Girl's Night Out

Mrs. Burges, Kati Decker, Helen Comstrek, Mrs. Decker, Mrs. Brooks,

Sara Kinton, Mrs. Kerthline, Mate Bordon. Ruth Decker, Fanny Bordon,Mary Jay. Lil Jayne. Photographer: Fred Jennings, Mehoopany, Pa.

This is a little off-topic...actually, not as much as the stories about the mill, so I guess I'll proceed. The photo above is a scan of a postcard I found  from Laceyville, Pennsylvania's beautiful website (the link to the original story is below). The Jennings family's history as of yet holds no historical connection with Laceyville. In any case, the page on the site relates the important use of these postcards or "cabinet cards" in genealogy.


Two things caught my eye: the photographer's name and the location of his studio! It turns out that "Fred. Jennings" was my Great-Grand Uncle, making him the son of Grandfather Charles; he owned a store on the same side of the Little Mehoopany Creek, as was the Jennings Hotel (owned by William).


The BIG problem is the caption, which -- I gather -- contains a boat-load of misspellings, as well a lot of familial connections IF the misspellings are truly that. For example, Burges is probably Burgess, Comstrek is probably Comstock, and -- the most intriguing of them all -- Sara Kinton should be Sarah Kintner. Sarah's connection with the family is very interesting: as of the 1860 census, she was listed as living with the Jennings family (occupation "beermaid"), and not yet married to Frank Jennings, who was photographer Fred's uncle.


I'm going to end here, because I'm waiting for conformation of the names from the owner of the card. If I'm right, this will not be the last time I'll be blogging about this photo.

But Not Our Side...

Every so often I find something in my family history research that compells me to post it here, and yet something holds me back: the fact that the history involves people that, to my knowlege, are not related or, at the very least, the connection to "my side" is not clear.

By all accounts, Paul Bishop Jennings was an Englishman with seemingly unlimited potential and talent. He arrived in America around 1785, was educated in the ways of business while living in Philidelphia, and finally settled in Wyoming County, Pennsylvania. He and his sons where largely responcible for the creation of many enterprizes there, including lumber, milling, and retail. But, who is he to me? Nobody knows for sure.

The patriarch of "my side" is William Jennings, the fellow pictured at the top of the blog. He was my third great grandfather. He was born around 1821, came to America around 1835, and eventually settled in Mehoopany, where he ran a hotel. To confuse matters more, Paul Bishop also had a son named William, which leads me even more to the conclusion that somehow Paul Bishop and William -- though separated by a generation -- are distantly related. But how, nobody knows. My gut feeling is that PBJ (I just now thought of that) was his uncle.

However, the real frustration lies in the fact that PBJ's side did a lot of really cool things -- things which I wish I could "boast about", but the familiar connection has yet to be found. On the other hand, if I don't document their achievements I might let them slip back into time's dim reaches, and that will be a shame if and when the connection is made. So, from now on, I'm going to let fly all that I learn about ALL the Jennings' achievements -- regardless of whose side they're on!

The Old Mill Dam

Here is my latest family-related eBay grab: a postcard featuring a photo of a mill dam, located (either presently or in the past) somewhere in Mehoopany, Pennsylvania -- the epicenter of my family's history. After I saw I won, I called Ken, my source for all things Mehoopany. He lives in a house built on the site of The Hotel, and if anyone knew the location of the mill dam, he would:

"Around that time, there was really only two mills that could have belonged to: one was the sawmill, but that couldn't have been it...it probably was for the Jennings (later Kintner) Mill."

I have been to the place where a small part of the structure of the mill still exists, but I hadn't thought of trying to find the source of the mill's power. So back in Ohio, I powered up Google Earth to try to find it. My best guess is shown in the photo below. Another view shows a faint image of a fairly straight earth or stone structure across the width of the stream bed:

The fact that the dam is seemingly distant is not really problematic, since the stream and the mill would be liked by a "sluice". According to an account written by the WPA (discussed in an earlier blog post), 


"A covered sluice way, repaired several times, but still the original design, runs direct from mill to dam, about an eighth of a mile north-east. It is constructed of wood with supports approximately every few feet."

As it turns out, the distance between the locations marked by pushpins (above) is 728 feet, just a little more than 1/8 of a mile -- confirming the approximate location of the mill. Not bad, eh? In any event, the next time I'm there I'll see if there is anything left of the dam. At least, thanks to Ken, I'll know where I can start looking.