Hoodoo, Voodoo, and Quackery

Abner Gile, Millionaire Lumber Man

I was doing some research the other day, and ran across a person who is connected to a line I'm related to only by marriage, but who's family had enough historical interest to follow the bread crumbs. Genealogy is like that, isn't it?

So, way back when, in Wisconsin, three of my Smith fellows married three Monteith women. The Monteith's also married into the Preston family - a more prominent family in the Brodhead area. You can read a little about my family and the Preston connection here.

One of the Preston women, Elizabeth, married into the Tiffany family (yes, that Tiffany family). The  Nathan Tiffany's family ended up in California and I hope to write a little more on another day.

Elizabeth Giles Tiffany's brother Abner Gile was a multi-millionaire lumberman in Wisconsin. Pretty impressive career and achievements in contributing to the growth of his corner of Wisconsin. He'd been born in Wyoming County, New York in 1820. He built a saw mill and lumber business in Illinois in 1843, and in 1850, spent a year in California. On his return, he worked in someone's lumber business and later partnered with NB Holway. He later built the LaCrosse Lumber Company and later yet, built the Island Mill Lumber Co. in 1881, which

Tower Jackson Gile claimed to have an
institute dedicated to the cure of disease through
electro-magnetic treatments. Early quackery
at its best!

he operated until his death. He had his fingers in all kinds of pies from the new utilities concerns to high society and philanthropy.

Abner was also helpful to his family. His brother, Tower Jackson Gile, for example, was the recipient
of his largesse for much of his adult life. When Abner died, Tower was left a bequest, but  Tower did not live long after his brother's death, both dying in 1897.

What grabbed me about Tower is, he went from being Tower Jackson Gile, to "Dr TJ Gile." Tower married Mary Knickerbocker, daughter of Harmon Knickerbocker and Phebe Haughton (or Horton) in upstate New York. Records indicate that they most likely divorced. The couple had at least two children.

In 1875, he left the Wisconsin area and cut a swath through the midwest including Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado with his miracle cures. The references I could find about Tower (I just love that name) show he was into the spiritual use of electro-magnetic healing. He claimed he could diagnose you during a free consultation and would provide you with electro-magnetic cures (which I'm sure came at a pretty penny).

He was the "inventor" of many devices and operated the Globe Electric Company. Its appliances, which included an electric chair, electric vapor bath, and other devices, were stock in trade for his "cures."

After the death of his brother Abner, Dr Gile claimed to have been visited by a visage of his brother. This made it into the book, "Beyond the Vail: Narrations and Illustrations of Spirit Experiences, Spoken, Written, and Made by Full-Form Visible Materalizations"; (1901) Kansas City, MO and is excerpted here:

Abner Gile. 
803. Here is a spirit who, in his earth life, came into pos- 
session of rather a large fortune for a person of his locality, 
Wisconsin. And this fortune, it seems, was accumulated large- 
ly from milling into lumber timber of Government lands, and 
handling lumber so made. 

804. His brother, Dr. T. J. Gile, was less fortunate, hav- 
ing accumulated nothing in a financial way; but had made quite 
thorough search into the merits of Spiritualism, and was one 
of this circle during several weeks of the preparation of "Rend- 
ing the Vail," and about that time Abner Gile passed on to 
spirit life, and now, by invitation of this psychic band, stands 
in materialized form before this circle, saying: 

(a) "I am Abner Gile, and I am glad to be here in this way r 
to tell of some things I found when I got to this country. And, 
of course, about the first thing I learned was that my brother 
was about right in this matter. I thought it bothered him. I 
thought it troubled his mind. I tried to hold him back and 
away from it. But I begin to think it was my own mind that 
was off. I was pursuing dark shadows, and he the light. I was 
piling up treasures that I had to leave behind and their bane 
binds me in dark conditions and shuts me up in dark prison; 
makes of me a 'spirit in prison.' While my brother was casting 
bread upon the waters for which I now hunger, and of which 
he may eat and be satisfied, my wealth, instead of a blessing,, 
is a great curse to me. I cannot explain to you how I have 
been confined in darkness. What light I had was of itself the 
most profound darkness, for I find the church dogmas are abso- 
lutely false. 

(b) "I wish I had known these things, but I did not. I 
would not try to know the truth of future life and its relations, 
but scorned whoever did try to learn. So I had no teacher 
when I got here, but have to work it out alone. Each must 
work out his own salvation. I wish all your world could know 
what I know now. But T helped to keep the world in ignorance,, 
and now must try to turn on the light." 

Tower died in 1897. If he's making his own spirit known, I haven't heard.

Tower Gile
La Crosse, Wis., Jan. 22. - Intelligence has reached the city of the death at Cleveland of

Tower J. Gile, aged 73, a brother of the late Abner Gile, the millionaire lumberman of this city. The deceased gained considerable prominence after leaving here in 1875, through his belief in spiritualism and magnetism, and traveled through the country preaching his views and acting as a magnetic doctor. During his travels he was supported almost entirely by his wealthy brother at La Crosse. When Abner Gile died he left a legacy for his brother in his will. The deceased went to Cleveland a few weeks ago, and died there on Thursday last. [Source: Wisconsin Weekly Advocate (25 Jan. 1900)]

Mapping it Out

I do better with visuals. I tried to map out the immigrant path - still a lot of incomplete information even after all these years of work. Here is how it went down with my four sets of great-great grandparents on my dad's side.

Includes Cappoens, Meserol, Fontaine, Leroy, Miller, Linsey lines
antecedents of my paternal grandfather, Leo Linsey
(Click to enlarge)

Abraham Owens and Zachariah Holler. This family joined with the Miller family with the marriage
of David Owens and Sarah Holler. This is the paternal side of my grandfather Leo Linsey's family.

UNK Smull immigrant who was father to Brush Valley, PA's Brothers Smull. The Quaker Cooper's of Pennsylvania and the Quaker Beams family of Whitley County, Kentucky joined  with the marriage of William Lloyd
Cooper and Elizabeth Beams. This family  joined the Smull family with  the marriage
of Johnathan Smull and Mary Jane Cooper, maternal 2GG of my grandmother Verlie Smith Michaelsen Linsey.

James Smith is the earliest located Smith originally believed to be from Monmouth, NJ
The Munson family goes back to Munson immigrant who arrive in Connecticut in 1637. Grant County, Wisconsin
was the site of the joining of the Munson and Smith families when William Custer Smith
married Mary Ann Munson. This is my maternal grandmother Verlie Smith Michaelsen Linsey's paternal grandparents.

More Coopery: George Emrick & Family

AMOS COOPER > CHALKELY JARED COOPER, SR >  MARGARET ANNA "ANNIE"

Click to
increase size

COOPER m George Emrick

You can read earlier information about Alice here. The Emrick's resided in Stephenson County, Illinois when George and Annie married. In 1892, the couple, joined other Cooper relations in Seward, Nebraska. George plied a variety of businesses, among them a restaurant and later, a long-lasting florist shop he opened in 1917. In 1914, his wife Annie had died, leaving son Bert and daughter Cora Alice "Alice" along with her husband to carry on without her. Bert (b. 13 Aug 1879) and Alice (b. 03 Oct 1882) had both been born in Stephenson County, Illinois.

George was named Justice of the Peace by the county and Justice of Police by the City of Seward in 1917. He seemed to keep busy. The family was fairly well off, owning a 9-room home in town. Alice worked as a clerk for one of the county superintendents, EH Koch, who also encouraged her and put her forth for the additional job as County Truant and Attendance Officer for Seward County in 1923. Nice of him, since she got no more pay for the extra work. Long a spinster woman, Alice surprised the townsfolk when she married widower Ira Moler, a man from Litchfield, who once lived near Bee in Seward County, but now farmed in the western side of the state. The wedding took place in Seward 01 Sep 1926 in Seward, with JP G. A. Emrick, her father, presiding as officiant.

The couple took off for Litchfield and spent a lot of time visiting Seward. On 31 Oct 1927, Ira was walking back from town to the Emrick residence when he fell over dead of a heart attack. He was predeceased by his first wife, Vada Church, and was survived by his daughter Ruby Margaret Deifenbach.

In May of 1927, Alice's brother Bert and his family made the big decision to head West, packing up and moving to Glendale, Los Angeles, California. Almost immediately after their arrival, their youngest daughter Marion became gravely ill and remained ill for many months. Soon after their removal, George and Alice made their first steps to moving west themselves.

In June 1927, George sold off the fixtures of his floral shop and retired. Alice and George held a sale of their property and in November, their household goods. George resigned from his position with the county and right before Thanksgiving of 1927, the two headed west to join Bert and his family in Glendale.

Love would strike Alice again and on 03 Oct 1936, she married widower Robert John Breen. When she died at the age of 57, he survived her by mere months, dying 17 Nov 1941.

I have put much of this up on Ancestry, in addition to the obituaries for George Emrick and Ira Moler and other information on the Emrick's. I would very much like to track down the daughters of Bert Emrick, both gone now, but I'm sure there are family members somewhere. That's another project for the list.

Jennie Cooper Conklin

AMOS COOPER > WILLIAM LLOYD COOPER > CHALKELY JARED COOPER > JOSEPH L COOPER > JENNIE L COOPER m Clyde Conklin

Joseph Cooper was a tinsmith by trade and though he regretted not being able to fight in the Civil War, did fight in the Spanish-American War at the age of 50 years old! His wife Carrie Miles and he had three children. The youngest daughter, Jessie, would marry noted athlete Leslie Mann of the Miracle Braves of 1914.

As of my last research, Jennie had been working as a seamstress in a factory in 1910 and then, in 1912, had died. Since then, I discovered she had married Claude A Conklin, had a baby, and twelve days after her daughter's birth, died at the home of her parents in Lincoln, Nebraska. The daughter, Enid "Connie" Conklin, was born on 31 Jul 1912 in Lincoln, at the home of her grandparents. She lived to be 88 years old and died at Miller's Merry Manor nursing home in Syracuse, Indiana on 25 Apr 2001.

The Neverending Job: Robert Thompson Cooper, Again

AMOS COOPER > WILLIAM LLOYD COOPER > CHALKLEY JARED COOPER > ROBERT T

COOPER

Many moons ago, I had researched Capt Robert T. Cooper, stalwart and engaged citizen in some detail. You can read about it here. Doing the research is NEVER done. I do a round of research and then start all over again to see what new tidbits have been added to the volumes I've already collected.

I had already discovered that he lost his wife early in their marriage. I knew of some of his business dealings and his war record, but discovering his obituary recently filled in some of the blanks.

If you remember from reading about the Cooper's trip west, they were a Quaker family who left Pennsyvlania to go to a Quaker settlement at the edge of Crawford and Clark Counties, Illinois, where the pioneering journey of the family begins.

Nephew WW Fisher, a veterinarian, seems to have enjoyed his uncle's company. Joseph Cooper had early on worked with his brother Robert in the milling business when he was a tinsmith. He lived a full, fruitful life, but one without a life's companion by his side. Always kind of made me sad for him.

Yet Another Cousin

VERLIE SMITH m Ted Michaelsen > Judy > Joe

I had waited a long time to take a DNA test, but I ended up taking two. Ancestry.com and 23andMe. In the first, I discovered a second cousin, whose mother was the child of one of my great uncles and was given up for adoption. That was a little mind-blowing.

The Willows, Kansas City

Then, I got my 23andme results and danged if I didn't run across a heretofore unknown first cousin. I shared a large first cousin-sized bit of DNA with him and immediately contacted him. He hadn't really been interested in seeking out any bio family, because his adoptive parents provided him and his sister a wonderful home and life. But...maybe he had siblings. He had been talked into doing the test.

I contacted the three first cousins I gained last year who were most assuredly his siblings and they are waiting for the results of a DNA test of their own to confirm the connection. I really have no doubt since Joe, our newest cousin, comes complete with a court record with his birthmother's last name.

I think, based solely on the results of my family, that there must be a lot of mind-blowing going on all over the country over other people's own results. Many secrets are being revealed. Some might cause additional heartache - some may be joyful news. The way I look at it, I'm glad to have a new family member and hope he has a chance to join us for our next reunion.

He's a storyteller, and you know I love that.

Hang Down Your Head, Frank Doole

I have been digging away at various pieces and parts, hither and yon, and took a second look at this fellow who had married three times - two of those times into families that are connected to me.  He seems like less than a pleasant character, but a character for sure.

Lydia Hinmon

Francis Doole was born 20 Jun 1823 in Antrim, Northern Ireland. His wife, Martha Shaw, born in 1825 in Ireland, traveled with him to the United States, arriving 25 Dec 1843 in New York City. They moved to Ware, Massachusetts, where they became US citizens in November of 1854.

Their daughter, Mary Jane, was born in Ware, but by the time the first of their three sons came along in 1854, the family was in Floyd County, Iowa, which is a hop and a skip from both Bremer and Butler counties.

Martha died in 1879 and Frank remarried to Lydia Hinmon Stuck Harshman.

Lydia was born about 1839 to George Richard Hinmon and Anna Lewis in Erie County, Pennsylvania. Her first husband, William Stuck, died during the Civil War. They had been married in 1855 and he died in late 1863. They had one son. She married George Harshman next, in 1866, and it appears that marriage ended in divorce. George seems to have moved on from Iowa, where several Hinmon's had settled and headed West to Nebraska. Lydia then married Francis Doole, widower, on 05 Jun 1880 in Floyd County.

The 1880 Agrigultural Schedule 2 of the Census indicated Doole was fairly successful. He owned 130 acres of farmland in Floyd township and his farm was valued at over $5,000. Just looking at the record, it seemed all was pretty normal.

Things changed - he had fractious relations with his children which culminated in the following event involving the desecration of wife Martha's grave:

I have not discovered whether Lydia died or they divorced, but Doole married my 2xGG William Custer Smith's sister Sarah Jane, a long-time spinster who had spent many years living with her mentally disabled brother and mother and big brother WC Smith and his wife Mary Ann. That marriage occurred in 1887. In 1888, Frank made the news again:

"A "Blind Pig" which has been successfully operated the past two years at Floyd by Frances Doole, was raided and a large quantity of beer and whiskey seized. Doole is in jail at Charles City.

Atlantic Daily Telegraph, Dec 26, 1888, pg 4 Atlantic, IA"

I wasn't able to find out what happened to this case, but perhaps it led to the divorce that followed between Aunt Sarah and Doole. It was a sad situation for Sarah, who had been cared for by her relatives her entire life. She was left without a place to go after the divorce, and ended up residing in the Bremer County Poor Farm and Asylum for the rest of her life, dying there in 1924.

Doole most likely died prior to 1900, since there is no record of him in the 1900 census.

What's a blind pig? In the Midwest, Blind Pigs started in the 1880s and were quite a problem, according to the anti-alcohol crowd. It got it's name because some wily proprietor would sell tickets to a back room to see a "blind pig," and the ticket price included a drink.