Ontonagon peeps... anyone else remember being told by their reassuring parents the bones they found on the beach near the Epidote St. dead end were just cows? Phew... oh wait.
Dead end is apropos. Ontos' first Catholic church and graveyard were riiiiight there. #Cemeteries
St. Patrick's in the Sand
And it had a graveyard! Ummm
Only visual representation I have found is in William Chalmers Covert 1914 novel "Glory of the Pines: A Tale of the Ontonagon."
"The sand, swept by fierce northwest storms, ridged itself, like a shifting rampart, along the outer edge of the village, all of which was in view. It rose toward the eaves at the old church at the beach and lay so thick upon the little cemetery...
that the tops of the stones and wooden crosses barely appeared above it." (p.23)
1st sign I have of him is 1860 census where we see his wife Anna Ward Covington and daughter Gertrude, aged 2, born in Michigan. Living in Owosso, Shiawassee County - which became a sundown town. No Theophilus. 2/
During the Civil War, there were income taxes so I find Theophilus L Covington (fabulous uncommon name) in Houghton County Michigan by November of 1862 operating a saloon. 3/
Arthur Tays was a showman, restaurant owner and more in Iron Mountain, MI.
Son of formerly enslaved Union veteran Rev. Christopher Tays, he grew up in Missouri. #MIHistory#BHM#Unerasing
Seeking medical attention was almost impossible for a Black man in Iron Mountain circa 1900. Tays died as a result of a tooth allowed to decay so badly his jaw went with it.
He left a wife, Rose, and a son, James. Rose was white but found herself shunned in short order regardless. Rose and Jimmy went to Chicago.
William Docking Warner is a "famous" family member who started saying he was born in Wisconsin 1840-1842 about the time of the Civil War.
Sources say he knew that was a lie. 1841 Camborne, Cornwall census
He came to the U.S. in 1842 aboard the Isabella arriving in Fall River, Massachusetts. They went to Wisconsin, lead mining, and the children were orphaned a few years later.
In 1850 he's in Shullsburg living with his big sister Mary Ann and her family. Mary Ann is my direct ancestor and has by this time married Daniel Webb, a son of one of the first Cornish miners mentioned in the district.
A woman of African descent inherits significant property. Hubby and son have her hospitalized as insane. She challenges them and gains her business back, founds/sells a town - much as her mother did. Meet Gertrude Covington Phillips. #Keweenaw#BlackHistory#WomensHistory 🧵
Gertrude was born in Detroit in the late 1850s to Anna Ward Covington & unknown Covington (#genealogytwitter 👀 for a challenge? Find Covington lol) in 1860 she and her mother are in the household of barber James Evans in Owosso. Might Mary Evans sister to Anna? #MichiganHistory
By 1864 Anna and Gertrude Covington were established in Houghton (MI state census) where soon, Anna remarried to recent widower Larkin J. Jones