THOMAS ALWOOD TRAVIS, SR.

1894 - 1971

     My imaginary genealogy village is my ultimate time travel.  It conveniently blends people and eras.  Whenever I have trouble falling asleep at night, I imagine one of my favorite ancestors going through their daily lives.  Sometimes they are young and their siblings are in the same house. They are playing or squabbling or doing chores or whatever my crazy brain dreams up. (My imagination, no judging!}  Or, sometimes they are older dealing with their own kids or their businesses or farms.  I never get too far into these stories because inevitably I drift off to sleep.

     One of my favorite residents is my paternal grandfather, Thomas Alwood Travis, Sr. His children and grandchildren knew him as "Pop".

     Pop always walks tall in my Genealogy Village. Later in life, my grandfather had a slight stoop  and a bit of a shuffle in his step, probably slight scoliosis, but I rarely remember him that way. He strides through my memory as lively and energetic, ready to scoop me up, play a game of cards, find a cat to pet, or go for a Wiley's Ice Cream shop treat. And he lived in Washington, DC!!  This is still a wonderful, historical, family-filled place in my Village.

     We only visited a couple of times a year for maybe a week at a time. It was a major effort to travel from Atlanta to D.C. with three children in the 50's. and early 60s.  My most vivid memories of these trips had to do with various unreliable automobiles.  It was always a straight through drive as there was no money for motels.  Sometimes, we had to stop frequently to add quarts of recycled oil which was carried in jars in the trunk. More than once there was a trip in winter with limited heat and we bundled under blankets on the rear seat. This was before auto air conditioning so summer trips were brutal and mostly done at night. Mother always had our food packed at her feet in the front seat, to be handed out as needed.  Mostly sandwiches but I also remember cold fried chicken, fruit, and peanut butter Ritz crackers. There was never a question of stopping at a restaurant to eat. No money and limited offerings in the era before fast food.

     Because our visits were infrequent, I realize I only saw the special occasion version of my grandfather. He was generous with hugs, jokes, and laughter and I always thought of him simply as my grandfather, frozen in place until the next visit.  It has been wonderful, and a little sad, that I have been able to learn more about his complex life through my genealogy research. I was a young, married adult expecting my first child when he died.  I grieved then and I grieve now when I think of the missed conversations and stories.

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     Thomas Alwood Travis Sr. was born in Tullahoma, Tennessee, the son of Thomas Jefferson and Lodema Alwood Travis. His parents had married in January 1892. He had two older half-sisters, Minnie (b.1879) and Delilah (b.1882) Parker, from his mother's first marriage in Michigan. Delilah came with Lodema to Tennessee when she moved, after her divorce, to join her parents in Coffee County. Minnie stayed in Michigan with her father, Adam Parker.

    Thomas Sr.'s grandparents, Levi Salsbury and Delilah McQuilling Alwood, had moved to Manchester, TN from Michigan in about 1890.  They returned to their original hometown in Ohio in 1897 due to Delilah's poor health.

     Thomas joined a household that included Delilah, age 10 and another sister, Alice Travis, age 1, born in 1893.

Lodema, Thomas, Stanley, and Alice

     Thomas always identified as being from Tennessee but he was only one year old when his parents moved to the District of Columbia. They are  recorded as living at 812 6th Street NW in March 1896. This was the Swampoodle area of DC. His father was employed at the U. S. Government Printing Office at 55 4th Street.

     In 1897, his half-sister Delilah married Charles Beaver in Coffee county, TN.  Charlie, like Delilah, was born in MI. It is unknown where the couple met,  but they remained in Tennessee and raised a large family there.

     In 1904, when he was ten, Thomas' brother Stanley was born. His parents must have enjoyed the local community life as there are a few society page articles in the local newspapers.  A November 19, 1905 Washington Post society item lists "Thomas Travis and Allie Travis as attending a Saturday evening party with vocal and piano entertainment. The party was for Mary Martin's 12th birthday party."

     By 1906, the family had moved to 621 K Street. The Washington City Directory shows Thomas working as a helper starting in 1906 and continuing until 1911 when he is listed as a photographer. Although he is listed in the directory as employed, he continued his schooling through four years of high school.

     He joined the Catholic church in 1909 along with his mother and brother. His mother had visited several churches at age 50 before deciding on Catholicism.

     November 1, 1910, his sister Alice married Frederick Ernest Manning in Washington, D.C. at the parsonage of Gorsuch Methodist Episcopal Church "in the presence of a few relatives and intimate friends."
In March 1912, Thomas' father died after a brief illness, leaving my grandfather at age 18 to support the family.

     Thomas continued to work as a photographer. Between 1916 and 1929, he worked for Harris and Ewing. It was one of the largest photographic studios in the country. The Harris & Ewing photo studio was at 1311-1313 F St. NW. Mrs. George Ewing attended his wedding so he must have been a valued employee.

     In 1917, he registered for the WWI draft. He was now living at 819 3rd Street and described as medium build with dark brown hair and grey eyes. He was sole support for his mother and brother.

     In January 1920, Thomas was living at NW 3rd Street along with his mother, brother, Stanley,  sister, Alice, her husband, Fred, and their three children, 5 year old twins, Dede and Belle, and 3 year old Margaret.

     His living situation happily changed later that year. Thomas married Marie Genevieve Buckley on October 20th and they moved into their own home.

     According to their daughter, Jean Travis Roche, they were married at 5:45 PM in the Gonzaga Chapel at St. Aloysius. This time of evening was considered fashionable.  Marie wore a wedding dress described as Palais Royale. Reverend William J. Brooks, S.J. officiated.

     Following the reception at the home of Mrs. Mary J. Buckley, mother of the bride, they went on a "fortnight trip to Niagara Falls." When they returned, they moved into their new home at 1319 Longfellow Street.

     Thomas and his friend, Dalton Galimore, met Marie and her sister, Bernadette, at the same time. Their story is that Thomas laid immediate claim to Marie and later told everyone it was because she was the prettiest one. Dalton and Bernadette married in 1924.

     Their first anniversary was celebrated at their new home with a buffet supper, as reported in the society section of the Washington Post.
 

     Thomas and Marie's son, Thomas Alwood Jr, was born August 20, 1925 followed five years later by Jean Marie October 31, 1930.

     Early in their marriage, Marie's mother, Mary Julia Fitzgerald Buckley, widowed since 1894, moved in with them and remained there throughout her life.

     Thomas' brother, Stanley, married Marian Tubman in 1922. They had known each other since elementary school. Stanley worked as a transportation rate auditor and Marian was a bookkeeper. He also served in the Quartermaster Corp Reserve as a 2nd Lt. from 1931 to the start of the war. He was recommended to the Special Officers Course in 1941. By the time he returned to DC, in October 1945 from service in the Pacific, he was a Lt. Col.

     Between 1929 and 1933, Thomas Sr. worked at Cliendinst Studios. He opened their first branch office on Connecticut Avenue. Clinedinst was the White House photographer for three administrations. Thomas photographed Presidents and other important Washington residents and visitors, both while he was with Clinedinst and previously when he was employed by Harris and Ewing. Some of his subjects were Presidents Harding and Coolidge, the Duke of Windsor, and baseball great Walter Johnson.

His son, Thomas, sometimes helped him set up lighting for a photo session.

     He had a photo colorist who worked with him, Virginia Clark. She and her husband, Frank M. Clark, a photographer in Bethesda, became close friends of Thomas and his wife. Thomas told the story that one of his photography subjects was an older woman with a great many wrinkles. Virginia did a beautiful job of touching up the photo. However, when Thomas showed the finished product to his customer, she firmly objected. She said she had earned every one of her wrinkles and didn't want to hide them. Thomas said he learned a valuable lesson that day!

Thomas Sr. at his desk at the Navy Yard

     In 1933, in the midst of the Great Depression, Thomas Sr. began work at the Naval Gun Factory as a Naval Ordnance photographer for the U. S. Government. Treaty restrictions from the Five-Powers Treaty in 1922, an effort to prevent an arms race, had held back Navy growth. But, in 1933, the Roosevelt Administration ordered the expansion of the U.S. Navy, both for defense and for economic relief. The Navy Yard's work force grew to almost 8000. In 1961, ordnance work was cancelled there and Thomas Sr. retired after holding the position of Chief Photographer. The Navy Yard was converted to an administration facility, the Washington Navy Yard, and is now home to the National Museum of the U.S. Navy

Picture of Navy Yard taken in 1936 during Potomac River flooding

     Their son, Thomas Jr., joined the Navy's V-12 program in July 1942 serving first at Charlottesville, VA. He was transferred to Georgia Institute of Technology in February 1944. Here he met and then married Irma Louise Hathcock in May 1945. They went on to have three daughters and remained in the Atlanta area.

     In May 1956, their daughter, Jean Marie, married William Peter Roche. Bill and Jean were parents of three sons and a daughter.

     In later years, Thomas and wife Marie moved in with their daughter, Jean, and her family in Bethesda, MD. I remember theirs as a busy, happy household where I continued to visit through my teen years.

     Thomas died April 27, 1971 and was buried in Mt. Olivet cemetery in Washington, D.C. Marie continued to live with her daughter and died in October 1981. She was buried in Mt. Olivet along side of Thomas.

DANIEL TRAVIS JR. and RHODA GIBSON TRAVIS
(1783-1853)                              (1784-1844)

Daniel Jr. and Rhoda Travis are my fourth great-grandparents.  With them, my village landscape expands from Tennessee across Indiana and into the prairie of Illinois. 

Earlier biographers have passed along the story that Daniel Jr. left Tennessee to avoid the practice of slavery.  Certainly his father preached against the practice and there is no record of him owning any; although, other farmers in his area of Tennessee show up with slaves in the common censuses. His active participation in the Christian Church in Walnut Grove and his support of the abolitionist school, Eureka College, supports anti-slavery as his moral position.

Daniel Senior was Surety for the marriage of Daniel, Jr. to Rhoda/Rhody Gibson March 20, 1804 in Rutherford county, TN. The second marriage for Daniel, Jr. since his two eldest sons, Miles F. Travis and Barton W. S. Travis are consistently shown in censuses as having birth dates prior to 1804. 

Little is known about Rhoda Gibson, as is typical for women of this period. It is likely that her father was the James Gibson who appears on the 1810 census just a few properties away from Daniel Sr. and Daniel Jr. in Rutherford County. A James Gibson also shows up in Crawford County, Illinois in 1820 at the same time that Daniel, Sr. is listed on that census.

This same 1810 Rutherford census shows Daniel Jr. with two males under 10 years, (Barton and Amos?) and one male 10- 15 years, probably Miles F. There were two females under 10 years. One would have been Mary C.. The other is unknown. Also, there was a female 16-25, also unknown. Rhoda and Daniel are listed as between 26 and 45 but there is one more female over 45 that is unknown.

Early Tennessee Land Registers show that Daniel Jr. held land in Rutherford County in 1814. Also, the same register shows William Travis, possibly his brother, owned land near him on the north side of the Cumberland. 

The 1820 census shows Daniel Jr. as still in Rutherford in the town of Murfreesboro. Neighbors included Jonathan and Jackson Wharry, William Travis, John Travers, and Samuel Gibson.

Daniel and Rhoda's known joint children were: 

 1. Miles F. (c.1799-1888) He married Cynthia Wharry/Nichols 26 Sep 1820. They are my direct line and are treated more fully in another report. Miles remained in Rutherford County, living on the land that was part of his grandfather's estate. 

 2. Barton W. S. (c.1803- before 1851) His full name is probably Barton Warren Stone Travis, named after one of the primary founders of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ.  After his death, his brother Miles was named Guardian of his minor children, Amos Jr. and Daniel.

 4. Mary C.  (c1810-   ) She married Richard Sanders Jan 13, 1831 in Rutherford Co., TN.

 5. William A. (1811-2 May 1854) He married Martha B. Caldwell (1820-10 May 1854) on Dec. 14, 1843. They moved to Mississippi around 1850. They had three daughters and one son.

 6. Jane E.  (1814-1892) She married Francis Youree Hamilton 3 Jan 1833. They had two daughters and two sons.

  7. Sarah Caroline Travis (1825-1862) She married William S. Magarity 3 Nov 1842 in Woodford County, IL. They had three daughters and two sons.

All except Sarah Caroline were born in Tennessee. The 1880 census of Sarah's daughter, Rhoda Magarity, lists her mother as born in Indiana. 

Daniel Jr. is reported as living in Eureka, Woodford County, Illinois in 1824 and may have owned land there as early as 1823 based on Chancery Court Records showing a land transfer.

This was still a very rugged area and there are newspaper reports of the settlers taking shelter in the log fort during unsettled times with the tribes led by Black Hawk. The typical home was a log cabin and the fields were cleared with oxen teams.

The winter of 1830/31 brought the "Winter of the Great Snow". In December, the snow started falling and reached a depth of four feet that stayed until spring. Large numbers of animals died, and the settlers endured an incredibly hard season of cold and isolation. This appears to be the last time buffalo were seen east of the Mississippi. It became a dating point in pioneer legends. Residency before that became the qualification for membership in “Old Pioneers” groups or the special designation as a “Snowbird.” 

During Rhoda and Daniel’s residency here, wagons and a few stagecoaches were the main transportation. The roads were crude, and it wasn't until 1840 that the state took charge of some maintenance. A log bridge, one of few bridges in the area, crossed Walnut Creek and was known as Travis' bridge. The first railroad, the Illinois Central, didn't come to the area until 1856, a year after Daniel Jr.'s death.

In April 1832, Daniel and Rhoda joined the Walnut Grove Church of Christ as two of the founding 20 members. The church was organized in the log cabin home of John and Nancy Oatman, about one-half mile northeast of the railroad depot.  The son of William McCorkle, whose will Travis Sr. had witnessed, also moved to Woodford County at this time. Richard Blythe McCorkle was elected one of the first Elders in 1832 and Daniel Travis, Jr. was named a deacon. They held their meetings in homes, barns and groves until 1846 when the first meeting house was built. The site is now marked with the Soldiers' Monument in the Olio cemetery.

Eureka College grew out of this Church. The area was originally known as Walnut Grove and thus came the Walnut Grove Academy in 1848. It was founded by a group of abolitionists who had left Tennessee and Kentucky because of their opposition to slavery. When it was founded, it was the first school in Illinois to admit women on an equal basis. It is still affiliated with the Christian Church.
 

From the 1894 "History of Eureka College" by the Eureka College Alumni Association.


Rhoda died March 9, 1844. Her obituary reads: 

 Travis, Mrs. Rhoda

 Wife of Daniel Travis, Walnut Grove, Woodford Co., Illinois, died Mar. 8,1844, about 8 in the morning of pulmonary disease. She became sick in January, died at age 60, having been a member of the Church of Christ for 34 years.

The 1850 Woodford County federal census shows a Daniel Traverse age 69 in a household with Hannah, age 50, Martha age 18, and Margett, age 16. Nearby is the household of William S. Magarity and Daniel Jr.'s daughter Sara Jane Travis with their four children. It appears that Daniel Jr. remarried after his first wife's death, possibly to a widow with daughters. 

Daniel Jr. died February 24, 1853, and was buried next to Rhoda in the Mt. Zion cemetery in the Mt. Zion community of Eureka Illinois. Theirs are among the oldest graves in the cemetery.
 

DANIEL TRAVIS (c. 1760 - 1826)

Daniel Travis, Sr. was my  5th great grandfather and the oldest ancestor in this line I have been able to identify. Most of what is known about him is related to his time as a preacher and leader in the Christian Church in the early 1800s. At least, that is according to the few historical books and personal accounts that address this period.  

Daniel Sr. was probably born around 1765, possibly in New York or North Carolina.   He is recorded on the 1810 Tennessee Tax List as owning acreage in that state. He is also included on the Rutherford, Nashville, 1810 U. S. Census. William McCorkle was listed as a nearby neighbor. In 1812, Daniel Sr. is named as a witness on an Indenture of Alexander Orr to Daniel Jr. for 101 acres on the north side of the East Fork of the Stones River in Rutherford County.

Daniel Sr. moved his family north to Illinois, then later to Indiana, reportedly to avoid the practice of slavery.  This was consistent with his religious beliefs.  There is no record of him ever holding slaves, either on tax or census lists. He was part of a group that called themselves Christians. They were not a part of the original Campbell-Stone New Reformation movement but in time both groups came to recognize their similarities. They believed in baptism for the remission of sins and followed the teachings of the New Testament. 

We know that he was in Tennesee in 1804 because there is a record of him as Surety for his son, Daniel's, marriage to Rhody Gibson. Daniel Sr. may have remained in Rutherford County as late as January 1818 because he is named as Executor in the will of William McCorkle, probated at that date. McCorkle must have believed Travis would have been available to handle such duties when he wrote his will in late 1817 as McCorkle had a substantial estate. One of McCorkle's sons later relocated with Daniel Jr. to Woodford County, IL. 

For more than twenty years, "Elder Travis" traveled in Cannon, Rutherford and Warren counties in Tennessee and in Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio and Illinois, preaching and mentoring other men called to preach. There are several records of sermons he gave and marriages he performed.  There  is listed a Daniel Travis as performing at least two marriages in 1817 and 1818 in Rutherford County as "E.C.C."   Elder Christian Church? This could be Sr. or Jr. Also, a Daniel Travis solemnized the marriage of Solomon Travis and Jane Boyle October 15, 1818. 

On September 15, 1817, Daniel Sr. served on the first Grand Jury of the First Circuit Court of Crawford County, IL  in the town of Palestine, the county seat. This community grew out of twenty or so families who had taken shelter at the nearby Fort LaMott during the 1812 conflicts with the Delawares and French.  It is the oldest white settlement in Illinois.  At this time, Crawford County encompassed almost the entire east half of Illinois.  It was this frontier town that Daniel Sr. chose as his new home.

The Circuit Court met in the home of Edward N. Cullom, the Grand Jury foreman. Later, Cullom donated much of the land for the development of the town. This first session dealt with assault and battery, bringing home a hog without ears, and even murder.

In 1820, the Crawford County Tax Rolls list him as engaged in Agriculture.

Daniel Sr. was listed in 1826 as an agent in Vincennes, Indiana for The Christian Baptist Monthly. This was a publication supporting the Restoration movement.  He fell ill in July 1826 while traveling near Gallatin, TN on a preaching tour and died before he could return home.  He is buried in Gallatin but his gravestone is mistakenly inscribed with his date of death as August 1827. There are several newspaper obituaries in 1826 recording his death but, unfortunately, few details of his personal life except that he had a wife and six children.

From Christian Messenger - Volume 1 No. 1,
November 25, 1826, Pages 22,23
                                                       

From Christian Messenger - Volume 1 No. 1,
November 25, 1826, Pages 24

Jennings James Dunlap - Wreck of the Old 97

Jennings James Dunlap 

     Jennings James Dunlap was a younger brother of my Great Grandmother, Estelle Dunlap Hathcock.  I have only a vague remembrance of a visit by Uncle Jennings to my grandparents' home when I was very young. It was only when I received some old family papers from a great aunt, over forty years later, that  I became aware of his locally celebrated history.  I had been singing about him for years!

     Jennings was born October 28, 1879 in Norwood, Stanly County, NC , sixth child and fourth son of George Thomas and Anna Eliza Turner Dunlap.

     By 1903, he was living in Washington, D.C. and working for the Southern Railway in their Railway Mail Division.  He was a mail clerk on the Washington to Atlanta run which was a fast mail and freight train, the fastest in the South. Only employees were on board. His job was to sort and bag the mail and to toss or snag bags at depots down the line. This was considerd a prestigious position for mail clerks and they received extra pay.

      On September 27, 1903, the "Fast Mail" train jumped the trestle at Danville, Virginia, falling to the river bed below. It is believed that the wreck was the result of the high speed of the train, down a significant grade just past White Oak Mountain..  The engineer, part of the crew that came on board at Monroe, may have been trying to make up for the delays incurred during earlier legs of the run.  There was a contractual $50 penalty if the train was late. 

 

     The train was going about thirty-five miles an hour on a steep curve.  Part of the train hit the brick walls of the Dan River Mill on the banks of the river.  Nine were killed and seven injured.  Jennings was seriously hurt and taken with the other injured to the Danville Hospital. 

     Historian and Editor, Larry G. Aaron, wrote about Jennings in his well-researched book, "The Wreck of the Old 97". "With the mail ready to be unloaded at Danville, Jennings J. Dunlap was resting on some sacks at the rear of his postal car. As the train launched over the trestle, Dunlap believed that being in the back of the car on those sacks 'probably saved me. There were five in our car. Two were killed and two others hurt'. Dunlap later claimed in a newspaper interview about the wreck, 'It happened too fast to get scared. In a split second the train was falling apart. There were splinters everywhere.' "

    Jennings, and one of the other surviving mail clerks, Frank Brooks, returned to the Old 97 mail run.  Other survivors retired or took stationary jobs. Jennings continued to work for 38 years as the clerk in charge of the mail car.  Later, the wreck was immortalized the southern mountain ballad "Wreck of the Old 97". It was the first record to sell over a million copies

     In the 1910 census, he was a boarder at the home of Julia Lyddane, in Washington, D. C. She was the mother of his future wife. 

     He married Minnie E. Lyddane about 1911. Their son, Walter Jennings Dunlap, was born in 1912. Walter was also a Railway Mail Clerk for the U. S. Post Office out of Washington, D.C. He married Virginia E. Graeber and had two sons, Jennings James and Richard J. Dunlap.

     Jennings registered for the WWI draft on September 12, 1918. His registration records that he was 39 years old, white, living on N. Capitol Street in Washington D.C., native born with hazel eyes and brown hair. He was married to Minnie and employed by the U. S. Post Office in the railway mail service. He signed the card as Jennings James Dunlap.

     He retired in 1941 but returned to work during WWII for Washington Terminal.
In April 1942, he registered in the "Old Man's" draft as 62 years old, born in Norwood, NC.  He was recorded as  white, married to Minnie, and living at same 1918 address.
 

     Minnie suffered many years from mental illness and spent her last years at St. Elizabeth's hospital in Washington, D. C. This was the first federally funded psychiatric hospital in the U.S.

     In later life he moved to a retirement home, Hermitage Methodist, in Alexandria, VA. He died there in 1964 and was buried at Glenwood Cemetery, Washington, D.C.

     My mother, Irma Hathcock Travis, recalled that he loved to walk and once walked the eight miles to her in-laws house on Longfellow Street just to visit her. He was a frequent visitor to my Aunt Anna's home in Washington, D.C. and is fondly remembered by my cousins, Kathy and Nancy.