

Trained in England and Germany, Fell was working in Colorado on his family's mining interests when Arthur Fell, the oldest son who ran the London-based family investments, dispatched his younger brother to the Florida frontier to take advantage of cheap land advertised throughout Britain and Europe.

In the mid-1880s, Florida Gov. William Bloxham made a land deal with Philadelphia saw and tool maker Hamilton Disston. Between 1881-84, Disston's dredges drained 2 million acres along the Kissimmee River, its lakes, canals and streams, carving a steamboat highway from deep in Florida's interior to Lake Okeechobee and along the Caloosahatchee River to the Gulf of Mexico.

Arthur Fell, not waiting to miss an opportunity to expand the Fell fortune, put together a partnership to buy 12,000 acres of raw frontier Florida in what then was Orange County, including 2,000 acres at what became the English colony of Narcoossee.

In 1887, three years after the Fell land purchase, the Florida Legislature sliced off large portions of Orange and Brevard counties to create the new Osceola County. Nelson Fell would become one of the early county commissioners.

Patterson writes, "Advertisements describing the rich possibilities present in central Florida regularly appeared in English newspapers throughout the 1880s and 1890s. Publicists told prospective buyers that Florida was a place where pleasurable surroundings, commercial opportunity and a healthy climate combined to create a veritable paradise. By the mid-1880s, a contemporary observer noted, `every train and steamer from the North bears hither its English party. Some come to this sunland of palm and pine for pleasure, some for health; some -- and these are the majority -- come bent on making here the fortune they failed to make in the old world.' Nelson Fell belonged to the third group."

The town of Narcoossee, Arthur instructed his brother, should become "commensurate with his family standing."

Within a few years, some 200 Englishmen had joined the Narcoossee community that now included "a post office, a blacksmith's shop, a carpenter's shop, a real estate office and, most importantly, a railway depot," Patterson writes.

Narcoossee was one of the stops for the Sugar Belt Railroad, built to carry passengers and cargo between Kissimmee and Disston's sugar-cane plantation. When Disston crews opened the St. Cloud Canal, the level of East Lake Tohopekaliga dropped by as much as five feet. On muckland that just two years earlier was cypress swamp and saw grass along East Tohopekaliga, Disston's Florida Sugar Manufacturing Co. planted 600 acres of sugar cane that a reporter in 1886 described as "green, waving cane, in one body, spread out like a sea."

Soon, Disston's nearby sugar mill on the St. Cloud Canal was processing the cane from more than 1,000 acres and the Sugar Belt Railroad was hauling barrels of sugar to Kissimmee.

At first, Fell relied on the Colonist steamboat until he "secured an extension of the Sugar Belt Railroad to Narcoossee in the late 1880s," Patterson writes.

The Sugar Belt made it possible for Narcoossee colonists to expand groves and farms.

With the first stages of success in Narcoossee, Fell had married Anne Mumford Palmer, daughter of a New York judge who had spent much of his childhood abroad, mostly in Paris. Their first child, Marian, was born in 1886 when the family was living in Cornwall-on-Hudson, N.Y.

To raise a family that soon included another daughter and a son, Nelson Fell built a home at The Point in Narcoossee. At the northeast end of East Lake Tohopekaliga is Fell's Cove. Patterson writes that Fell built his family home "on a promontory jutting into [the lake] that became known as Fell's Point."

Teresa Rushworth in a February 2005 article for Vero Beach Magazine, "From Orange Groves to the Cherry Orchard," calls The Point "a spit of land jutting out into the lake."

She also describes the Fell home at The Point as "a brick bungalow surrounded by cypress trees, beautiful plants and flowers and exotic wildlife."

Nevertheless, Narcoossee was not Paris, and the Florida frontier was not New York. It must have been a rugged challenge for Fell's wife and children, especially when Nelson Fell was absent for long periods on family business.

In 1890, steamboat captain Rufus E. Rose, who had come to Florida to work for Disston and became the first chairman of the Osceola County Commission, encouraged Fell's successful campaign for county commissioner. It was the beginning of a long-standing relationship between Fell and Rose, who later was the state chemist who encouraged Fell to drain land bordering the Everglades for sugar cane and other farms at Fellsmere.

Narcoossee, however, never reached the Fell family expectations.

The same economic forces that doomed Disston's Florida investments impacted Narcoossee. By the early 1890s, the boom times of Florida's railroads, banks and related enterprises, especially land sales, were ending. Also, a nationwide depression called the Panic of 1893 dried up new money. Killer back-to-back freezes in the winter of 1894-95 killed the citrus groves throughout Central Florida. Grove owners abandoned their land. Men and families who worked in the groves moved away. Facing debts and defaults he could not stop, Disston killed himself in April 1896.

World politics also worked against Narcoossee.

Suddenly, British immigration to the United States slowed, then reversed.

Patterson writes, "In 1895, a border incident in British Guiana touched off an international dispute between Britain and Venezuela. By 1897, the two countries were on the verge of war. President Grover Cleveland criticized the English position, maintaining that Britain had violated the Monroe Doctrine. Lord Salisbury, who headed the English foreign office, replied icily to President Cleveland's criticism. He declared that the United States had `no practical concern' in the South American boundary dispute. Cleveland answered with an ultimatum: Britain must submit to American arbitration or face the consequences. The two great Atlantic powers edged toward a declaration of war."

Englishmen in Narcoossee, some with military commissions that might pull them into war and others still loyal to the British Crown, left Florida. Britain and the U.S. sidestepped war through negotiations, but it was too late for Fell's "dream of paradise" in Narcoossee, Patterson writes.

Arthur Fell, always looking for the next opportunity, saw huge prospects in copper mining on the other side of the world from Narcoossee, and his young brother was just the man for the job.

Leaving his wife and children in Florida, Nelson Fell left the Sunshine State for the bitter cold of Siberia.

Next Sunday: From the Sugar Belt Railroad to the Trans-Siberia Railroad and back to Florida.

Fellsmere drained town founder

This is the last of three columns on E. Nelson Fell, founder of Narcoossee. Today: From the Sugar Belt Railroad to the Trans-Siberia Railroad and back to Florida.Anne Mumford Palmer Fell had grown up as the daughter of a New York judge, and she spent much of her childhood abroad, mostly in Paris. Later married to E. Nelson Fell, a world-traveling mining engineer for his British family, she was rearing their children alone in the Florida frontier wilderness.

While she stayed with two daughters and a son at the family home at The Point on East Lake Tohopekaliga, her husband had left the town of Narcoossee he had founded as an English colony to try to recover some of the family fortune he had lost in Florida.

Narcoossee was not Paris, but then, Siberia was not Florida.

Nelson Fell, born in New Zealand to English parents who sent their children to Britain and other European countries for their education, was the youngest son. Arthur Fell, the oldest, had taken his father's wholesale business and built a worldwide mining enterprise he ran from London.

Nelson Fell, his brother's first choice to oversee family investments abroad, had been dispatched to mines in England, South America and the American West before the family invested in 12,000 acres of rugged pine and palmetto prairie and cypress swamps in the 1880s land boom in Florida. At Narcoossee, Nelson Fell had come close to creating a farming paradise with British civility.

Narcoossee lured British military pensioners as well as the younger sons unlikely to inherit family estates. London newspapers carried glowing promotional advertisements for Florida's sunshine, and land companies claimed riches could be made growing citrus, sugar cane, cotton and rice.

Nelson Fell, who had supervised dredging to drain 2,500 acres for farmland, became an Osceola County commissioner in 1890. English colonies spread from Narcoossee to the Lake Conway area in south Orange County. The Sugar Belt Railroad linked Narcoossee with Kissimmee and St. Cloud.

If judged on its own merits, Narcoossee might have become a tremendous success, but troubles elsewhere in Florida, the nation and the world closed in on Fell's dreams.

Florida's land boom went bust just as the nation entered a depression. Back-to-back hard freezes killed citrus groves. Also, Britain and the United States nearly went to war over a dispute about South American tensions, prompting many of Narcoossee's Englishmen to leave Florida.

Nelson Fell, again accepting a family investment challenge from his brother, also left Florida, writes Gordon Patterson, a humanities professor at Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, in a 1997 article in the Florida Historical Quarterly, "Ditches and Dreams: Nelson Fell and the Rise of Fellsmere."

After meeting with his brother in London in 1901, Nelson Fell's destination was the great treeless plains of Central Asia in what then was the Russian frontier and what today is the wilderness in the Kirghiz Steppe in Kazakhstan. Arthur Fell had become a member of the British Parliament where, Patterson writes, he "had learned that there were tremendous investment opportunities in central Asia."

Joined by one of his Narcoossee agents, Charles Piffard, Nelson Fell in January 1902 boarded the Trans-Siberia Railroad for a 2,000-mile journey. They rode horseback for the last 600 miles.

Fell would write a 1916 book about his years running a primitive copper mine, Russian and Nomad: Tales of Kirghiz Steppes. Back in London, he reported to his brother that buying and running the Spassky copper mines would make unlimited profits. Fell returned to Russia in 1903. Soon he told his family to leave their Fell's Point home in Narcoossee and join him in Russia. That decision was made easier by floods and freezes in Narcoossee that had made it necessary for the family to move. Fell also persuaded his future son-in-law, Kissimmee lawyer Patrick A. Vans Agnew, to abandon his law practice to work in Russia.

Patterson writes, "Fell flourished during his five years in central Asia. Piffard and Vans Agnew were able assistants. The three men directed the company's smelter and ranged across the Kirghiz steppes, purchasing coal and mining copper."

Fell writes in his book, "With new capital the mines and works were developed into an important and successful enterprise, employing a small army of men: Kirghiz carriers, miners and labourers; Russian mechanics, engineers, superintendents, accountants. The number of foreigners employed was very small and, both by policy and inclination, we endeavored to work in close and sympathetic harmony with the Russians themselves, and the Russian organized system."

Silver and copper mining in Russia made Fell, then 52, a rich man. In 1909, he returned to the United States with plans to retire to a Virginia estate. His wife was making plans for their oldest daughter's marriage to Vans Agnew, who planned to return to his law office in Kissimmee. The younger Fell daughter, Olivia, soon would marry Vans Agnew's brother, Frank.

P.A. Vans Agnew suggested his father-in-law postpone retirement and give Florida one more chance. Florida was again on top of one of its boom-to-bust-to-boom cycles. Plus, the state's leaders were eager to drain the Everglades for farms and towns.

Fell turned to a longtime friend, Kissimmee's R.E. Rose, who had been one of Hamilton Disston's engineers from the swamp-draining years of the 1880s. Rose focused on profits that could be made from selling land after massive drainage of the upper St. Johns River region. Fell selected acreage that had been part of an 1895 plan to drain land west of Sebastian and build a railroad to Kissimmee. Draining the muck lands proved to be too much, and lawsuits doomed what had been the W.W. Russell's Cincinnatus Farm Land Improvement Project.

"On March 11, 1910, Nelson and Anne Palmer Fell paid a $63,125 down payment -- with $91,875 outstanding -- for title to approximately 118,000 acres of land," Patterson writes. "Fell's investment came to a little more than $1.35 per acre."

The Fellsmere Farms Co., which would create the town of Fellsmere, planned to drain the land by digging canals to the Sebastian River. Fell was confident that if the Tatus brothers could sell muck land in Miami for $50 an acre, he could do better.

"A short distance away from Fellsmere, in Kissimmee Park, land was selling for sixty dollars an acre," Patterson writes.

With 175 men and a monthly payroll of $20,000, the drainage work progressed. When the first 8,000 acres were dry enough, Fellsmere's population reached 600 new settlers with telephone lines and a company-run newspaper, two hotels and a bank. An advertisement in the Saturday Evening Post boasted of the "Fame of Fellsmere."

But, just as fate had doomed Fell's dreams of paradise in Narcoossee, forces combined to bring down Fellsmere, too. It began with land-fraud scandals, a congressional investigation of South Florida's swampland scams and the government's involvement in questionable drainage projects. Fellsmere's investors got nervous, and money dried up.

Fell's auditors found that the company was bleeding money and unable to keep up with the massive drainage expenses. With World War I breaking out in Europe, plans for a colony of Belgian, Dutch and French farmers in Fellsmere evaporated. Also, the company's title to the land was clouded by a probate dispute.

Fell managed to keep his company afloat until mid-1915 when storms flooded the farmlands and town. Fells helped the farmers and the townspeople recover, but the company couldn't afford to drain enough land to keep land sales going. By June 1916, the company couldn't pay its debts. A court-appointed receiver took over. Fell lost everything he had invested.

By 1917, Fell had retired to his Virginia estate. He died there in 1928.

Next Sunday, a related story: Marian Fells Vans Agnew achieves world recognition by translating a Russian writer for English readers.

P.A. Vans Agnew helps Nelson Fell develop Florida, Russia

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Kissimmee was very much a frontier town, but folks still needed a lawyer from time to time. Many of them turned to P.A. Vans Agnew.Patrick Alexander Vans Agnew, just Alec to friends and clients and sometimes Minor to his family, enjoyed a time in Florida that might never be matched.

Vans Agnew, a Scot, helped birth two Florida towns, Narcoossee in Osceola County and Fellsmere in what now is Indian River County. He helped negotiate a sale for his future father-in-law that helped a London-based company buy silver and copper mines in Russia's frontier of the early 1900s, then he helped run the mines. He also was the attorney for the Kissimmee-founded Friends of the Seminoles, which persuaded the state and federal governments to set up Florida's first reservations for the Seminoles. He then negotiated private land sales that made it possible, putting up his own money when necessary.

Oh, and as a joke many thought was serious, he was the Kissimmee city attorney who wrote the world's first ordinance to regulate aviation in 1908.

The son-in-law/father-in-law partnership between Vans Agnew and E. Nelson Fell began in Narcoossee, the English colony on East Lake Tohopekaliga started with Fell family investments during the land-draining boom of the 1880s.

Nelson Fell, for whom Fell's Point on East Lake Toho and Fellsmere take their names, was the New Zealand-born youngest son of a successful British wholesaler who moved his family to London in 1857. Nelson, educated as an engineer in Britain and Germany, went to work for his oldest brother, Arthur.

Arthur Fell sent his youngest brother to Brazil and Colorado to set up family-owned mines, Gordon Patterson, a humanities professor at Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, writes in a 1997 article, "Ditches and Dreams: Nelson Fell and the Rise of Fellsmere," for The Florida Historical Quarterly.

Nelson Fell was 27 when his brother sent him to Central Florida to take charge of a family partnership that owned 12,000 acres of raw frontier land, including 2,000 acres at what became the English colony of Narcoossee.

Fell was a new Osceola County commissioner in 1890 when he brought the oldest son of another Narcoossee family into his enterprise. P.A. Vans Agnew and his younger brother, Frank, had grown up as friends of Fell's daughters, Marian and Olivia.

The Fell family's homestead at The Point, land jutting out from the northeast shoreline of East Lake Tohopekaliga, was a frequent gathering place for British holidays and other community celebrations. The guests included the Vans Agnews, whose children also rowed in the lake with the Fell girls.

Vans Agnew would become one of Nelson Fell's business partners.

"Alec Vans Agnew was known as a charming, intelligent man with a fine sense of humor," writes Teresa Rushworth in a February 2005 article for Vero Beach Magazine, "From Orange Groves to the Cherry Orchard."

When Florida's land boom of the late 1880s went bust and the nation fell into a depression, Nelson Fell tapped P.A. Vans Agnew, then a young lawyer in Kissimmee, to travel to London, then across Europe to Central Asia to negotiate silver- and copper-mine investments. The pair then ran the family-owned mines on the Russian frontier.

MARRIAGE AND FAMILY

After several years in Russia, Vans Agnew would be reunited with his future bride when Nelson Fell sent for his wife and children to join him. Marian Fell was 16 at the time. Their courtship would last until after her 22nd birthday and the Fell family's return to Florida.

Marian Fell and Vans Agnew, who had reopened his law office in Kissimmee, were married in 1914. His younger brother, Frank, would later marry Olivia Fell. Marian and P.A. Vans Agnew built a home on Paradise Island in Lake Tohopekaliga for their four children: Anne, born in 1916, Patricia in 1919, Alec in 1924 and Marian in 1927.

Vans Agnew "plunged into local politics and became the city's attorney," Patterson writes. His wife, drawing on her knowledge of the Russian language and culture, translated many of the stories and plays of Russian writer Anton Chekhov, who had died while the Fells were living in Russia.

Nelson Fell had bought a Virginia estate with plans to retire on the riches he had made in Russia. Vans Agnew, still enthused by his business success in Russia, persuaded his father-in-law to undertake a second Florida challenge, draining thousands of acres of the Everglades and building the town of Fellsmere from scratch.

Patterson writes that Fell and Vans Agnew formed the Fellsmere Farms Co. with plans to drain 118,000 acres of wetland at the headwaters of the St. Johns River and build a town they would name Fellsmere. Fell was a "hydraulic engineer with more than three decades of experience in directing land development in Florida," Patterson writes. Vans Agnew was a gifted lawyer. Together and with other investors, they would combine Fell's name and "mere," or "great watery place," to create "the culmination of his life's work," Patterson writes.

The challenge proved too much. In 1917, after six years of frustrations, the Fellsmere Tribune reported "the close of the greatest and most complete drainage proposition in Florida," a failure brought about by skepticism about Florida land promotions, flooding and tight money resulting from the outbreak of World War I.

LAND FOR THE SEMINOLES

Back at his law practice in Kissimmee, Vans Agnew helped a Kissimmee couple, historian Minnie Moore-Willson and her real-estate broker husband, J.M. Willson, organize Friends of the Florida Seminoles.

"Prime movers in the drive to obtain a state reservation for the Seminoles were James Willson Jr., a Kissimmee real estate man, and his wife, Minnie Moore-Willson, who wrote the popular The Seminoles of Florida, published in 1896," writes historian James M. Covington in "Formation of the State of Florida Indian Reservation," published in the July 1985 issue of The Florida Historical Quarterly.

Lobbying efforts by the Willsons prompted Florida lawmakers on May 28, 1899, to set aside 36 townships on the western edge of the Everglades.

A state commission led by cattle king F.A. Hendry, a legislator from Polk and Lee counties, soon abandoned the notion of persuading the Seminoles to move to state-owned land and instead tried to buy land where the Seminoles lived.

Eighteen years passed from the time the Willsons started Friends before they were able to secure land for the Seminoles.

On May 9, 1917, Gov. Sidney J. Catts signed a law that had passed with unanimous votes in the House and Senate for the Seminoles to have their own land. The measure set aside nearly 100,000 acres of state-owned land in Monroe County for the reservation.

When the Everglades National Park was created in 1935, the Seminole land was exchanged for 104,000 acres in Broward and Palm Beach counties, Covington writes. The largest parcel became the Big Cypress reservation.

LEGAL FLIGHT OF FANCY

Kissimmee's history-making aeroplane law was proposed in the summer of 1908, making headlines on both sides of the Atlantic.

Less than five years after Wilbur and Orville Wright's first flight, Vans Agnew, then Kissimmee's attorney, returned to the city from a vacation in France. He had observed planes diving awfully close to Paris buildings.

What resulted, according to Alma Hetherington's The River of the Long Water and Aldus M. and Robert S. Cody's Osceola County: The First 100 Years, was folly with serious undertones.

Hetherington writes that Agnew was in a jovial mood when he approached Mayor T.M. Murphy, who later became a judge, with his idea to draft legal documents to regulate airships within the city limits. It included a provision that the city "purchase an aeroplane of approved modern type."

"Although he wrote the ordinance in a whimsical spirit," writes Hetherington, some newspapers took him seriously. The French paper L'Auto published a story, reprinting Kissimmee's detailed steps to regulate air traffic. It set fees for licenses and required safety measures. It outlawed landings and takeoffs from city streets. It set speed limits and restricted how low planes could fly over neighborhoods.

The headline in the Kissimmee Valley Gazette read: "Mayor Takes Time by Forelock." Gene M. Burnett writes in Florida's Past that the Kissimmee newspaper presented the legislation as serious news, calling the measure put forth by the mayor a model for other communities "throughout the civilized world."

Vans Agnew, while agreeing he may have created a modern version of putting the cart before the horse, defended his draft of the aviation law, Burnett writes.

International newspaper accounts soon overshadowed local jokesters with praise for Kissimmee's foresight, but the measure never made it onto the city's lawbooks and the city did not buy a plane.

Vans Agnew left Kissimmee in the 1920s, serving as attorney for Jacksonville. He returned to the family home on Paradise Island and died in 1929. His wife then left for England.

Hudson, Herbert Branch

The Herbert Branch Hudson family of Kissimmee

Researched and written by Lisa Slaski

This is not intended to be a complete family genealogy, but rather a short outline of the genealogy of family members who resided in Osceola county found through online resources. There may be errors and are likely omissions. Please use this as a guide for researching this family and feel free to send in corrections or additions to this site.

All sources are from online databases, primarily from www.ancestry.com and from www.familysearch.org's prototype database.

Parents of Herbert Branch Hudson

1. Richard Rush Hudson was born 29 Jul 1831 in Ohio. His father was William Hudson who was born in Connecticut as well as his wife (name unknown). Richard was married on 23 May 1852 in Meigs county, OH to Lucy Maria/Marie Branch. Lucy was born Dec 1832 a daughter of Josiah Branch and Orinda W. Crippen who were married on 29 Nov 1846 in Athens county, OH. Her father was born in OH and her mother in NY.

Richard Rush Hudson and Lucy Maria Branch had at least the following children:

  1.1.  William Hudson, b. abt 1853 in OH.
  1.2.  Charles Hudson, b. about 1855 in OH.
  1.3.  Arthur Healy Hudson, b. 27 Dec 1864 in Middleport, OH.
 +1.4.  Herbert Branch Hudson, b. Aug 1865 in OH.

Richard and his son, Arthur Healy, eventually moved to Salt Lake City where Richard died on 18 Nov 1910, Lucy died on 29 Oct 1910 and "Healy" died on 24 May 1939. Arthur was married to Winifred Saxton. Richard's Son Herbert eventually moved to Kissimmee, Florida (more info on him below).

Sources:

1850 US Federal Census: Salisbury, Meigs, OH (Josiah and Orinda Branch)
1860 US Federal Census: Salisbury, Meigs, OH
1870 US Federal Census: Middleport, Meigs, OH
1880 US Federal Census: District 115, Middleport, Meigs, OH
1900 US Federal Census: District 51, Ward 5, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah
Salt Lake County Death Records, Utah, for Richard Rush Hudson, Lucy Marie Hudson, and Arthur Healy Hudson
Ohio Marriages for Josiah Branch, and Richard Hudson

1.4. Herbert Branch Hudson was born in Aug 1865 in Ohio (likely in Middleport, Meigs county). He completed the eigth grade. By 1895 he had moved to Hodgeman county, Kansas, where he was likely married. He was married about 1889 to Margaret A. Love, born 7 Aug 1865 in Rankin, IL, a daughter of John Love (see Love biography below) who moved to Kansas from Illinois. They moved about 1920 to Kissimmee, FL where they both died. Margaret died on 20 Dec 1935 and Herbert died in Oct 1952 (buried 6 Oct 1952). Both were buried in Rose Hill cemetery in Kissimmee.

St. Cloud Tribune, 26 Dec 1935

Mrs. Margaret Hudson Buried in Rose Hill

Mrs. Margaret Hudson, 70, resident of Kissimmee for twenty-five years, passed away at her home in Kissimmee December 20. Funeral service was conducted from the Eiselstein funeral home in St. Cloud, Dec. 26, at 2:30 p.m. Interment was made in Rose Hill cemetery.

Surviving are two daughters, Mrs. velma Tanner and Minnie E. Hudson, of Kissimmee: three sons, Charles D., Kissimmee, Richard R., Hollywood, and Ernest J., Lake Worth; and two brothers, Samuel L. and John Love, Jetmore, Kans.

Herbert Branch Hudson and Margaret A. Love had the following children:

  1.4.1.  Ernest John Hudson, b. 22 Jul 1889 in Jetmore, KS.
  1.4.2.  Richard Rush Hudson, b. 22 Feb 1894 in Jetmore, KS.
  1.4.3.  Charles David Hudson, b. Oct 1897 in KS or OK.
  1.4.4.  Nellie Velma Hudson, b. abt 1902 in KS, m. Willie Oscar Tanner.
  1.4.5.  Minnie E. Hudson, b. abt 1907 in KS.

Sources:

1895 Kansas State Census: Benton, Hodgeman, Kansas
1900 US Federal Census: District 95, Benton, Hodgeman, KS
1905 US Federal Census: Benton Hodgeman, Kansas state census
1910 US Federal Census: Benton, Hodgeman, Kansas
1920 US Federal Census: Kissimmee, Osceola, FL
1930 US Federal Census: Kissimmee, Osceola, FL
1935 US Federal Census: Kissimmee, Osceola, FL
1945 US Federal Census: Kissimmee, Osceola, FL
WWI Civilian Draft Registration for Ernest and Richard Hudson
Florida Death Records for Margaret A. Hudson
Florida Marriage Records for Nellie Velma Hudson

Parents of Margaret A. Love Hudson

1. John Love was born in Jan 1832 in Ireland. He immigrated about 1859 and was married Elizabeth Smith. Elizabeth was born in either Ireland or Scotland. She died between 1895 and 1900 in Hodgeman county, KS. She had a brother Joseph Smith who is said to have been born in Scotland, his parents in Ireland or England and came to this country in 1848 or 1850. He lived with John's son, John Jr., for quite a while in Kansas, while John Sr., lived with his daughter, Margaret Hudson, for a number of years in KS. By 1895 the family had moved with the families of their son, John, and daughter, Margaret Hudson, to Benton, Hodgeman, KS. Apparently both John and Eliza died in Hodgeman county, KS.

John Love and Elizabeth "Eliza" Smith had at least the following children:

  1.1.  Mary Love, b. abt 1869 in IL
  1.2.  Elizabeth "Minnie" Love, b. abt 1861 in IL
  1.3.  John Love, b. abt 1863 in IL
  1.4.  Margaret Love, b. abt 1865 in IL, m. Herbert Branch Hudson (see biography above)
  1.5.  Samuel Love, b. Mar or Apr 1870 in IL.

Sources:

1870 Butler, Vermilion, IL
1880 District 205, Butler, Vermilion, IL
1895 Benton, Hodgeman, Kansas, state census
1900 District 95, Benton, Hodgeman, KS
1905 Benton Hodgeman, Kansas state census
1910 Benton, Hodgeman, Kansas

Hudson, Herbert Branch

The Herbert Branch Hudson family of Kissimmee

Researched and written by Lisa Slaski

All sources are from online databases, primarily from www.ancestry.com and from www.familysearch.org's prototype database.

Parents of Herbert Branch Hudson

Richard Rush Hudson and Lucy Maria Branch had at least the following children:

  1.1.  William Hudson, b. abt 1853 in OH.
  1.2.  Charles Hudson, b. about 1855 in OH.
  1.3.  Arthur Healy Hudson, b. 27 Dec 1864 in Middleport, OH.
 +1.4.  Herbert Branch Hudson, b. Aug 1865 in OH.

Sources:

1850 US Federal Census: Salisbury, Meigs, OH (Josiah and Orinda Branch)
1860 US Federal Census: Salisbury, Meigs, OH
1870 US Federal Census: Middleport, Meigs, OH
1880 US Federal Census: District 115, Middleport, Meigs, OH
1900 US Federal Census: District 51, Ward 5, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah
Salt Lake County Death Records, Utah, for Richard Rush Hudson, Lucy Marie Hudson, and Arthur Healy Hudson
Ohio Marriages for Josiah Branch, and Richard Hudson

St. Cloud Tribune, 26 Dec 1935

Mrs. Margaret Hudson Buried in Rose Hill

Herbert Branch Hudson and Margaret A. Love had the following children:

  1.4.1.  Ernest John Hudson, b. 22 Jul 1889 in Jetmore, KS.
  1.4.2.  Richard Rush Hudson, b. 22 Feb 1894 in Jetmore, KS.
  1.4.3.  Charles David Hudson, b. Oct 1897 in KS or OK.
  1.4.4.  Nellie Velma Hudson, b. abt 1902 in KS, m. Willie Oscar Tanner.
  1.4.5.  Minnie E. Hudson, b. abt 1907 in KS.

Sources:

1895 Kansas State Census: Benton, Hodgeman, Kansas
1900 US Federal Census: District 95, Benton, Hodgeman, KS
1905 US Federal Census: Benton Hodgeman, Kansas state census
1910 US Federal Census: Benton, Hodgeman, Kansas
1920 US Federal Census: Kissimmee, Osceola, FL
1930 US Federal Census: Kissimmee, Osceola, FL
1935 US Federal Census: Kissimmee, Osceola, FL
1945 US Federal Census: Kissimmee, Osceola, FL
WWI Civilian Draft Registration for Ernest and Richard Hudson
Florida Death Records for Margaret A. Hudson
Florida Marriage Records for Nellie Velma Hudson

Parents of Margaret A. Love Hudson

John Love and Elizabeth "Eliza" Smith had at least the following children:

  1.1.  Mary Love, b. abt 1869 in IL
  1.2.  Elizabeth "Minnie" Love, b. abt 1861 in IL
  1.3.  John Love, b. abt 1863 in IL
  1.4.  Margaret Love, b. abt 1865 in IL, m. Herbert Branch Hudson (see biography above)
  1.5.  Samuel Love, b. Mar or Apr 1870 in IL.

Sources:

1870 Butler, Vermilion, IL
1880 District 205, Butler, Vermilion, IL
1895 Benton, Hodgeman, Kansas, state census
1900 District 95, Benton, Hodgeman, KS
1905 Benton Hodgeman, Kansas state census
1910 Benton, Hodgeman, Kansas

Ide, Nathan Edward

Biography of Nathan Edward Ide of St. Cloud

Researched and written by Lisa K. Slaski

Nathan Edward Ide was born 12 Oct 1843 in Friendship, Alleghany county, NY, the only son of Edward and Mary Ide. Nathan had two older sisters, Elizabeth A. (b. about 1840) and Nancy M. (b. about 1842) and one younger sister, Sarah (b. about 1847), all born in NY. As a young child Nathan's family moved to Snow Shoe, Centre county, PA and are found there in the 1850 census. His father, Edward, was a millwright and was listed once as a mechanic in census records.

As a young man of 19 years Nathan enlisted as a private on 16 Aug 1864 in Company A of the 199th Infantry Regiment of Pennsylvania. The regiment was ordered to the field in October, but soon after arriving and taking up position the Army of the James went into winter quarters. On 27 Mar 1865 the division received marching orders and the 199th faced the Confederates on the 29th. Nathan was wounded soon after on 9 Apr 1865 at Appomattox Court House, Virginia and he was discharged on 16 Jun 1865. The 199th was mustered out of service on 28 Jun 1865 though the recruits were transferred to the 188th and finally mustered out of service on 14 Dec 1865.

After his discharge Nathan returned to his parents in Snow Shoe, PA and is found in the 1870 census as a law student. On 5 Sep 1876 he was married to Frances ("Fannie") Isabella Graham in Lacross, Izard county, AR. Fannie was born 22 Dec 1856 in IL and was the daughter of James H. Graham and Elvina Van Valkenburg. James was an attorney and a printer editor presumably for a newspaper and was born about 1831 in Richmond, VA. Elvina was born about 1831 in NY and was previously married to a Mr. Mason. The Graham's were living in Olney, Richland county, IL in 1860, near Hartville, Wright county, MO in 1870 and in Mill Creek, Izard county, AR in 1880.

Soon after his marriage, Nathan and Fannie moved to Texas where in Nov 1878 their daughter Pearl was born (possibly in Chico; m. Eli Evans). Shortly after her birth they moved to Missouri where their son Edward G. was born in March 1880 and they are found in the 1880 census in Ava, Benton Twp, Douglas county, MO with Nathan listed as a lawyer. Grief struck the young family when Edward G. died in infancy. They had four more children born in MO; Walter (b. Mar 1882), Inez (b. Oct 1885, m. Robert Fry), Elmer (b. 16 Dec 1886 in Ava) and Lillian Ida (b. Jan 1890, m. Robert White). The family then moved to West Virginia in 1890 and Nathan applied for a pension there on 6 Nov 1890. Three more children were born in Charleston, WV; William (b. 4 Jul 1892), Grace (b. 24 Mar 1896, m. Edward Annable) and Robert (9 Jul 1900). They celebrated the marriage of their daughter Pearl to Eli Evans and both families are found on the 1900 census living in Big Sandy, Kanawha, WV. They next moved to Black, AL leaving their married daughter and her family behind. Living there for only a short time, they moved on to Florida in 1902 and are said to have resided in Holmes county. The city of Saint Cloud was established in 1909 and by 1910 Nathan had moved his family to this Civil War Veteran's colony. He was soon established as a merchant dealing in retail groceries and owned a store he called "Ide's Grocery" located at 112 South NY Ave. His sons Walter and Elmer went into business with him. He was a member of the L. L. Mitchell Post #34 of the GAR in St. Cloud.

Nathan was a good citizen and a kind loving husband and father. He passed away quietly and peacefully on 31 Dec 1924 at the age of 81. The funeral was held at the Presbyterian church and he was laid to rest in Mount Peace cemetery on 2 Jan 1925 in section A, lot 85, block C.

After his death Fannie applied for a widow's pension on 12 Jan 1925. As most of her children continued to reside in Saint Cloud she had a supportive family around her. Several of her single children continued to live with her and she enjoyed being a grandmother. She died at her home on South Ohio avenue in Saint Cloud on 17 Feb 1936. She is buried with her husband at Mt. Peace cemetery.

The following year there was a true tragedy in the family when Nathan and Fannie's son, William, and his 13 year old son William Nathan jr., both died on 18 Jul 1937. The article in the Saint Cloud News is very detailed on what happened, but the essence of the tragedy is this, William, his son, a niece and a nephew were wading in shallow water along the beach when the three children stepped into a dredge hole unexpectedly. His nephew was able to scramble back to shallow water. His niece was saved by passers-by, but William junior and his father were lost, the son by drowning and the father by other causes, not stated. Their bodies were later found. William was a justice of the peace and a photographer and so well regarded that the local businesses in Saint Cloud closed their doors for his funeral service.

Sources:

Orlando Sentinel - Obituary of Robert Ide (d. 18 Jun 1985)
Saint Cloud Tribune - Obituary of Nathan Edward Ide
Saint Cloud News - Obituary of Fannie Graham Ide, William Ide and son William Ide.
1850, 1860 and 1870 Federal Census - Snow Shoe, Centre county, PA
1860 Olney, Richland county, IL
1870 Hartville P.O., Wright county, MO
1880, Mill Creek, Izard county, AR
1880 Federal Census - Ava, Benton Twp, Douglas county, MO
1900 Federal Census - Big Sandy, Kanawha county, WV
1910, 1920 and 1930 Federal Census - St Cloud, Osceola county, FL
1930 Federal Census - Elk, Kanawha county, WV
1936-1998 Florida Death Index - Ancestry.com
Fisk Funeral Record of Nathan Ide
Death Records from the Historical Society of Osceola County - Nathan, Fannie, William and William Nathan jr.
Civil War Service and Pension records index - Ancestry.com
1913 Roster of L.L. Mitchel GAR Post #34
1921-22 City Directory of Saint Cloud
GenForum message by Ed Annable
199th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers

Lawson, Captain Walter R.
[photos not yet available]

Captain Walter R. Lawson

This is one of those interesting times when I've been given a donation by one site visitor and a researcher a few days later requests a lookup by one of our volunteers on the subject of the recent donation!

In this case, site visitor Nickey Neel, who is unrelated to Capt. Lawson, sent in an obituary with a few notes. Then Daniel Bowling, who's wife is a grand niece of Capt. Lawrence, contacted us to request information on the Captain's marriage record. Though we haven't found his marriage record, Daniel has graciously donated many further notes and all the photos contained herein.

Thank you to both Nickey Neel and Daniel Bowling for their generosity in donating the material to make this really nice Memorial page!

- Lisa Slaski

Source: Orlando Sentinel, Sunday, April 22, 1923

KISSIMMEE BOY A VICTIM OF PLANE CRASH

CAPT. LAWSON AND THREE COMPANIONS DIE WHEN PLANE NOSE-DIVES INTO RIVER

Dayton, O., April 21 – Four men were killed almost instantly and one other injured probably fatally this afternoon when a Martin Air Service Bombing Plane nose-dived into the great Miami river here.

The dead are:
Captain W. R. Lawson, pilot, Langley Field, Va.
Technical Sergeant Bidwell, Langley Field, Mich.
Civilian U. M. Smith, bureau of standards, Washington, D. C.
The injured: Technical Sergeant F. B. Shaw, Selfridge Field, Mich.

Smith died after the accident at the Miami Valley hospital. All five men suffered fractured skulls.

The accident occurred as the men were taking off for Langley Field after having been here for several weeks. The big plane left the ground heading south, but owing to a heavy wind, witnesses said, it was evident the pilot realized that he could not clear the Herman avenue bridge just south of McCook Field, and sought to turn his plane to avoid crashing into it. The strong wind caught the machine and twisted it into a nose dive which ended in the river.

All the men in the plane had parachutes on their backs but were unable to use them on account of the suddenness of the fall, the plane being only a short distance from the ground at the time it dived.

The crew was plunged into the water, most of them out of the ship as the bodies were seen to surface one by one.

...[rest of article is contained verbatum in the next article with some additional material]

Source: Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Ga., Sunday Morning, April 22, 1923

...[earlier material in this article is very similar to above]

Brigadier General William Mitchell, assistant chief of the air service, and Major L.W. McIntosh, commandant at McCook Field, were the first air service officers to reach the scene.

General Mitchell immediately appointed a board of investigation.

Shortly after the accident he took off for Washington, D.C. As he passed over the scene of the disaster he dropped flowers. He will make a report on his arrival in Washington.

Washington, April 21.--Brigadier General William Mitchell, assistant chief of the army air service, who arrived here tonight from the scene of the airplane crash at Dayton declared Captain W.R. Lawson, who was killed, was the "greatest bomber officer in the service." He directed the bombs which sank the battleship Alabama and the former German battleship Ostrifiesland in the bombing tests off the Atlantic coast, using the machine wrecked today, and accompanied by the same crew, three of whom were killed. Captain Lawson was awarded the distinguished service cross for acts of heroism in action near St. Mihiel, France. The records show that while convalescing from wounds he volunteered for a mission requiring a flight over the enemy lines within range of the anti-aircraft and machine guns. His home address was Kissimmee, Florida.

Walter Ralls Lawson ca. 1914

Source: New York Times, 22 Apr 1923

Lawson Had Fine War Record

Special to The New York Times.

WASHINGTON, April 21, - Captain W. R. Lawson, killed in an airplane accident at Dayton today, had a remarkable record during the World War and received the Distinguished Service Cross for heroism in action. He served during part of 1919 as Chief of the Civil Operations Section in the office of the Chief of the Army Air Service.

He was born on Oct. 25, 1893, at Glenn Alter, Ga. His home was at Kissimmee, Fla., and he is survived by a wife and two children. He was a member of the Alabama National Guard when the war started. He went overseas with the Rainbow Division. In February, 1918, he was detailed to the Air Service and served as Operations Officer and Aerial Observer until November, 1918.

He received the Distinguished Service Cross for repeated acts of heroism in action near St. Mihiel, France, from July 10 to Sept. 13, 1918. He showed unusual courage in a reconnoissance flight over the enemy lines, when he continued on his mission after being seriously wounded by anti-aircraft fire. On Sept. 13, 1918, while still convalescing from his wounds, he volunteered for a particularly dangerous mission requiring a seventy-five kilometer flight over the enemy lines. Because of weather conditions he was fored to fly at a low altitude and was repeatedly fired on by anti-aircraft and machine guns. He successfully accomplished his mission and returned with important information.

When he returned to the United States after the armistice he served as instructor at the School for Aerial Observers, at Post Field, Fort Sill, Okla., from Dec. 1, 1918, to April, 1919. Since November, 1919, he had served continuously at Langley Field. At the time of his death he was commanding the Twentieth Bombardment Squadron.

...

Source: Dayton Daily News, 21-22 Apr 1923

Wreck of Bombing Plane in River

21 Apr 1923

Bomber Demolished in River Plunge

22 Apr 1923

22 Apr 1923: Completeness of the destruction effected when the Martin bomber fell into the Miami river near the Herman av. bridge Saturday afternoon, causing the death of four air service flyers is shown in the picture on the left with the bridge in the background. The other picture was snapped by a Daily News photographer as the big plane was in an almost vertical position in the process of removing it from the river.

Camera Story of Dayton's Greatest Air Tragedy

No. 1 is a close-up of the tangled mass in which the flyers had been seated. It had just been pulled to the shore when the picture was taken.

No. 2 shows the position of the ship in the river about 150 feet north of the Herman av. bridge, and about 60 feet from the east shore.

No. 3 The third picture illustrates the course the aircraft followed in its fatal plunge, as described by witnesses. Capt. W. R. Lawson, the pilot, had evidently foreseen he could not clear obstructions at the southern end of the field in the face of the wind, and attempted to circle about for a landing. In the fall the tail of the ship swung around toward the east bank.

No. 4 Brig. Gen. William Mitchell, assistant chief of the air service, is shown in the fourth picture. He was at McCook field and, among the first to arrive to help pull the dead and injured aviators from the wreckage.

No. 5 The size of the large twin-motored bomber may be seen in the fifth picture. This type of ship is one of the heaviest in use by the army flyers.

This photo is an earlier (abt 1900) photo with his two sisters.
From L to R : Effie Clifford Lawson, Walter Ralls Lawson & Florrie May Lawson

Family photo ca. 1903
L to R: Walter Ralls Lawson, Mary Ellen Ralls Lawson,
Florrie May Lawson, Frank H. Lawson, Effie Clifford Lawson

Notes from Nickey Neel:

Lawson, W. R. - (Walter R. Lawson) - b. 10/1893 d. 4/21/1923 - s/o Frank H. Lawson & Mary Ellen Ralls. His sister was Florrie Mae Lawson that m. Raleigh Lewis "Roll/Ral/Rollie" Overstreet.

The Fourth Alabama

Construction on the Fourth Alabama (BB-8) began on December 2, 1896. She was 374 feet long and belonged to the ILLINOIS class of battleships. She possessed 16 ½ inches of armor plating and carried four 18-inch surface torpedo tubes, four 13-inch guns, fourteen 6-inch guns, sixteen 4- pounders, and four 1-pounders. She served primarily in the West Indies but made a brief tour of the Mediterranean and sailed for a short time with the Great White Fleet. She was decommissioned on November 3, 1908, and placed on the reserve rolls. On July 1, 1912, she was recommissioned and served in the North Atlantic before being relegated to training duty. During World War I, BB-8 served as the Flagship for Division 1, Battleship Force, Atlantic Fleet Training. On May 7, 1920, she was decommissioned for the second time and used for target practice.

Notes from Daniel Bowling:

Walter's father, Frank H., moved to Orange Co., FL area in the early 1880's along with his brothers Appie and Gordon. Appie returned to Georgia but Frank and Gordon remained. After the death of Frank's father, James Henry in the mid 1880's, Frank's mother, Mary, and sister, Florence moved to the Kissimmee area. Mary died in 1887 and Florence died in 1888. Frank remained in Florida and occasionally traveled to Chattahoochee Co., GA to visit relatives and tend to business as he owned the old family farm. That would probably account for the fact that Walter was born in Georgia during one of those visits. Frank H. died in 1927 in Kissimmee and according to his will, Walter Jr., Thomas & little Elaine would have inherited 1/4 of his home place, stock and cattle. That would probably been a good enough reason for them to move back to Kissimmee.

In the 1910 Osceola County, Fl. census, Walter's occupation is listed as a telephone operator for the telephone company.
In the 1920 Virginia census, he and his family were living at Langley Field, VA in Elizabeth County.
In the 1930 census his widow and children are living in Kissimmee, FL.

Family photo ca. 1915
L to R: Walter Jr., May Elaine Rogers Lawson, Walter Sr.

newspaper articles:

COLONEL TOWNSEND F. DODD POST No. 130
LANGLEY FIELD, VIRGINIA

American Legion
An informal meeting was called at this Post at 7:30 P. M. this date upon invitation of representatives of the Elmer J. Wallace Post of Fort Monroe, Va., and the Braxton-Perkins Post of Newport News, Va.

It was unanimously decided to organize a Post of the American Legion at this place to be known as the Colonel Townsend F. Dodd Post of the American Legion. Temporary officers elected as follows: Commander, Comrade Isaiah C. Davies; finance officer, Comrade Walter R. Lawson; Post adjutant, Comrade E. G. Costelle.

A charter was signed by the following: Comrade W. R. Lawson, Comrade N. G. Loupes, Comrade R. E. Boyd, Comrade R. C. McNalley, Comrade Hammer, Comrade E. G. Costelle, Comrade C. Haymes, Comrade Peters, Comrade I. C. Davies, Comrade McAlke, Comrade L. R. Cartier, Comrade Sharpe, Comrade Quiulivan, Comrade Sterling, Comrade W. Arnold.

November 3, 1920, motion was carried to make temporary officers elected on October 20, 1920, permanent for ensuing year (1921)

1922-Commander, Comrade Hamlin; Post adjutant, G. C. Dailey.

1923-Commander, Comrade L. D. Bradshaw; Post adjutant, Comrade F. L. Norris.

1924-Commander, Comrade H. A. Chapman; Post adjutant, Comrades H. H. Curtis to May 1st and C. E. Bergbom from May 1st.

Number of combat kills:
NAME            RANK SQUADRON  SERVICE CREDITS  CREDIT DATE  CREW POSITION CREDIT TYPE   
LAWSON WALTER R  1LT   91OBS      US      1       180927       OBSERVER      AIRPLANE

Letter from Walter to sister Florrie while he was in France during WWI (a PDF file) [NOTE: unable to access pdf presently]

A World War I flying hero. Flew with General Billy Mitchell. Described by General Mitchell as "the greatest bombing officer of the war (WWI) and the greatest man in aerial bombardment in any country." Walter was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and the Croix de Guerre. He was killed when his airplane crashed into the Miami River after taking off from McCook Field in Dayton, Ohio.

Lawson Army Airfield at Fort Benning, Georgia is named in his honor.

A window from the original Holy Redeemer Church, which is presently part of the Methodist Church on Church Street downtown Kissimmee is in his memory. This little red brick church, which could seat 175 people, was built in 1912. Built for the sum of $7000, the original church had no pews or electricity. This window was in the Sanctuary and was in memory of Captain Walter R. Lawson who died in 1923.

Source: Arlington National Cemetery

Name: Walter R Lawson
Death Date: 21 Apr 1923
Last known address: C/O Director Arlington, VA 22111-0000
Cemetery: Arlington National Cemetery
Buried At: Section Sw Site 2274

Source: Michael Robert Patterson's National Arlington Cemetery Website

The New York Times, of August 27, 1920, reported that Pilot Lieutenant O.G. Kelly and Observer Sergeant William Steckel of the Army Air Service won the aerial match at the National Matches at Camp Perry the previous day.

Probably flying the Air Service's work horse, the DeHaviland DH-4, mounting Browning machine guns the airborne pair engaged targets on the ground, scoring 520 points out of a possible 800. Kelly was required to shoot at an upright target with his fixed machine guns, aiming the ship as if it were a rifle. He racked up an impressive 270 points out of 300. As Kelly maneuvered to keep the plane stable Steckel shot at a smaller recumbent target with a pair of flexible machine guns mounted on a Scarff ring, posting a score of 250X500.

In second place were Captain Walter R. Lawson and Lieutenant Leland Bradshaw with a 462. Apparently being in front of the guns wasn't the only dangerous place to be that day as one of the aircraft was wrecked during the competition. Lawson came in second at Perry but the National Match experience was put to good use less than a year later.

"Tiny" Lawson found himself 60 miles off of the Virginia coast piloting a Martin MB-2 bomber, a squadron mate of Jimmy Doolittle. Slung beneath each of the six twin engine planes of General Billy Mitchell's 1st Provisional Air Brigade were 2,000 pound bombs and below them lay the captured German dreadnaught Ostfriesland. Twenty-one minutes after the first bomb fell from the sky the Ostfriedland slipped beneath the waves, her hull split open by the excessive water pressure created when the bombs detonated underwater hard by her. The sinking proved, at least as far as Mitchell was concerned, that air power should be the nation's first line of defense.

Unfortunately the Fates dealt Lawson a pair of ironic jokers. Taking off from Dayton, Ohio's McCook Field in 1923 he lost power and crashed into the Miami River. The Georgia native lost his life at the controls of the very MB-2 he piloted over the Ostfriedland.

The Army named the balloon landing facility at Fort Benning, in his home state, Lawson Field in his honor in August of 1931. After World War II the name of Second Lieutenant Ted W. Lawson was added to his, giving the parsimonious post war Army two memorials for the price of one. The second Lawson was author of Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, a memoir of his experiences as a pilot on the historic World War II raid lead by the first Lawson's fellow pilot in the 1st Provisional Air Brigade, Doolittle. Just as Captain Lawson and Camp Perry are historically linked so, likewise, are the late captain and the Rattle Battle. Some of the nation's finest National Trophy Infantry Team Match competitors train just a few miles from Lawson Field on Easley and McAndrews Ranges, for Fort Benning is also the home of the United States Army's Marksmanship Training Unit.

NOTE: The Captain's son, Walter R. Lawson, Jr., Colonel, United States Army, is also buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Family photo ca. 1919
Children front row: Walter Ralls Lawson Jr., Joseph Edward Overstreet,
Clifford Overstreet, James Lawson Woodall & Mary Ellen Overstreet
Sitting L to R: Walter Ralls Lawson Sr., Florrie May Lawson Overstreet,
Frank H. Lawson, James Monroe Woodall
Back Row L to R: May Elaine Rogers Lawson, Thomas Rodgers Lawson,
Effie Clifford Lawson Woodall

The following is an article that appeared the Fort Benning Bayonet on March 26, 1958. The correct spelling of his birthplace is Glen Alta and he was born on the 23rd of October not the 25th.

Airfield Had Meager Beginning; Named After Famed Georgia Pilot

Lawson Army Airfield, well known as a key Army air centre, has come a long way since it first employed as a landing place for observation balloons for the Infantry School in 1918.

Its early beginnings were so meager, in fact, that the field didn't even have a name during the first 13 years of existence.

A little over 27 years ago, Aug. 7, 1931, the modest little airstrip beside the Chattahoochee River on the Fort Benning reservation was designated Lawson Field in memory of Capt. Walter R. Lawson, a native Georgian and World War I flying hero, who was killed in a peacetime airplane crash in 1923 at McCook Field, Dayton, Ohio.

Capt. Lawson was born at Glen Alter, Ga., Oct. 25, 1893. He received his education in local schools and was mustered into federal service with the Alabama National Guard as a second lieutenant in June, 1916. A short while later he went overseas as an infantryman, but later became a pilot and served with the 91st Aero Squadron as operations officer and aerial observer. He also took flying instructions with the 41st French Escadrille.

Award DSC

During his participation in Meuse - Argonne and St. Mihiel Sectors, Capt. Lawson was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for repeated acts of extraordinary heroism in action July 30 and again on Sept. 13, 1918.

Upon returning to the states in November, 1918, he was promoted to captain and assigned to duty at Post Field, Fort Sill, Oka.

He held this assignment until April, 1919, when he was transferred to Washington, his assignment with the Office of the Director of Military aeronautics was to assist in the reorganization of the Army Air Service. He was sent to Langley Field, Va., in October 1919 to attend the Graduate Field Officers School from which he graduated in January 192.

In September, 1920, he vacated his commission as a captain, Air Service, and accepted an appointment as first lieutenant, Air Service, Regular Army. He was promoted to captain that same month.

Early in April, 1923, he was sent to McCook Field, Dayton, Ohio, on detached service. On April 21, 1923, he was killed in aplane crash at McCook Field on take-off for Langley Field, Va. The large Martin bomber (a test plane) he was piloting dove into a nearby river during a sudden storm, killing Capt. Lawson and three other men.

Surviving Capt. Lawson are his wife, Mrs. Elaine Lawson, and three children. Today, Mrs. Lawson resides in Kissimmee Fla. Their son Walter, a U. S. Military Academy graduate at West Point, N.Y., is now a colonel. Thomas their other son, also is a West Point graduate and is teaching high school in Connecticut. Their daughter, Elaine, is married to an Air Force sergeant.

ca. 1919 photo of Walter with his
children, nieces & nephews.

Notes from Walter's son, Thomas Lawson:

from Dan Bowling: My wife had a conversation with Thomas Lawson last Tuesday and below are some notes from that conversation plus info from a letter of his written in 1990. - Dan

His mother, Elaine, claimed that she came to America to visit an aunt and study painting, but Thomas believed that she was a servant girl and the aunt/painting story was a cover-up because she was embarrassed. He never remembers his mother mentioning the aunt and she never did any painting.

Thomas donated his father's saber to Lawson Army Airfield. He said it was on display there for many years but was not sure if was now.

His mother suffered a severe burn while they were living at Langley Field, VA and spent 9 months in Walter Reed. After her husband's death she had to return to Walter Reed for further treatment. The boys, Walter Jr. and Thomas, were sent to boarding school and “little” Elaine went to stay with Aunt Beatrice.

His father met his mother while living in Alabama. His mom was Catholic and a very brave woman. She had a sister named Beatrice. Beatrice married a Canadian. After his father's death they moved from Langley Field, VA to Birmingham, AL and then to Kissimmee.

Thomas was born in Montgomery, AL. He does not know why there instead of Birmingham.

While in the Alabama National Guard Walter went to the Mexican border abt. 1916 (Mexican Border War).

He did not learn to fly until he was sent to France and was temporarily assigned to a French aviation unit in WWI.

(From a 1990 letter) Thomas said that after his father graduated from high school he went to Birmingham, AL where he was associated with Mortimer Jordan in a fledgling automobile business and that his where his father met his mother.

(My note: CAPT. Mortimer Harvie Jordan was born in 1881 and was killed in France during World War I in 1918. He was also a medical doctor. I think he probably joined the Alabama National Guard along with Walter.)

American Legion Application
This application was made after
Walter's death and I do not know who filled it out.