An Illustrated Carl
Family
History
version 1.0*
with philosophical
musings by
Charlotte
Carl-Mitchell
November, 2002
* More information will
be
added
as I go through more of the family papers
and get feedback from
family
members.
Edward
Miller
Carl,
Jr.'s family
Mercy
Ramsey
and Ed Carl were married on 12 June 1940 at the Central
Christian Church in Austin, Texas. They were the parents of
Madeline
(Beall), Catherine
(Dalferes) and Charlotte (Carl-Mitchell).
Edward
Miller
Carl,
Jr.
was born on 15 May 1909 near
Pettys Chapel, east of Corsicana, Texas, the son of Edward
Miller and
Euna
Posey Carl. In 1919 his parents separated and he moved with
his father
and
sister, Minnie, to San Antonio. He graduated from San
Antonio's Main
Avenue
High School and then entered Texas A & M in College
Station in
September
1926.
PICTURES
FROM
ED'S
CHILDHOOD,
YOUTH,
ADULTHOOD
In
1928
he met Mercy Ramsey when he was matched up with her during a
double date to the annual Thanksgiving football game between
UT and
Texas A&M.
He graduated with a BS degree in Electrical Engineering and a
2nd
lieutenant's Army reserve commission in 1931. It took him an
extra year
to graduate
because at the beginning of his 1929/30 senior year, he was
appointed
Organization Editor for the A&M annual and he had to make
several
trips away from school to coordinate plans with the book's
publisher.
This caused him to
get behind in his senior E.E. lab experiments and he had to go
back for
another full year to complete the work. During the Great
Depression he
found work where he could, on an oil tanker, as a
night-operator at a
filling station, a clerk in a grocery store and manager of a
farm. He
had maintained his
status as a Reserve Officer and in the fall of 1936, he was
ordered to
report
for duty with a company of the Civilian Conservation Corps.
During this
time he developed pneumonia and tuberculosis, was given
medical leave
and
spent several years off and on in Army Tubercular Hospitals.
PICTURES
OF
ED'S FAMILY;
MADELINE'S
,
CATHERINE'S,
CHARLOTTE'S
GROWING
YEARS; OES
He had corresponded with Mercy over the years and even with his medical problems, they decided to marry which they did on 12 June 1940. In February 1941 he joined the Texas Highway Department and worked there for thirty two years during which time he was Senior Resident Engineer in charge of several highway projects and was eventually placed in charge of the Department's Highway Illumination and Research division and later the formation of the Department's first Archeology section. In 1971 he was appointed to the National Cooperative Highway Research Program advisory panel of the National Academy of Sciences because of his work on high level lighting. But in 1972 his health worsened and he had to retire. Over the years he too had been active in the Austin community. In 1943 and 1944, he served as scoutmaster for a boy scout troop. He was a Mason and member of the local Scottish Rite Consistory and Ben Hur Shrine Temple. He was supportive of his daughters' work in Rainbow and in 1962 was General Chairman of the Grand Assembly when it was held in Austin. In 1966-67, 1973-74 and 1980-81, he served as Worthy Patron of Austin Chapter #304, Order of the Eastern Star. He loved to fish and built his own boat for the purpose. He was proud of his German heritage and after retirement spent a lot of time doing genealogical research on his family (which has helped make this history much easier). He had a quiet sense of humor and a twinkle in his eyes when he said something funny. He was kind and generous to all he met and the overflow crowd at his funeral attested to the high regard in which he was held. He died on 27 January 1987 in Austin and is buried in the Austin Memorial Park cemetery.
Some
fond
memories from Charlotte: To show his quiet wisdom, I remember
coming to him in
tears when I got my first speeding ticket. Instead of being
upset, he
said the experience would teach me a lesson that might save my
life one
day - don't drive recklessly. Even though he was often
confused for a
Methodist minister because he was so serious, he could be
funny. During
one of our typically loud
and silly Sunday dinners, he got up from the table. When we
asked him
where
he was going, he looked at us with a twinkle in his eye and
said, "I
have to tinkle." a shockingly funny remark from him. When
Smoot and
I were planning our wedding we didn't want the large, formal
affairs
Madeline
and Catherine had had. Mother was not OK with this, but Daddy
said if I
wanted him to come in overalls, he would. Some of his favorite
foods:
Durkee's
sandwiches, buttermilk and Vienna sausages!
Memories
from
Beverly:
*
playing hours of dominoes and on several occasions he taped
our
conversations
*
eating Rotelle (sp) with him at the end of the kitchen table
*
shopping at M.W (Montgomery Wards)
Memories
from
Holly:
*
Swinging with Dadders and playing on the Whirly-Gig.
*
Badminton in the yard.
Memories from Ben:
He was a special grand dad, I'll always remember
enjoying
rotel with him in those aluminum trays, measuring us on the
wall, him
sitting at his chair and when I played T-ball I told him about
a hit I
had, on the phone, and he was proud of me : ) Also, I still
have the
rectangle piece of wood that I we wrote my name on with nails
(I think
it took me all day to hammer those!), and the plaster mold
with my hand
print I will always cherish (it has gone with me everywhere I
have
moved and I always treat it with care).
______________________________________________________________________________
Previous
Generation
Euna Posey and
Edward Carl were married on 13 April 1906 in Houston, Texas.
They were
the parents of Edward Miller Carl, Jr.
Euna
Ellerfair
Posey was born on
2 July 1888
in Rural Shade, a farming community twenty miles southeast of
Corsicana
in southeastern Navarro County, Texas. Her parents were Lonnie
and
Margaret Frances Elizabeth Martin.
Her father, a farmer, died when she was young and her mother
remarried.
She had a brother, William Posey and a half-sister, Mattie
McDonald
(Justice). Edward and Euna met in Corsicana and were married
in Houston
in 1906. In May 1909 they had a son, Edward Jr. and in
December 1910 a
daughter, Minnie, joined the family. In April 1919 their lives
changed.
There are two versions of the story. According to Ed's family,
he came
home early from work and found
Euna with another man. He immediately took the children and
went to
live
with his brother. However, she was the one who filed for
divorce and
described
a very unhappy marriage. She claimed in her application that
he had
been
ïguilty of the grossest cruelty and neglect, that he scarcely
ever
would take her anywhere with him but would go to places of
amusement
alone,
refusing to take her; that he had an extreme dislike and
contempt for
[her]
relatives and humiliated and hurt [her] feelings by abusing
her people
and
refusing to eat at the same table with them, and also forbade
them to
come
to his house; that for several years prior to the [April]
separation,
[she]
had to sew to earn a livelihood, he failing and refusing to
provide
sufficient
means for her support and maintenance. That he was also
extremely
jealous
and accused her of various acts of infidelity which were
untrue, and in
fact
imputed to her a lack of chastity in the presence of herself
and of
others,
there being absolutely no foundation for such unjust and
slanderous
charges,
and that his conduct on the whole was of such a nature as to
render
their
further living together insupportable.
PICTURES OF EUNA POSEY
CARL
She
was
granted
the divorce but Ed was given custody of the children, both
were unusual events in those days. Perhaps it was because she
would
have
had a hard time raising the children on her own. Euna married
two more
times, the first to Wm. E Mondell, a Mason (1888-1943) and the
second
time to
Charles 'Buck' Peters. She lost
contact
with
her children until her son contacted her before he married in
1940. She
was pleased to become part of his life again and to play the
role of
grandmother,
bringing silver dollars for her grandchildren when she came to
visit.
She
died on 15 Sept 1961 in Nevada, Missouri and is buried in the
Corsicana
City
Cemetery. Her (Mondell) marker indicates she was in Eastern
Star. Her
son
remembers her being a excellent seamstress and loving pretty,
expensive
clothes.
Ed Jr.'s cousin remembers her as always smelling good and
having a
sweet
smile. She described herself as a very hard worker and said
originally
she
had brown eyes and blond hair that turned dark auburn. Late in
her life
she
ran a motel in Deming, NM with her third husband. She attended
Cumberland
Presbyterian Church. From the bad spelling and grammar in her
letters,
she
probably didn't receive much formal education but that would
have been
common
for a woman of her time.
Edward
Miller
Carl, Sr. was born
on 25
December
1881 in Benton County, Arkansas. His parents were John Hammock and Mary Elizabeth Swank Carl. He
had six
brothers and one sister. In 1885 his family traveled from
Arkansas to
Texas. While on the trip, he slipped on ice in Dennison, Texas
and
broke his leg. The only physician available was a railroad
doctor who
set his leg improperly and as he grew to maturity that leg was
shorter
than the other, crippling him. But even with his disability he
was
obviously able to work. He entered the oil business as a young
man and
participated in the early day operations at Corsicana,
Spindletop,
Humble and Sour Lake. He met Euna when he was
working on the oil wells on his brother Tom's farm. Ed and
Euna took a
train
to Houston where they married in 1906. From there, they
traveled by
train
to the Beaumont area where Ed had secured employment on an oil
drilling
rig, but Ed left the job because of fear of the effects of the
sulfuric
gas produced by the wells. The couple returned to Corsicana
and Ed
again worked on his brother's oil wells. By then they had
moved into
town and eventually opened a grocery store. Euna was in charge
of the
store and Ed worked in a plant that fabricated oil field
equipment. Ed
later took a job in the post office. We have a copy of his
Statement of
Case Examination for the United States Post Office in
Corsicana. He
handled 1000 cards with only 5 misthrown, 99 1/2 % correct, in
31
minutes - 'a very fine showing' was noted in the remarks.
PICTURES OF EDWARD MILLER
CARL, SR.
In 1919 he and
Euna
divorced and after living with his brother for a while, he
took his
children and moved to San Antonio to be within walking
distance to the
Prospect Hill Methodist Church were his elder brother, Newt,
was
pastor. (In Ed Carl, Jr's autobiography, he said his family
for
generations had been Methodists. He
also said his Uncle Newt graduated from the seminary of
Southwestern
University.) At this time Ed Sr's parents moved from Austin to
live
with him and his two
children. In December of that year his father died and his
mother took
over
the running of the household and raising of the children.
Another of
Ed's
brothers, Frank, owned an oil lease in Somerset, south of San
Antonio
and
Ed started work there pumping and gauging the production of
the several
wells.
He and Frank went into business as the Carl Brothers Drilling
Company
and
for several years they drilled in several areas of South
Texas. While
working
the Somerset lease, he met Minnie Marion Fulkes, the niece of
the
landowner
and in 1922 they married even though she was 20 and he was 40.
He made
a
lot of money but lost most of it in the Great Depression. Ed
and Minnie
had
two children, John Wesley Carl born 19 December 1926 and
William Paul
born
7 December 1933. In 1949, after the death of his mother, Ed
and Minnie
moved
to Austin so Paul could attend UT. At around this time J.W.
served in
the
navy during the Korean War. On 8 July 1956 Ed died from a
stroke and
was
buried in the Capitol Memorial Park north of Austin. Minnie
later moved
in
with J.W.'s family in San Antonio. Mr. Carl had some quirks,
one of
which
was that he would only eat off a white plate, another was that
none of
his
food could be touching each other. He also refused to let his
wife have
any
control or access to money; he would give her a house
allowance weekly.
He
doesn't sound like he was a very nice person, but perhaps he
was just a
man
of his time.
______________________________________________________________________________
Previous
Generation
Margaret
Frances
Elizabeth Martin and Lonnie Posey were married around 1887.
They were
the parents of Euna Ellerfair Posey (Carl Mondell Peters).
Margaret
Frances
Elizabeth Martin
was born in
Tennessee in 1872 and, as so many people seemed to be doing
around that
time, she and
her family went to Texas. Around 1887 she married Lonnie Posey
and
settled down in Rural Shade, a farming community twenty miles
southeast
of Corsicana in southeastern Navarro County, Texas. Rural
Shade was
first settled in
1850 and by 1885 it consisted of a blacksmith shop, a sawmill,
three
gristmills, three general stores, four cotton gins, and an
estimated
population of
seventy-five. Margaret Frances, known as Fannie, and Lonnie
had two
children.
He was 22 and she was 16 when Euna Ellerfair Posey was born.
Their
second
child was a son, William Posey, born in 1890. (William was
murdered at
the age of 31 when he had an argument with one of his oil well
drilling
crew, hit him with a hoe and the man shot him with a 30-30
rifle.) The
same
year William was born, Lonnie died of pneumonia. After her
husband's
death,
Fannie married Wilton O. McDonald and they had a daughter,
Mattie
McDonald
(Justice). Fannie Posey McDonald died in 1919 and was buried
in Navarro
County.
Lonnie
Posey was born in
Alabama around 1866. We know
very
little about him except that he was a farmer, he married
Fannie Martin,
had
two children and died in 1890. He is presumed buried in Rural
Shade.
WEDDING PICTURES OF FANNIE MARTIN AND
LONNIE
POSEY;
AND MARY SWANK AND JOHN CARL
Mary Elizabeth
Swank
and John Hammock Carl were married on 5 September 1869. They
were the
parents of Edward Miller Carl, Sr.
Mary
Elizabeth
Swank was born 6
December
1853 in Phillips County, Arkansas, the daughter of Amanda
Miller and
the Rev. David Swank. In 1868 she met and on 5 September 1869
she
married John Hammock Carl. They had eight children, seven boys
and a
girl. Their names were William Newton, Thomas Robert,
John Franklin, David Hervey, Henry Samuel called Den, Sarah
Ellen
called
Ella, Edward Miller and Loney Lee. On 20 October 1885 they
loaded all
their
belongings into two covered wagons and set off for Texas.
According to
the book Oak Hill Cedar Valley Pioneers ñAfter crossing the
wilderness
of Oklahoma, then called the Cherokee Nation, they stopped
near Bowie
in
Montague County, Texas. The family then moved to the William
Swank farm
north of Bluff Springs.' (Mary's oldest brother was named
William; he
was
eventually murdered by a Baptist preacher according to an
entry in the
family Bible!) After moving several times where there was
work, they
returned
to Travis County in 1890 and lived west of Pleasant Hill
school until
most
of their children were married. They then moved to Corsicana,
to Dallas
then back to Austin until her husband's health failed and they
moved in
with their newly divorced son, Edward in San Antonio.
According to
her
grandson Edward Jr.'s autobiography, after John H.'s death,
Mary , at
the age of 65 ñcontinued to care for my father and us children
by doing
the cooking, mending, housekeeping and washing for all of us.
She was
an amazing little woman. I thoroughly loved my Grandmother
Carl's
cooking. It was a'pinch
of this and a pinch of that'. Her biscuits were big and
fluffy. She
used
dried fruits to make tarts and diced bacon to make corn bread
pone
patties
and mashed potatoes with onions to make potato patties. She
was a
devout
Christian and a strict disciplinarian, in addition to being
thrifty and
frugal.'
Her granddaughter-in-law, Mercy Carl, remembers her as being a
skillful
practitioner of Reflexology, therapeutic foot massage. From
her
business card, Mary
Carl was the proprietress of the Ladies Massage Parlors in
Austin. (I'm
sure it was very different from the massage parlors of our
day.) She
died
in San Antonio on 24 April 1949 at the age of 95 and was
buried next to
her
husband in the Mission Burial Park in San Antonio.
From
childhoods
picking cotton and other hard farm labor, Mary and John's
children had
interesting lives. According to an article in an unidentified
newspaper, the oldest son, Wm Newt, born near Maysville in
Benton Co.,
Ark. on 24 July 1870 was converted in 1884 and joined the
Methodist
Church, South, in 1892. He moved to Austin, Tx with his
parents and
preached in the Methodist Church in Bastrop. He was graduated
from Dr.
David Swank's School of Pantherapy and Osteopathology in 1902.
(I don't
know if that David Swank was related to Mary. Her father,
David Swank
didn't die until 1906 and she had a brother David as well.) He
then
studied law under Sanbourn and Shelton of Austin and was
granted a
permanent license to practice in all the courts of Texas. This
was the
Newt who was the pastor of the Prospect Hill Methodist Church
in San
Antonio.
Mary and
John's
third son, John Franklin Carl was at one time Associate
Justice of the
Fourth Court of Civil Appeals in San Antonio, and secretary of
the
State Council of Defense during World War I. But on 1
September 1924 he
disappeared while in Austin and was only found 10 months
later. He was
eventually adjudged to be insane and was committed to the
state insane
asylum. Considered a brilliant
lawyer, all he could say about his disappearance was 'The
lights went
out
and I don't know what happened then.' Dave, the fourth son,
was an
experienced
oil well driller and made a lot of money in the development of
the huge
oil
field near Burkburnette in North Texas. Dave and Ed Carl, Sr.
went into
business
as the Carl Brothers Drilling Company.
PICTURES
OF JOHN AND
MARY
CARL IN LATER YEARS
John
Hammock Carl was
born on 5 April 1847 in Benton County,
Arkansas, the son of Synthia W. Maxwell and Thomas Carl. In
September
1863, at the age of 16, he enlisted in Company B, Browns
Battalion,
Confederate Cavalry where he served until September 1864. He
was then
transferred to Company H, 17th Arkansas Cavalry and served
until May
1865 when he was paroled
at Jackson, Mississippi. He married Mary Elizabeth Swank on 5
September,
1869. They lived with his father, Thomas Carl, for a while
after the
death
of Thomas' wife Synthia in 1871. Then in 1885 John H. moved
his family
to
Texas. He worked as a farmer in several places until he and
his wife
moved
to Austin in 1911. They had a house across the street from
Brackenridge
Hospital. He joined the State Capitol Police force where he
was in
charge
of the guards on the Capitol grounds, a position created for
elderly
Confederate
veterans. He died in San Antonio in 1919, his body still
containing
some
musket balls he received during the Civil War. Because of his
service
in
the War, his widow received a pension the rest of her life.
(Confederate
Pension Warrant No. 101715.) John was a Mason, a member of
Onion Creek
Lodge,
No. 220 in Travis County. He was also a member of Prospect
Hill
Methodist
Church where his son, Newt, was pastor.
According to
the
book Oak Hill Cedar Valley Pioneers, 'The Carl family was the
average
of good American people. Their faults were not of a vicious
nature.
Each of them were
embued with outstanding individualism. A firm conviction
abided in all,
that each could take care of himself.' They might have been
rugged
individualists,
but at least one of their descendants had very negative views
of John
H.
Carl. One of his grandsons, Fred Carl, when I interviewed him
at the
age
of 80 something, still shook with rage when he told me about
how mean
and
cruel his grandfather was. He also said after his grandfather
died and
was laid out, as was custom at the time, on the kitchen table
to be
prepared
for burial, Fred's father insisted Fred go touch the musket
balls in
John
H's back. It must have been a traumatic thing for a child to
do because
he remembered it with horror his entire life. There seems to
be a
pattern of cruelty and insensitivity in the Carl men. Ed Carl,
Sr. was
divorced
because of his cruelty. His father, John H. Carl was seemingly
also
cruel
and Fred's father, Tom Carl, Ed Sr's brother showed a decided
lack of
sensitivity
in making his son touch his grandfather's dead body. And, to
be honest,
Ed Carl, Jr. often showed a lack of sensitivity and kindness
to his
wife,
Mercy. Ed, Jr. said a void had been created in his life
without the
love
and care of a devoted mother. As an adult he became aware of
what her
leaving
had denied him of family unity and love. I took that to mean
he had
never
learned how to show love. Perhaps that's true, but it didn't
help that
he
had such 'rugged individualists' i.e. cold, cruel men in his
family.
______________________________________________________________________________
Previous
Generation
Sallie
Westbrook
married James Nathan Martin. They were the parents of Margaret
Frances
Martin (Posey McDonald).
Sallie
Westbrook was born
on 10 September 1841 in North
Carolina. She and her husband James Nathan Martin were the
parents of
Margaret Frances Martin who was born in Tennessee in 1872. The
family
eventually moved
to Texas. Sallie died on 20 February 1927 in Kerens, Texas.
According
to
the Handbook of Texas, e, fourteen miles east of Corsicana in
eastern
Navarro County, was established in 1881 when the St. Louis
Southwestern
Railway
of Texas built through the county. A post office opened in
1882, and
the
town was incorporated in 1888. W. P. Noble was the first
mayor, and Sam
Sluggs was sheriff. By the mid-1890s the town had three cotton
gin-mills,
four grocery stores, two hotels, two drug stores, a
wagonmaker, and a
weekly newspaper named the Navarro Blade. The estimated
population in
1896 was 500. The first school was built shortly after the
town was
founded, and by 1906 two schools were operating, one with 242
white
students and one with 121 black students. Kerens reached a
peak
population of 1,800 in
1929 and afterward declined.
James
Nathan
Martin was also
born in North
Carolina, but it isn't
known where or when he married. He died in Navarro County,
Texas.
PICTURES
OF SALLIE
WESTBROOK
AND JAMES NATHAN MARTIN
Amanda Miller
and
the Rev. David Swank married on 15 March 1849. They were the
parents of
Mary Elizabeth Swank (Carl).
Amanda
Miller was born 24
December 1831 in Arkansas, the
daughter of Pamelia (Pamela? Permelia?) Caroline Carothers and
Robert
Richardson Miller. R.R. Miller was born in Virginia in about
1810. His
first wife, Pamelia, was born in Tennessee in 1813. They were
married 6
January 1831 according
to an entry in the family Bible. In 1850 the family was living
in Union
Township
of St. Francis County, Arkansas. There seems to be some
difference of
opinion about how many children were in the family 10 or 12
but
whichever, Amanda
was the oldest. By 1860, the Miller family had moved to Greene
County,
Arkansas
and settled in St. Francis Township. By this time another
child had
been
born. Apparently Pamelia Miller died sometime during the 1850s
(not
surprising, having had 10 or 12
children),
because the 1860
census listed Robert's wife as Matilda. Family legend says
that Amanda
was
a good horsewoman (perhaps her Virginia heritage) and that she
was
rescued
by David Swank when she tried to cross a swollen stream. That
was how
they
met. Amanda married David Swank on 15 March 1849. (One of
David's
brothers,
Jacob, married one of Amanda's sisters Martha, seemingly not
uncommon
in
that day.) In the 1850 census, Amanda was listed as living
with her
parents. That was because David had gone to prospect in the
1849
California Gold
Rush. Their first child was also born in 1849. She and David
eventually
had 12 children. She died on 12 October 1881 in Denver,
Colorado. Both
Edward
Miller Carl Sr. and Jr. were given the Miller name to honor
her family.
The Rev.
David
Swank was born on
15
September 1823 in Hardin County, Kentucky. He was the son of
Elizabeth
Van Meter and Jacob Swank. On the Van Meter line, we have
information
dating back to 1662 when Jan Joosten Van Meteren married
Maeyken
Hendricksin in Holland. Elizabeth Van Meter is supposed to
have been
President Tyler's cousin. According to notes compiled by Ed
Carl, Jr.,
the Swanks were part of the group of early Americans called
Pennsylvania Dutch. (The Dutch was a corruption of Deutsch,
meaning
German.) This name was applied to Swiss, German and even
French
Huguenots who arrived in America in the 1700s and early 1800s
and
settled in south-central and eastern Pennsylvania. Almost all
of these
immigrants came from the area of South Germany known as The
Palatinate
so they were called Palatines. Apparently our Swanks initially
arrived
and settled in Pennsylvania but later migrated to Kentucky as
recruited
members of one of Daniel Boone's return trips.
Later, possibly because of Indian uprisings in Kentucky, they
moved to
what
is now Mississippi County in Missouri. Supposedly some of our
Swanks
fought
in the American Revolution under Mad Anthony Wayne. David was
a lay
Methodist
minister and circuit rider. David and Amanda lived in Arkansas
and
eventually
ended up in Corsicana where he died there on 11 February 1906.
He is
buried
in Pettys Chapel Cemetery.
PICTURES OF AMANDA
MILLER
SWANK
AND MARY SWANK; AND OF CARL - CHASTAIN REUNION
Synthia W.
Maxwell
married Thomas Carl. They were the parents of John Hammock
Carl.
Synthia W.
Maxwell was born
on 6 January
1811 in Arkansas. She was the second wife of Thomas Carl and
bore him
seven children: Sarah, Nancy, Sybel, John Hammock (our
ancestor), Zack
and Henry. Ed Carl, Jr's notes say two of their daughters
died, one in
infancy and the other at an early age but he also says Zack
died in
infancy. There is also a discrepancy in the spelling of Sara
and
Syble's names, but that wasn't uncommon in those days. Even
though
Synthia (our modern spelling would be Cynthia) was nine years
younger
than Thomas, he outlived her by 20 years. Again from Ed's
notes: 'In that period, women married at an early age, bore
children
every year or two and rarely lived beyond the age of 45 or
50.. A
woman's life in that era was expended in child birth and hard
work, and
their years were usually limited because of this.' Synthia
died on 21
February 1871, having
reached the age of 60. She and Thomas are both buried in the
Word
Cemetery
about three miles from Decatur, Arkansas.
Thomas Carl was born on 24 March 1802 in
Dutchess
County,
New York, the son of William Carl and Anna Finger. Family lore
has it
that
he was the oldest of seven brothers. Also that he was
apprenticed to a
tailor in his youth, and when he'd learned how to make a suit
of
clothes, he
ran away to escape the tailor's ill treatment. We don't know
where he
went after that but his name was recorded in the 1830 census
as living
in Franklin County, Tennessee. He first married a Nancy Shed
probably
in 1823 after he
was 21 years old. He and Nancy had five sons and a daughter
and in 1838
moved
from Tennessee to Mulberry near Van Buren in Arkansas where
Nancy died
on
1 September 1839. Following the death of his wife, Thomas Carl
sold his
farm and moved to a place on Osage Creek, six miles south of
Bentonville, Arkansas. It was near Bentonville, which is in
northwest
Arkansas just south of the Missouri state line, where he met
and
married Synthia W. Maxwell. Later he sold that farm and moved
to
Prairie Grove, Washington County and lived for several years.
Then he
sold that farm and bought another west of Bentonville, on
Little Flint
Creek, near Round Prairie. After the Civil War, in 1866, he
sold that
and bought another on Spavinaw Creek, eleven miles from
Maysville which is just east of the Oklahoma state line. He
lived on
that
farm until after his wife's death. His son John H. and John's
wife Mary
Elizabeth
Carl lived with him for a while after Synthia's death, but
after they
moved
to their own farm, Thomas lived among his other children. He
died 11
January
1891 at the home of his daughter, Mrs. Dennis Chastain.
Ed Carl, Jr.
always
claimed his father's family was German but one of his cousins
who was
also a grandson of Thomas, wrote that Thomas claimed he was an
Irishman
and that his father and a brother came to America as
stowaways. Some
have speculated that they were stowaways from Long Island, not
Ireland,
since Long Island was originally under Dutch control, but that
doesn't
fit with Thomas' reluctance to talk about his father's origins
for fear
of being deported. Thomas's son, John H. Carl, subscribed to
the
Belfast Times from Northern Ireland after he moved his family
from
Arkansas to Pleasant Hill south of Austin. This would tend to
lend
credence to the Irish connection, but it has not been proven.
On our
trip to Ireland, I talked to the people at the Palatine Museum
where
records were kept of all the Germans who came directly to
Ireland from
the Palatinate region of Germany. There were no Carls in their
records
but since he was supposedly in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he
could have
come through England before reaching Ireland.