Move On!: One Family’s Odyssey Through 400 Years of United States History

By Faith McClung Kline O'Brien

Author Faith McClung Kline O’Brien’s paternal grandparents, Albert McClung and Mattie Fitzgerald, met at a small, country church in Oklahoma in 1907, the year that territory became a state. Albert’s ancestors included Revolutionary patriots “Saucy Jack” McClung, of Scotch-Irish descent, and Abraham Kuykendall, of Dutch lineage, who, around 1740, relocated from New York to North Carolina, where he settled and accumulated a fortune in gold coins. Mattie descended from two former sea captains who became merchants in Brooklyn, New York—Edward Card from Maine and Nathaniel Grafton from Newport, Rhode Island, whose seafaring ancestors had sailed the Atlantic Ocean since the mid-1600s.

In Move On! O’Brien chronicles her extended family’s history, with each chapter focusing on one of Albert’s or Mattie’s seventeen ancestral branches—the Fitzgerald and McClung Clans and their allied lines: the Anthony, Barry, Card, Dods, Forman, Grafton, Kuykendall, Longstreet, Miller, Reid, Thompson, Tidwell, Trigg, Wilbore, and Wyckoff families. Ten of these lines include Revolutionary patriots, and ten have roots in America extending as far back as the 1600s. Move On! tells how descendants of these disparate families met, united in marriage, and eventually became pioneers on the Southwestern prairies.

Glimpses of religion in the lives of everyday Americans appear throughout Move On!, which combines genealogical details with personal stories, many taking place during pivotal events in US history.

Stories from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries told firsthand by O’Brien’s late grandparents help bring Move On! to life through the eyes of real-life characters, her ancestors.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 20, 2022
• ISBN: 9781664270220

Faith McClung Kline O'Brien

Faith McClung Kline O’Brien retired from a career in investments and trust management. During retirement in Michigan, O’Brien has avidly researched her family’s history and explored family sites from the Eastern Seaboard to Appalachia and Southwest prairies. In earlier books she chronicled the history of her maternal ancestors as well as her late husband’s family and recorded tales told by her many family members (descendants of seafaring Cards and Graftons) who relish fishing and boating.

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Copyright © 2022 Faith McClung Kline O’Brien.

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ISBN: 978-1-6642-7021-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-7022-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022911582

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/20/2022

CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Section 1: THE FAMILY OF MATTIE MAY FITZGERALD

Letter #1 to My Grandchildren

Mattie May Fitzgerald’s Lineage by Family

I. Maternal Ancestors of Mattie May Fitzgerald,

A. A. Maternal Ancestors of Mattie Fitzgerald’s Mother, Emily Elizabeth Grafton,

Chapter 1: The Card Family

Chapter 2: The Reid Family

Chapter 3: The Stoffelsz/Langestraet (Longstreet) Family

Chapter 4: The Forman Family

Chapter 5: The Wilbore Family

Chapter 6: The Claesen/Wyckoff Family

B. B. Paternal Ancestors of Mattie Fitzgerald’s Mother, Emily Elizabeth Grafton,

Chapter 7: The Miller Family

Chapter 8: The Dods Family

Chapter 9: The Grafton Family

II. Paternal Ancestors of Mattie May Fitzgerald,

Letter #2 to My Grandchildren

A. A. Maternal Ancestors of Mattie Fitzgerald’s Father, Abner Trigg Fitzgerald,

Chapter 10: The Anthony Family

Chapter 11: The Trigg Family

B. B. Paternal Ancestors of Mattie Fitzgerald’s Father, Abner Trigg Fitzgerald,

Chapter 12: The Fitzgerald Family

Section 2: THE FAMILY OF ALBERT POSEY McCLUNG

Albert Posey McClung’s Lineage by Family

I. Maternal Ancestors of Albert Posey McClung,

A. A. Maternal Ancestors of Albert McClung’s Mother, Narcissa Kuykendall,

Chapter 13: The Thompson Family

B. B. Paternal Ancestors of Albert McClung’s Mother, Narcissa Kuykendall,

Letter #3 to My Grandchildren

Chapter 14: The Leursen/Kuykendall Family

II. Paternal Ancestors of Albert Posey McClung

A. A. Maternal Ancestors of Albert’s Father, James Washington McClung,

Chapter 15: The Barry Family

B. B. Paternal Ancestors of Albert’s Father, James Washington McClung,

Chapter 16: The Tidwell Family

Chapter 17: The McClung Family

Letter #4 to My Grandchildren

Section 3: ALBERT POSEY McCLUNG AND MATTIE MAY FITZGERALD McCLUNG— LIVES FOREVER INTERTWINED

Marriage Certificate of Albert Posey McClung and Mattie May Fitzgerald

Letter #5 to My Grandchildren

Chapter 18: Albert Posey McClung and Mattie May Fitzgerald

Letter #6 to My Grandchildren

Section 4: APPENDICES

Appendix A: Countries of Origin for Our Ancestors

Appendix B: Clergymen in Our Extended Family

Appendix C: Military Service of Our Ancestors During Times of War

Appendix D: Where Branches of Our Family Lived

Appendix E: Index of Ancestors

Information about the Author

Other Books by Faith:

The Klines of Evanston—1848 to 1968

Sketches from the Western Frontier:

The Level Family – The Gilbert Family

(The story of the ancestors of the author’s maternal grandparents)

Fishing Tales and Boat Sails:

Family Lore from Southern Waterways

(An eBook with stories from members of the McClung Family)

FITZGERALD and McCLUNG CLANS

AND

THEIR ALLIED FAMILIES:

Anthony, Barry, Card, Dods, Forman,

Grafton, Kuykendall, Longstreet, Miller,

Reid, Thompson, Tidwell, Trigg,

Wilbore, and Wyckoff

SKETCHES FROM THE WESTERN FRONTIER

SERIES

Copyright © 2022

Faith McClung Kline O’Brien Publications

Midland, Michigan 48640

DEDICATION

This book is lovingly dedicated to my grandchildren—

Ethan Strodtbeck, Jacob Metricarti, George Kline, Isaac Strodtbeck,

Ellie Kline, Dominic Metricarti, and Gillian Strodtbeck—

who inspired me to undertake this fascinating journey through time.

It is also dedicated to the following cadre of family members from various eras and locales

who provided information and assistance that made this book possible:

Florence Lou Flowers (Mrs. Daniel Carr Settle) (1912-1993), a great granddaughter of Martha Jane Card and Douglas R. Grafton, who helped kick off this entire project by sending me, in 1976, unsolicited copies of letters and family memorabilia, including a brief family history written in 1877 by Louise Grafton Dormer (1824-1904), a sister of my great great grandfather Douglas Russell Grafton, who, understanding the importance of passing along family lore and traditions, took time to record with pen and ink the stories of the Dods, Miller, and Grafton families passed down to her, which I share with you now.

John Edward Hughes Fitzgerald (1891-1965), Mattie May Fitzgerald’s brother, who spent a significant portion of his retirement years researching the life of his father, Abner T. Fitzgerald, with the expectation of writing his biography. Until his years ran out, he wrote many letters highlighting the results of his research to his niece, Francis Marie Cummings (1916-2011), daughter of Edward’s sister Lela Fitzgerald Cummings and meticulous researcher who, long before the Internet simplified the genealogist’s efforts, spent countless hours studying the families of her parents (that is, the Fitzgeralds, Cards, Graftons, Formans, Triggs, and others), recording by hand numerous facts she found in censuses, family trees, and books.

And when Francis also ran out of years, her sister, Mary Jeanne Cummings Miller (1923-2021), daughter of Lela Fitzgerald Cummings, carefully preserved her sister’s boxes of documentation, photos, and memorabilia, and shares with us now her priceless accumulation of information about our family.

In addition, Dale McClung (1908 to 1997), oldest son of Albert and Mattie, recorded what it was like to be part of his family and to live in Carter and Mangum, Oklahoma, during the first quarter of the twentieth century by writing a detailed autobiography, sections of which appear in this book through the generosity of his daughter-in-law, Donna Neufeld McClung.

Jimmy Wayne McClung (whose 1981 book, The McClung Family of Wise County, Texas, has for many years been a primary source of nineteenth and twentieth century McClung family history) now generously continues to share his new findings and encourage research by others in order to expand our knowledge of the McClung clan.

Without the contribution of any one of these family members, this book would not be complete.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to these generous family members who gave of their time

to enable me to visit sites related to the lives of our ancestors:

Mary Kathryn McClung, who mastered the maze of the New York subway

system that took us to the Brooklyn home of the Wyckoff family;

Barbie McClung, who drove us from Louisiana to Woodward, Oklahoma, to meet

Mary Jeanne Miller and her family—Bobbie Gale and Wade Ralston, and Patsy Jean

Parker—who opened for us boxes of treasures saved by Francis Cummings and

Edward Fitzgerald and who even brought us lunch so we could continue to

scan and photograph documents an entire day without interruption;

William T. O’Brien, who drove us to the Chattanooga-area farm site of Edward Card; the

Providence, Rhode Island, neighborhood of the Dods family; and Jamestown, Virginia, where John

Johns Trigg commanded an artillery battalion under General George Washington at nearby Yorktown;

Alexandra Kline Metricarti, who gave me a beautiful sunny fall day in Monmouth,

New Jersey, where, together, we explored cemeteries, monuments, Old Tennent Church, and

the historical society’s records related to the Reid, Longstreet, and Forman families;

David Kent Kline, who enabled me to visit the Newport, Rhode Island,

Historical Society’s collection of papers and to see Grafton Street.

64957.png

I am extremely grateful for the editorial and organizational suggestions provided by Kenneth Wyatt, who understood my purpose and my perspective in writing this book as I believe no other editor could have. I could not have dared ask for such a labor-intensive favor of anyone but a good and generous friend, a lover of history, and a Christian man of letters.

I am also grateful to my three children—Alexandra Kline Metricarti, George (Lee) Kline, and Elizabeth Ann Kline Strodtbeck, three gifted writers—who for a long decade, whenever I called, day or night, freely offered advice and helped me create the phrase I sought.

And, finally, I am indebted to my husband, William T. O’Brien, who throughout our first years of marriage— our honeymoon years—seldom became impatient with the many hours I spent hunched over my laptop computer, but instead brought me numerous cups of tea and frequently prepared lunch so I could continue to work on this volume. He always lent a willing ear as I interrupted dinner conversation to talk about new family discoveries or theories. Thanks, Bill!

—Faith McClung

INTRODUCTION

My paternal grandparents, Mattie May Fitzgerald and Albert Posey McClung, met in a small country church in Oklahoma in 1907, the year that territory became a state.

Mattie’s great grandfathers included two acquaintances—both former seamen-turned-merchants in Brooklyn, New York: Edward Shannon Card, probably born in Meduncook, Maine, in 1801, into a family of sea captains; and Nathaniel Grafton, Jr., of Newport, Rhode Island, whose seafaring ancestors had plied the Atlantic Ocean at least since the mid-1600s.

Albert’s ancestors included his great great grandfather John Sassy Jack McClung, a second-generation American of Scotch-Irish descent who fought in the American Revolution, and Abraham Kuykendall, a fourth-generation American of Dutch descent and also a Revolutionary patriot, who moved from New York State to North Carolina around 1740.

How descendants of these disparate families met, united in marriage, and became pioneers on the prairies of Texas and Oklahoma is a story of destiny, of surprise, and—I believe—of gifts from the divine hand of Providence working everyday miracles in the lives of ordinary people.

Each of the seventeen chapters of this book focuses on one of Mattie’s or Albert’s ancestral branches, ten of which extend as far back as the 1600s and ten of which include Revolutionary patriots. Reaching 400 years back into history as I researched the information for this book, I soon discovered that this is not simply the story of my ancestors’ life events; it is a retellling of many of the major events of America’s history. What distinguishes it from most history books is that its primary characters are not the heroes and patriots with whose names we are familiar. Its players are ordinary Americans—my family members living simple lives during some of our country’s most crucial events.

Another focus of this book is its presentation of keyhole glimpses of religion in the life of Americans in a variety of historical circumstances, eras, and locations.

Writing a book like this presents at least two unique problems. The first is the challenge of combining a) the human interest stories of my ancestors’ lives, which I hope will fascinate a wide spectrum of readers, including young people, with b) the mundane genealogical data such as names, dates, geographical locations, and military documentation necessary to satisfy genealogical professionals and researchers of family history. I have tried to solve this problem by concentrating most of the genealogical data in a section at the end of each ancestor’s story.

Second, while writing I was constantly aware of the need to keep the hundreds of names in this book organized so they will represent distinctive individuals in the reader’s mind. Often within families sons bear the same first name as their fathers and grandfathers, their cousins and uncles. One helpful device in distinguishing the names will be the charts of Mattie’s and Albert’s lineage by family found on pages 4, 5, and 367. A more detailed aid will be Appendix E: Index of Ancestors, which begins on page 599.

I have titled this book Move On! to pay homage to my peripatetic ancestors who helped populate the shores and hinterlands of America, many of whom never seemed to tame their compulsion to explore the unknown and discover new territories (see Appendix D, page 593). I refer to the series of books I am writing as Sketches from the Western Frontier, an undertaking made more interesting because of the way the definition of the term Western Frontier changed as succeeding generations moved farther west from the Atlantic seaboard into the interior of America.

For example, when Mattie’s Forman and Wyckoff forebears settled in New Amsterdam during the 1600s, Western New York and Ohio were deemed uncivilized frontiers. In the 1740s, when Albert’s ancestor Abraham Kuykendall left New York for western North Carolina, probably traveling through the pass later known as the Cumberland Gap, he helped create a new definition of the term western frontier. By the 1830s, when Mattie’s Trigg ancestors moved from Virginia to Saline County, Missouri, they were in the vanguard of pioneer families repositioning to a new western frontier. When Albert’s Tidwell ancestors moved from South Carolina to central Tennessee in the 1850s, they too helped expand the frontier. And by the time James McClung moved his family in a covered wagon to Wise County, Texas, in 1885, the term western frontier had proved as fluid as a fast-moving river. How exciting it is to think that Outer Space is now our frontier!

In recent decades people have become aware of racist, environmentally harmful, and non-politically-correct customs of earlier generations. Faced with the dilemma of whether to ignore, hide, or try to excuse numerous actions of our ancestors which are recognized today as inappropriate, I have chosen not to ignore them but to present them as I found them and leave it to you, the reader, to render your own judgments (even though I found it impossible not to comment on some of the more egregious examples).

One of the pleasant results of the research I did for this project has been my induction into membership of the Daughters of the American Revolution (based on the service of Jonathan Forman, born 1755). This came as a surprise since, when I began this project in 2011, I was unaware any of my ancestors had served in the Revolutionary War. Then one-by-one I came across stories of ten who, during the tumultuous years of The War, rendered patriotic service to what would become the United States of America (see Appendix C, page 589). I can’t help but think it is no wonder my grandparents were proud of their heritage—and now I share their pride.

—Faith McClung

SECTION ONE:

THE FAMILY OF

MATTIE MAY FITZGERALD

June 15, 2022

My dear grandchildren—Ethan, Jacob, George, Isaac, Ellie, Dominic, and Gillian,

My paternal grandmother (my father’s mother), Mattie May Fitzgerald, was born March 10, 1887, in a tiny house her father built on the Texas prairie for—she told me—$50. One day many years ago, in May 1968, before you or your parents were born, she and I sat down together and she told me in detail about her parents and her grandparents—and even a tad about her great grandparents (my great great great grandparents). And when we had finished our conversation, her husband and my grandfather, Albert McClung, took a turn telling me about his family.

That was a special time, because, remarkably, I do not remember, before or after that day, ever talking again with either of them about their families. But the stories they told me that day—about young lovers who eloped in New York City, a fourteen-year-old Civil War soldier, and a kid walking barefoot two hundred miles from Texas to western Oklahoma alongside a covered wagon—set my imagination on fire.

A few days later I sat down in front of my Smith-Corona typewriter and tried to create a story from the anecdotes my grandparents had told me. Frankly, I thought the results very interesting, so I proudly shared photocopies with a few members of my family.

Before many years passed, your parents were born, and my days overflowed with the tasks common to mothers raising young children while also working outside the home. So during the 1970s, when several distant relatives, hearing of my budding interest in the family’s history, sent me notes related to our family’s story, I appreciated the information but scarcely had time to look at it carefully. I did not realize I was receiving a treasure of information. Fortunately, though, I did have the good sense to save those papers for a time when I might be able to put the information to worthwhile use.

Over fifty years have passed since I wrote that first family profile I called Sketches from the Western Frontier. In the meantime, besides receiving additional correspondence from generous relatives I never met face-to-face, I (like the entire world) received another remarkable gift—the Internet, which has provided access to the kind of genealogical data I could not have dreamed of in 1968.

Now the time has come for me to share with you, my dear grandchildren, the stories I learned that day as well as additional facts uncovered through my own research, received from other family members, or discovered from visits to numerous places where our ancestors lived.

When I began this project, since Grandmama’s maiden name was Fitzgerald, I naively expected that the half of this book related to her ancestry would be about the Fitzgerald family. But what I discovered, of course, was that Mattie May was a Card, a Reid, a Longstreet, a Forman, a Wilbore, a Wyckoff, a Miller, a Dods, a Grafton, an Anthony, and a Trigg as well as a Fitzgerald. And I learned that the other branches of her family were just as interesting as the paternal line that had given Mattie her surname.

Therefore, it turns out that her section of the book is really a tribute to all these branches of our family tree which have endowed her, as well as you and me, with genes to pass along, in turn, to our descendants. What a wonderful patchwork of heredity we benefit from!

I will start where my grandmother started, with the story of her mother Emily’s two grandfathers, Edward Card and Nathaniel Grafton. Then, after telling you about their side of our family, I will tell you about her father Abner’s two grandfathers, William Trigg and Walter Fitzgerald.

I think you will enjoy this story. After all, it has about everything a good tale needs—interesting characters, beautiful locations, and even an unclaimed inheritance languishing somewhere in the British Isles!

With love,

Your Grandma/Nana Faith

1ChartMattiesMaternalAncestors.jpg2ChartMattiesPaternalAncestors.jpg

My grandmother was Mattie May Fitzgerald; her parents were Emily Elizabeth Grafton and Abner Trigg Fitzgerald.

Mattie’s maternal ancestors: Emily Elizabeth Grafton’s parents—Martha Jane Card and Douglas R. Grafton (and their ancestors, including Martha Jane’s Reid, Longstreet, Forman, Wilbore, and Wyckoff families and Douglas’ Miller and Dods families).

Mattie’s paternal ancestors: Abner Trigg Fitzgerald’s parents—Theodocia Trigg and Robert Calhoun Fitzgerald (and their ancestors, including Theodocia’s mother’s family, the Anthonys).

I

MATERNAL ANCESTORS OF

MATTIE MAY FITZGERALD,

Daughter of Emily Elizabeth Grafton Fitzgerald

My grandmother Mattie May Fitzgerald’s maternal ancestors are the ancestors of her mother, Emily Elizabeth Grafton, who married Abner Trigg Fitzgerald. Most of the first-generation Americans among their forebears had been born in England and the British Isles, although you will also meet some Dutch ancestors who came from Holland.

The only relatives I knew when I was young lived south of the Mason-Dixon line. So imagine my surprise when the story my grandmother told me about her maternal ancestors in the first half of the 1800s opened in a neighborhood in Brooklyn, Kings County, New York. There, she said, two acquaintances—Edward Card and Nathaniel Grafton, Jr.,—owned adjacent shops on Washington Street. Both of these shopowners eventually became my great great great grandfather since one was the father of Mattie’s maternal grandmother, Martha Jane Card, and the other was the father of Mattie’s maternal grandfather, Douglas R. Grafton, as illustrated on the chart of Mattie’s maternal ancestors shown above on page 4.

I did not learn until several decades later that, in addition to owning small businesses in the same neighborhood, these two men had at least this one other important experience in common: Both came from seafaring families and had been sea captains before becoming merchants. Wouldn’t it have been interesting to eavesdrop on their conversations after they locked their shop doors each evening and took time to share their observations about their Brooklyn customers and reminisce about their adventures on the high seas!

Edward Card must have had a sense of humor. I wish you and I could have heard him relate stories like this one he loved to tell his granddaughter Frances Grafton Flowers. He told her it took place while the family lived in New York and owned a parrot that had previously been on board ship:

This parrot’s vocabulary was so profane that the exasperated family finally hung his cage on the porch and opened the cage door so he would fly away. However, he surprised them by choosing not to escape. Before long a strong wind blew down the cage with the parrot still in it. The bird lay so lifeless on the floor that the children thought he was dead. But in a few minutes he revived, shook himself, and said, O Lord, I thought the devil had me that time!

Here are stories of Mattie’s maternal ancestors, recorded especially for you. We shall start with her great grandfather Edward Card’s story, as I imagine he himself might have told it if we had been able to listen in on his musings so long ago.

A. MATERNAL ANCESTORS OF MATTIE FITZGERALD’S

MOTHER, EMILY ELIZABETH GRAFTON,

Daughter of Martha Jane Card

CHAPTER 1

THE CARD FAMILY

Ancestors of Martha Jane Card (Mattie’s maternal grandmother)

The Card Family’s Generational Connection to Mattie May Fitzgerald:

Generation 1:

Maternal Grandfather of Mattie Fitzgerald’s Mother, Emily Elizabeth Grafton:

EDWARD SHANNON CARD (3-27-1801 to 4-3-1877)

Married Rachel Ann Reid (4-23-1808 to 4-17-1884)

The year was 1813. He might be only twelve years old, but Edward Shannon Card knew it was time to prove he was a man. His father’s recent refusal to let him join his ship’s crew had put everything into perspective for him.

I know how much my father loves the sea, he grumbled softly to himself. "It’s his life. It’s all he talks about. He is hardly ever home—always away on long voyages. But when he is here, he never stops raving about the beauty of the high seas, the vastness of the ocean, the challenges of mastering his sloop. And he tells me about wonderful, far-away places so different from boring little Friendship, Maine, where every day is the same."

It just didn’t seem fair that his father refused to let him experience firsthand the excitement of sailing. If a father loved the ocean, he should want his son to love it also. His mother should, too. But. growing up in the little house not far from the docks, he had always sensed that Elizabeth Trefethen Card was afraid of the sea.

Well, maybe that is inevitable, he half-heartedly admitted. After all, because of the ocean she sees Father and my brothers no more than I do, and I know she fears constantly for their safety.

He was grown now—at least almost, he conceded. He was ready to prove how much he knew about sailing, how well he had learned the lessons his father had taught him. He intended to let the world know, someday, that Cards were still the best sea captains anywhere, as they had been for generations. He knew what his grandfather, the finest sailor of all, would have wanted him to do—become another Captain Card.

His father had once taken him to visit his grandfather Edward in New Castle, New Hampshire. To get there they had sailed south over forty-two leagues—120 miles if they had traveled by land and the farthest he had ever been from Friendship County. In New Castle his grandfather, a master storyteller, told him Cards had been seamen for hundreds of years—well, at least since adventurous John Card had crossed the Atlantic Ocean around 1640, sailing from Devonshire, England, to America. His grandfather also told him wonderful tales about places he himself had visited—Bermuda, Grand Cayman Island, and other names Edward couldn’t remember now.

He scribbled a quick note of farewell to his mother, picked up his knapsack, and headed for the waterfront, where he knew a captain was hiring able hands to man his ship. He realized the work would be hard, but he was determined to do it well. The captain would recognize the name Card, so he would have no trouble signing on. He would be out of Friendship soon and on his way around the world!

The years passed quickly after Edward left Maine. He was indeed able to prove himself, even more successfully than he had hoped that day in 1813 when he first signed on as a deckhand. He was no braggart, but nowadays he liked to tell people he met that he had sailed to every known port in the world.

Looking back on his life, he could admit, of course, that some experiences had been better than others. He would never forget the voyage in June 1831, when he was master of the Schooner Caroline, sailing out of Warren, Maine. Grand Cayman Island had been his destination. They reached it, of course, but even now he recalled the awful feeling that flooded over him as he realized he had run the vessel aground. The crew was saved, thank God, but he would not want to relive that day.

There had been another star-crossed voyage three years later. What was the name of that brig? Oh yes—the Mary Jane. Winter it was—February 1834—when they grounded, this time on a Florida reef. Again, all were rescued safely; but he would never want to experience another grounding.

He chuckled to himself, Rachel still reminds me occasionally of the seriousness of that situation. Wives never forget such things.

3Photo16gunsloopofwarsimilartoUSSOntario.jpg

A graceful sixteen-gun sloop-of-war similar

in appearance to the USS Ontario

htpps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:USSPortmouth(1896).jpg

He could have played it safe. He could have stayed with the Navy. He had enjoyed that life—at least initially, when he signed on in June 1823. The USS Ontario had been a handsome ship—a triple-masted, wooden-hulled sloop of war with sixteen guns.

She was the second USS Ontario and had seen service during and following the years of the War of 1812 and the Second Barbary War. He had known from stories the crew told that the ship had left New York harbor in January 1821, heading for the Mediterranean Sea after a stop in the West Indies. In June she had arrived at Gibraltar, where she joined Commodore William Bainbridge’s squadron and where she remained over two years. It was during this period that he, Edward, had boarded the USS Ontario for the first time. And he had been with her when she returned to New York in January 1824. Then, following a six-month refitting, on July 24, 1824, they had embarked on a second extended deployment with the Mediterranean Squadron.

He had found being routinely mustered out of the Navy in November 1826 a bittersweet experience, but his term of duty had not been unpleasant.

4ChartU.jpg

US Navy Muster Roll showing the enlistment of Edward Card on June 2,

1823 (see Line 11) and his November 1826 mustering out

Of course, if he had stayed with the Navy, he would not have met Rachel. As it was, Providence must have been watching out for him. What if he had not been in New Jersey that day they met? Not in Monmouth County? Their wedding in 1827, the year after he left the Navy, was the best thing that had ever happened to him. Rachel Ann Reid, will you take this man, Edward Shannon Card, to be your lawful, wedded husband?

If she had not said, I do, his life would have been so meager. There would have been no Edward J. Card born in New York in 1828 or Charlotte in 1829—nor seven more little Cards, all making their appearance in the world one-by-one.

He had remained a sea captain for more than a decade after young Edward’s birth. He could still recall, even now in 1877, how hard it had been to say goodbye to that sweet, forlorn face each time he set sail on another voyage. In fact, it seemed to become more difficult with each child who was born. By 1839 there had been five little ones crowding the door and vying for hugs each time he said goodbye.

Rachel had had her hands full during those years. It hadn’t taken much persuasion on her part for him to recognize the wisdom of her desire to move the family from Maine to New Jersey in order to be closer to the Reids. Her family’s assistance had proved invaluable after their 1832 move to Monmouth as she tried to raise a family with an absentee father. That year George was born in New Jersey, followed by Martha Jane in 1835, Charles in 1837, and William in 1839.

Over the years he had come to find himself surprised by his own feelings as he eventually admitted his reluctance to see his sons become seamen. In fact, he decided he would take whatever steps were necessary to ensure his sons would not even be tempted to go to sea. When at last he made the fateful decision in ’forty-one to retire from the sea, it was not as hard as he had anticipated. He still remembered the smiles: Five happy children and an even happier wife!

5PhotoEdwardShannonCard.jpg

Edward Shannon Card

1801 to 1877

Certainly the life of a seaman had been good. But not so sweet at forty as it had been at twelve. The long voyages away from home, the physical challenges of mastering the elements and controlling a sea-going vessel, the experience of losing family members to the ocean, long periods away from Rachel and the children—these were the things he had thought about as he made his decision to quit the Card way of life.

Nevertheless, after spending twenty-eight years on the waves, that decision back in 1841 had proved to be a difficult one. Even now, so many years later, he marveled that he had ever worked up the courage to exchange the magnificent solitude of the sea for the rush and scramble of a busy city. But he had weighed the choices carefully and had dared to dream big. Let’s settle where the action is! he had proposed to Rachel. They had been willing to risk all, and the rewards ultimately proved to be worth the risk.

As a seaman he had contacts to help him access the wholesale goods he needed to become the proprietor of a mercantile shop, selling essential merchandise such as clothes, fabrics, and hardware to city folks. In 1841 he had lowered his sails for the last time and moved to New York City. What a change accompanied that move!

He had chosen the location for his new business carefully—on Washington Street in the City of Brooklyn. By that time Brooklyn had been well on its way to becoming a bedroom town for Manhattan, just across the East River. Recently the Village of Brooklyn had joined Brooklyn Heights to become the City of Brooklyn, and many people expected other little towns up the river to join them soon. He decided to reverse the pattern traced by most business owners and to live in bustling Manhattan while selling necessities to the residents of Brooklyn on the other side of the river.

Inevitably his reminiscing brought him again to the contrast between Brooklyn and Meduncook, now called Friendship—the small village where he was born. Both Meduncook, Maine, his birthplace, and Brooklyn, New York, once his adopted home, were located on the Atlantic Ocean, lying within 350 miles of each other. But these two towns were very different from each other. Even by 1800 Brooklyn, the largest suburb of New York City, had become a bustling neighborhood—well on its way, he felt confident, to becoming an important metropolitan area itself. Its population was 5,740 and the city of New York, of which it was a part, was home to almost eighty thousand people.

Meduncook, on the other hand, had been a quiet fishing village with all activity focused on its secluded harbor that emptied into the Atlantic Ocean. First settled in 1750, about fifty years before Edward’s birth, the area around Meduncook had not even been incorporated until 1807, six years after he was born. That was the year its founders chose to designate the town officially with the pleasant name of Friendship, Maine.

Although two shipbuilders and three sawmills were located there, Friendship’s population was still less than seven hundred. Boatbuilding was on its way to becoming the town’s dominant industry. Its most famous product, now that the town’s name had changed, was known as the Friendship Sloop, a graceful gaft-rigged sailboat designed for lobstering and fishing.

6PhotoAFriendshipSloopcirca1920.jpg

Photo of a Friendship sloop taken circa 1920,

similar to the ketch or schooner Edward Card sailed

in the 1820s and 1830s

(Public Domain)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendship_Sloop#/media/File:Friendship_Sloop.jpg

Occasionally he still wondered if he had made the right decision back in ’41, when he chose to leave that idyllic environment. How he loved the sea and what a change in lifestyle the move to New York had meant!

Although his new shop was in Brooklyn, he and his family chose to live at 172 Reade Street on the west side of Lower Manhattan near the heart of the financial district. There they were not far from Wall Street and Trinity Church and less than a mile from the East River.

He could hardly have chosen a livelier part of the city. Even by the 1840s residents of that area had started to grumble about the hectic environment. By the end of the 1850s most people made their homes further uptown in Midtown Manhattan because of the many businesses located at the lower tip of the island.

When he and Rachel moved there in 1841, the New York Stock & Exchange Board, as it had been renamed in 1817, had already been in existence for forty-six years. But it was not located on Wall Street, as it once had been, because the building where it was housed had burned in December 1835, and the exchange had been moved to a temporary location nearby.

Their Reade Street home was almost new when they moved in. He had felt proud to acquire such handsome quarters for his family. Only six years earlier the area had been devastated by the fire that made it necessary for the stock exchange to be relocated. That disaster had destroyed almost seven hundred buildings between Bond Street and South Street and from Wall Street to Coenties Slip (seventeen city blocks). Damages were said to have topped the immense sum of $20 million, and the financial heart of the city had been destroyed. Although he had not witnessed the fire himself, he was accustomed to hearing people still talk about it with awe and horror.

Nevertheless, he mused, in spite of the risk of such disasters brought about by the density of the population, initially life had been good to him in New York. His store in Brooklyn had been less than two miles from home, just a couple of blocks from the Fulton Ferry. It was an easy trip—a pleasant commute each morning. (It was called a commute, he knew, because part of the ferry fare was commuted for daily travelers.) He would walk from his home to the ferry and then, after crossing the river, walk from the docks to his shop.

However, it was impossible not to recall also that several years after successfully transforming himself from an adventurous sea captain to a respectable businessman, he had hit upon rough times financially. He had signed a note for business partners that resulted in a significant loss. One should be able to trust friends and family, he thought, a little bitterly.

Eventually the partners had reconciled. But by then, still concerned his sons might be tempted to become sea captains, he had made up his mind to start a new life far away from the lure of the ocean, the excitement of the wharves, the seduction of exotic destinations. He would escape the crowded, noisy port city and move to Tennessee. This seaman-turned-merchant determined he would become a farmer.

7PhotoPresentdayscenicdrivethrough.jpg

Present-day scenic drive through the

Cumberland Mountains, where Edward and Rachel

Card chose to establish their new home in 1848

in the vicinity of Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee

Looking back, he could see that in some ways his second transformation had proved even more blessed than the first. He considered it truly remarkable that a mere seven years after having successfully metamorphosed from a sea captain in Maine to a merchant in New York City, he had been able to make another significant change: He had indeed moved on from his former life and had become a Tennessee farmer.

On July 23, 1848, his ninth child, Margaret Frances Card, was born in the state of Tennessee. Just six days later, on July 29, 1848, he signed an agreement to purchase a parcel of 320 acres—half a section—on Walden’s Ridge in Hamilton County, Tennessee, for $480. This meant he had officially left the mercantile business back in the hectic metropolitan environment.

He would settle his family here near the rural towns of Soddy and Daisy, not far from Chattanooga. This would be the last move for Rachel and him. Even back then, in 1848, he had felt it in his bones. He knew they were finally home, where they would spend the rest of their lives.

It was 1877 now. On quiet afternoons Edward, now seventy-six years old, found it easy to slip back into his habit of musing over the past. It was almost too easy to start thinking about The War again. It seemed always to be at the back of his mind, waiting for a lull in thought to push it to the forefront again.

He could not help thinking of Louis, who would always be young in his memories. And always that nagging question: If he had known in 1848 the consequences of his southern relocation, would he still have made the move?

His son Louis B. Card had been born in 1844. By 1863, when he served during the Civil War as a scout for the Union forces, he was only nineteen years old—much too young to die such a violent death. He had been hanged by Confederate guerillas—his own neighbors—while home for a clandestine visit with his mother.

He was proud of Louis as well as his sons Charlie and William. All three had served as Union scouts. He shuddered as he considered the idea that if things had turned out differently on the battlefields, or if so many people had not been willing to fight for a just cause, this country might still allow the slavery of human beings.

If only we had stayed in New York, Louis might be alive today. There!—he had said it—had said aloud the words he had never permitted himself to dwell upon, much less to speak! He sat quietly for a time but finally reminded himself that, on the other hand, his sons might indeed have followed the example of their ancestors and their own father, becoming sailors on a tumultuous sea. Who could say what their choices might have led to? For better or for worse, his decisions had affected many lives.

65154.png

Edward could not know it then, but today, over 170 years after his arrival in Tennessee, Hamilton County is still sprinkled with his descendants proud to call the Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee their home and Edward Shannon Card their ancestor. Even back on September 25, 1970, a Card descendant wrote that there were approximately 400 Cards who are in Hamilton and the surrounding counties.

What are the facts known about Edward Card’s life? Today records show that Edward Shannon Card, the younger of those two merchants my grandmother told me about, was born March 27, 1801, in Maine—most likely in Meduncook in Friendship County, where the Cards originally settled in the United States after arriving from Devonshire, England.

Although we cannot say definitely how many brothers and sisters Edward had, we can be confident that his father, also named Edward Card, was a sea captain and that the younger Edward became a sailor as a young man. Records reveal he eventually became a shipmaster along the Eastern seaboard and was the skipper of a passenger sloop out of Maine in the 1820s and 1830s. It is also true that he continued to sail after moving to Monmouth County, New Jersey, around 1832, where he was a member of a seaman’s association.

Around 1827, Edward met and married nineteen-year-old Rachel Ann Reid. Rachel and Edward’s first child, Edward J., was born the next year, in 1828, in New York State, followed by their second child, Charlotte, who was born in Maine in 1829. From the US Census records we know that in 1832, 1835, 1837, and 1839 additional children (George, Martha Jane, Charles, William) were born—all in New Jersey, and probably in Monmouth. Shortly before they left New Jersey in 1841, Catherine would also be born. Son Louis was the only child born while the family lived on Manhattan Island (in 1844). Margaret, their youngest child, was born in Tennessee (in 1848).

8PhotoEdwardSCardandRachelReidCard.jpg

Edward S. Card and Rachel Reid Card

in Tennessee in 1865

A descendant named Edward Card reported on the former Card Family website that on December 30, 1996, he received an email from Nathan R. Lipfert, Library Director of the Maine Maritime Museum, stating that the library’s records "list a Captain Card (no first name) as having been master of the Schooner Caroline, of Warren, Maine when it ran aground on Grand Cayman Island, July 12, 1831." He notes that the crew was saved—fortunately for his future descendants like us as well as for his little family back home.

This episode probably helps to explain a note I found among the papers of relative Francis Cummings signed by a family member named Rob T (probably T for Tucker). He wrote, describing a little book passed among family members:

The aforementioned 1831 grounding of the schooner Caroline off Grand Cayman Island was not the only documented catastrophe to befall Edward. The Maine Maritime Museum’s records also report that a Captain Card was "master of Brig Mary Jane of Bath, Maine, when it grounded on Florida Reef, February 7, 1834. The crew and cargo were saved."

Around 1832 Edward changed his homeport when he and Rachel moved from Maine to Monmouth, New Jersey, where her parents and grandparents had lived for many years. Their children must have benefited in Monmouth from being surrounded by grandparents as well as helpful aunties and cousins—in effect, nannies and playmates—while their mother tried to raise them without the supportive presence of a father in their home more often than occasionally.

However, by 1841 Edward Shannon Card, about forty years old and the father of seven children, reached a time in his life when a career at sea, which to a twelve-year-old son of a seaman may have sounded very appealing, had lost its luster. My mentor Florence Lou Flowers, a great great granddaughter of Edward Card, wrote me back in the 1970s (long before she died in 1993) that she had been told there were seven Card brothers, all of whom were sea captains and all of whom except Edward had died at sea. For this reason, she said, Edward Shannon Card eventually—after over two decades on the high seas—made an important decision. It was time to move on! He would retire to the mercantile business. Therefore, the family moved to a home on Manhattan Island, and Edward managed his mercantile shop in nearby Brooklyn from 1841 until 1848.

But apparently Edward’s vision of the perfect life continued to develop. As recounted on page 15 above, on July 29, 1848, Edward turned his dream into a reality by signing an agreement to purchase 320 acres of land on Walden’s Ridge near the towns of Soddy and Daisy in Hamilton County, Tennessee. He bought the property from Nicholas Haight of New York City. History has forgotten who Nicholas Haight was—possibly one of the first big real-estate promoters!: Let me tell you where you can get away from all this hustle and bustle of Manhattan—for only $480! Edward’s purchase of this land was recorded almost two years later, on May 21, 1850, in the records of the Hamilton County Court in Book H, Page 180—probably after he paid off that $480.

The State of Tennessee contains portions of a number of mid-size mountain ranges, such as the Appalachian Mountains and their subrange, the Smoky Mountains; the Cumberland Mountains; and the Blue Ridge Mountains. These are not high ranges like the Western states’ Rocky Mountains with their spectacular peaks. But the gentle ridges and well-known hazy atmosphere of these eastern mountains bestow a particular charm on the area, which, it could be argued, rivals the beauty of even Edward Card’s beloved Atlantic Ocean.

The City of Chattanooga, in Hamilton County, is not in the heart of the mountains. Rather, it lies in the lovely foothills and ridges leading to the higher ranges. It is home to a portion of the seventy-five-mile-long Walden’s Ridge, a tall mountain ridge that marks the eastern edge of the Cumberland Plateau.

If Edward and Rachel were looking for a change of scenery, they certainly found it. The misty, tree-laden hills of Walden’s Ridge could hardly be more unlike the busy sidewalks of New York City. When they left the mercantile business in the hectic metropolis and moved their family to rural Soddy-Daisy, they found what their hearts were looking for. They would experience no more drastic moves, no more uprooting their family’s lives. Edward would spend the remaining twenty-nine years of his life on his farm in Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee.

9PhotoThelandscapeweadmiredas.jpg

The landscape we admired in the spring of 2018 as my husband Bill and I drove

along Poe Road close to the site of the Card farm near Daisy, Tennessee

In addition to farming, for many years (at least from 1856 to 1871 and possibly even longer) Edward also served as a postmaster in Hamilton County—first at the Double Branch post office then later at the Soddy office. According to the US Register of Civil, Military, and Naval Service, 1863-1959, his annual salary in 1871 was $16—not a large salary but enough to supplement his income from the farm.

The US Census of 1850 for District 27 of Hamilton County, Tennessee, taken September 4, confirms the residence there of Edward Card and his children Edward, Charlotte, George, Charles, William, Catherine, Louis, and Margaret. All the family is listed there except, surprisingly, Edward’s wife Rachel, the mother of those children, as well as their daughter Martha Jane, the fifteen-year-old who would become my great great grandmother. Why would a loving mother abandon her husband and eight children in an unfamiliar environment? You will soon learn why.

10PhotoUSCensus.jpg

Excerpt from the 1860 census of District 12, Hamilton County, Tennessee.

Notice especially Lines 24-33 naming the family of E. S. Card then the

family of his daughter Martha and her husband D. R. Grafton

However, a decade later, on the 1860 Hamilton County District Twelve census records, Rachel’s name is shown where you would expect it to be—next to that of her husband Edward, along with the names of their two children still living at home. Their daughter Martha Jane is shown living next door with her husband Douglas Grafton and their own three children. (See Lines 24-33 of the 1860 census.) And therein lies a tale to be told in Generation Two of this Card Family chapter (see page 28).

65156.png

On May 29, 1960, the Chattanooga Times printed an article entitled Mowbray to Pay Tribute to Dead in Family, Community Cemeteries, which included the following information:

One grave is that of a Navy veteran, Edward S. Card, who was born March 27, 1801, and died April 3, 1871. Beside him lies his wife Rachel. The double tablet headstone bears the Navy emblem. Nearby is their son, who at 16 was shot down during the Civil War for failure to obey an order of the enemy. He was not a member of the armed forces but paid with his life for his patriotic beliefs.

"Nearby is their son." The article did not even mention Louis’ name and did not get the facts straight either, reporting he was shot, printing the wrong date, and ignoring his service as a Union scout. It is probably a blessing that Edward did not live to see this article printed long after his own death.

11PhotoGraveof19yearoldLouis.jpg

The gravestone of nineteen-year-old Louis B. Card near that

of his parents in the cemetery located on their Poe Road farm near Daisy,

Tennessee. He was hung by renegade Rebels during the Civil War.

(Posted to Find a Grave website by contributor Ed Card)

The son referred to above was Louis B. Card, who was born around 1844 in New York and died May 30, 1863, when he was about nineteen years old. Most references to the circumstances surrounding his death (including an extensive one found in the memoirs of the Union general, Philip H. Sheridan) conflict with the information above by saying that this son of Edward and Rachel was not shot but was hung by Confederate irregulars during the Civil War. Contrary to the newspaper report, Louis actually was a member of the armed forces—a Union scout—who was murdered by Confederate guerillas when he stopped by the family home during a scouting expedition requested by General Sheridan. (See pages 69-70 below.)

The Card family was always pro-union during the Civil War, which lasted from 1861 to 1865, and their principles did not allow them to own slaves. Having moved to Tennessee, a pro-slavery state, after living in Maine, New Jersey, and New York (three states that had passed anti-slavery laws early on), they must have been sensitive to the complexities of the issues that had given birth to the War and also to their own status as aliens in the Deep South.

Their awareness of the conflicts grew painfully personal when two of their sons, Charlie and Willie, scouts for the Union Army, were jailed by the Confederates. But their horror intensified a hundredfold when their younger son Louis, also a scout, was lynched—not merely by Rebel guerillas but by renegades who were their own neighbors. (You may read more details of this story as seen through the eyes of Edward’s wife Rachel Reid in Chapter Two, page 70.)

During November 1863 Union forces decisively defeated Confederate troops in Tennessee at the battles of Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge, known collectively as the Battles for Chattanooga. Fighting was intense. Edward and Rachel, desperate to prevent further violence to their family members, insisted their daughter Martha Jane and her children move temporarily to Georgia until the fighting was over. Eventually the Confederates were defeated, but the lives of the Card Family would never be quite the same.

Soon after the war ended, Edward decided to build upon his experience years earlier as a merchant and open a dry-goods store in Chattanooga. Although the censuses of 1850 and 1860 report that his occupation was farming (see Line 24 of the census page shown above on page 19), the census of 1870 states that he was a merchant, thus confirming that he put to good use the experience he had gained back in Brooklyn. He opened a mercantile store, possibly near Fourth and Market Streets in Chattanooga.

His timing was unfortunate. In 1867, two years after the end of the Civil War, Chattanooga experienced the worst flood in its history. For days in March heavy rains inundated Southern Appalachia, including Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia, as well as the entire Tennessee River Valley. Eventually the river crested fifty-eight feet above its normal level. Many people drowned, and merchants and farmers suffered immense losses. Family notes say Edward Card was devastated to see his merchandise wash away. But the fact that three years later the 1870 census states his occupation was still merchant suggests that even at an age (sixty-nine) when most people are retiring, this indomitable man was able to put misfortune aside and set about rebuilding his business.

Seven years later Edward realized he was nearing the end of his life. Determined to be ready to pass on—to move on in the ultimate sense—he wrote his will, requesting that he be decently buried in my burying ground on Walden’s Ridge near Soddy-Daisy. Then he signed the will, dating it on two pages April 5, 1877. Inexplicably, his gravestone, still legible today, indicates he died April 3, 1877—two days before he signed his will.

After the death of her husband, Rachel continued to live near Soddy-Daisy until she passed away there on April 17, 1884. Edward and Rachel Card are buried together on a parcel of their former farm on Poe Road, Walden Ridge, Montlake Mountain, Daisy, Tennessee.

More about the life of Edward Card appears in the section focused on his wife, Rachel Reid, in Chapter 2, Generation 8, page 66.

12PhotoGravestoneofEdward.jpg

Gravestone of Edward Shannon Card and Rachel Reid Card at the Card Family Cemetery

on Poe Road, Mowbray Mountain, Daisy, Hamilton County, Tennessee, decorated

with the official Navy emblem at the top to commemorate his military service

(Posted to Find a Grave website by contributor Ed Card)

13PhotoEdwardSCardsgreatgreatgrandson.jpg

A recent photograph of Edward S. Card’s great great grandson, Randall

Card, in the original Card Cemetery, established in 1854 on Poe Road near

Mowbray Mountain, where Edward’s gravestone is located.

Randall Card frequently cares for the cemetery, maintaining its

beauty today, over 150 years after it was established.

16PhotoCommemorativemarker.jpg

Commemorative marker at the

newer Card Cemetery, on Card Road

"Charles Parker Card

Mary Varner Card

Family Cemetery

Est. 1899"

17PhotoThenewCardFamilyCemetery.jpg

The newer Card Family Cemetery, on Card

Road near Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee

20PhotoWilliamGraftonCardsGroceryStore.jpg

William Grafton Card’s grocery store at McCallie Avenue and Beech Street in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1900

(William was a son of Charles Parker Card and his wife Mary Ann Varner)

21PhotoMaryAnnVarnerCard.jpg

Mary Ann Varner Card (widow of Charles Parker Card) in the wheelchair,

surrounded by her children who were still living around 1940,

when she was about 100 years old.

Standing left to right are George Walter Card, Warren Leslie Card,

Nancy Marian Card, Lewis Audley Card, and Mattison Card

_______________________________________

Facts for Researchers

Edward Shannon Card

Born: 3-27-1801 in Maine, USA

Died: 4-3-1877 in Soddy-Daisy, Hamilton County, TN

Parents of Edward Card:

Father: Edward Card

Mother: Elizabeth Trefethen

Possible Siblings of Edward Card:

Wife of Edward Card:

Rachel Ann Reid

Born 4-23-1808, Monmouth County, NJ

Married 8-20-1851, New York, NY

Died 4-17-1884, Soddy-Daisy, Hamilton County TN

Children of Edward Card and Rachel Reid Card:

Edward J. Card (born about 1828 in New York) He was probably handicapped in some way since his share of his father’s estate was considerably larger than that of his siblings and was to be held in trust for him by William Anderson, husband of his sister Catherine.

Charlotte Card (born 7-12-1829 in Maine; a dressmaker, she married Gabriel Hoff; died October 1877 in Hamilton County, Tennessee)

George Card (12-13-1832 to 8-20-1879; born in New Jersey; died in Hamilton County, Tennessee) A wholesale fruit and produce dealer in Chattanooga, he married Margaret Reid then Elizabeth Payne.

Martha Jane Card (our ancestor) (5-11-1835 to 2-10-1919; born in New Jersey)

Charles Parker Card (6-5-1837 to 10-28-1907; born in New Jersey, died in Daisy, Hamilton County, Tennessee) Civil War veteran, farmer, and attorney in Soddy, Tennessee, he married Mary Ann Polly Varner.

William Henry Squire Card (May 1839 to 3-31-1929; born in New Jersey; died in Soddy, Hamilton County, Tennessee) A Civil War veteran and farmer, he married Esther Varner.

Catherine Elizabeth Card (born 3-18-1841 in New Jersey; married William A. Anderson on 6-20-1859; died 1899 in Graysville, Tennessee)

Louis B. Card (about 1844 to 5-30-1863; born in New York; killed by Confederate renegades)

Margaret Frances Card (7-23-1848 to 4-11-1854; born in Hamilton County, Tennessee)

Data:

US Navy Muster Roll shows the enlistment of Edward Card on 2-2-1823 (see Line 11 of photograph) and his mustering out in November 1826.

A note on a Card Family website which formerly appeared on the Internet but which no longer exists, written by Edward’s grandson, Charles Card, says this about Edward S. Card:

He was born somewhere on the coast of Maine and was a sailor and had brothers George and Henry and some sisters. He and his brothers and his father were all sea captains. All of their records were lost during the Civil War.

A similar note from informant W. W. Card, reports the following:

Edward Shannon had six brothers, all deep seamen and all lost at sea. He ran away from his father at