52 Ancestors 2020 – 4 – Close to Home – William Sherman Smalley

When I looked at the birthday calendar for aunts and uncles to choose the subject for this week's blog post, I found that there were only four birthdays this week. So I chose the person who lived the closest to where I live now. The other three lived on the far east coast and William lived in the Midwest: Ohio, Kansas and Nebraska.

William Sherman Smalley was my Great-granduncle, the brother of my great-grandfather, Lafayette Pierce Smalley. But William had 6 more brothers and 5 sisters as their parents, Rachel Ann Hemphill and John Wilson Smalley, had a total of 13 children.

This photo from about 1890 shows 11 of the children as 2 had died fairly young.

You might have guessed due to his first and middle name that William was born during the Civil War. This was in Adams County Ohio and the date was 24 Jan 1864. This creates a little problem since William's father had enlisted in the Union Army 14 Oct 1861 in Adams County and was not discharged until 28 Oct 1864 at Chattanooga Tennessee. I think of William as the AWOL baby. John Wilson Smalley's pension record shows that he was declared absent without leave from 6 Feb 1862 until 3 Aug 1863 when he was arrested and placed in confinement until 31 Dec 1863. See my blog post of 30 Jan 2017: https://joannesgenealogyresearch.blogspot.com/2017/01/john-wilson-smalley-in-civil-war.html

After his father returned from the Civil War, the family moved farther north and by the 1870 census they were in Green Township, Clinton County, Ohio where William was listed as a six year old boy. He was marked as attending school within the year. By 1880 they were in Turkey Creek Precinct, Saline County, Nebraska. Then William was listed as age 16, had attended school with his occupation as farming at home. In 1884 the Wells Chase family moved to Saline County including their 12 year old daughter Nellie. Two months before her 16^th birthday, on 1 Mar 1888, Nellie and William were married there. Nellie was a first cousin to Lafayette's wife, so I have a double relationship with William and Nellie's descendants.

Apparently sometime before he was married, William claimed a homestead in Sherman County, Kansas as did his father and four of his brothers. William's certificate was issued 8 Feb 1892. But they did move back to Nebraska. The obituary for William and Nellie's oldest son, Clyde, states he was born 17 Dec 1890 at Milligan, Nebraska. My 1918 Atlas shows that Milligan was in Fillmore County, just over the line from Saline County. The information about their second son, Lee, states he was born 1 Sep 1892, at Tobias, which was over the line in Saline County. Two more children were born before the 1900 census where they were enumerated in Saline county, Floyd in 1895 and Sarah Fern in 1898. Sometime before 1910 they moved southwesterly about 30 miles to Nuckolls County where the family was listed on the census with their now six children as Raymond was born in 1905 and Mamie in 1907. When the 1920 census was taken only the two younger children were still at home although Floyd with his wife and baby was shown as a separate household in the same dwelling. I was unable to locate William or Nellie in the 1930 census but they were living at 235 Dakota Street in Superior, Nuckolls County, Nebraska on the 1940 census and stated they had been living there in 1935 also. By then William was 76 and Nellie was 68. I learned that William had completed the 8^th grade in school and Nellie 2 years of high school.

William lived almost 4 more years as he died 12 Mar 1944 at age 80 years, 1 month and 18 days. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery at Superior. It was over 20 years later that Nellie died, 16 Mar 1965, and was buried next to William.