Rice Family Newsletter

Your Rice Family E~Zine

Generation by Generation ~ Century by Century
VOL. 4, NO. 9 ~ AUGUST 29, 2011

In This Issue

Introducing Alexander Hamilton Rice

Letters to Lincoln: Correspondence of Alexander H. Rice

Tips for Researching Kentucky Rice Families (Part 2)

From the Bottomless Mailbag: PA Rices Move to NEB; Looking for James Atlas Rice; Seek Ancestry of William Rice of NC & IL

Southern Family Trees: Bessie (Rice) Kilgore Doshier, Water Witcher in Newton Co., Arkansas

Fun for Root Diggers & Tree Shakers: A Matter of Quaker Terminology; This Family "Weathered" a Lot!; Named in a North Carolina Tax List

Rice Items from The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Newspaper Clippings, Part 1)

Links & Tips

The Family Circle

NEXT ISSUE

ABRAHAM LINCOLN

PART 2

Letters to

Lincoln from

Civil War Officer James Clay Rice

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The Daniel Rice Family, Pioneers at Somerset in Windham Co., Vermont

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More newspaper clippings from The Brooklyn Eagle

Letter from the Editor

Here's hoping your summer included finding new branches on the family tree. I know that some of you took off in RVs to visit ancestral hometowns.

If you located Rice data on tombstones, in courthouse records, in grandma's attic, or elsewhere, feel free to share it with the rest of us, particularly if it is before the 1850s when census records ceased naming every member of the household.

There are so many ways--and so many places--to look for ancestors. One of the most promising, especially if you have exhausted all the traditional sources and reached a dead end, is DNA testing. (See the link to the DNA Project in the links box given at the end of each issue.)

Happy Hunting!

Rosemary

Introducing Alexander Hamilton Rice

BOSTON MAYOR, MASSACHUSETTS GOVERNOR

AND U.S. CONGRESSMAN DURING CIVIL WAR

HAD CORRESPONDENCE WITH

PRESIDENT ABRAHAM LINCOLN

ALEXANDER H. RICE

AS A YOUNG MAN

Alexander Hamilton Rice was born Aug. 30, 1818 to Thomas and Lydia (Smith) Rice of Newton, Massachusetts. Rice received B. A. and M.A. degrees from Union College in Schenectady, New York. He had received some business training at his father's Newton paper mill and became a paper manufacturer and dealer with Wilkins, Carter and Co. in Boston.

Rice's political career began in 1853, when he was elected a member of Boston's Common Council. He became the Council's president in 1854 and, in 1856-1857, served as Boston's first Republican mayor. During his term the area known as the Back Bay was developed, the City Hospital was started and the Public Library building was finished and dedicated. During his long career of civic service he also was a member of the Boston School Committee, a member of the Board of Public Institutions and president of the Boston Board of Trade.

Alexander Rice then stepped onto the national political scene as a U. S. Congressman from 1859 to 1867, which included the time frame of the American Civil War (1861-1865). Rice was chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs from 1863 until the end of the war.

ALEXANDER H. RICE

Rice did not run for re-election in 1866, instead deciding to return to his business career in Boston. The firm he worked for eventually became known as the Rice, Kendall Company. He did not, however, give up his interest in politics. He had been a delegate to the Philadelphia Loyalist Convention in 1866 and then was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1868. Later, Rice served as the 30th Governor of Massachusetts from 1876 through 1878.

Alexander Rice was twice married: first, in 1844, to Augusta E., sister of Judge McKim of the Suffolk County Probate Court, and secondly, to Angie Erickson Powell of Rochester, New York. His grandson, Alexander H. Rice Jr. (1875-1956), was a noted geographer and explorer.

The elder Rice was a member of the American Archaeological Society; a fellow of the American Geographical Society of New York; a member of the American Historical Association; and a trustee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and of the Episcopal Theological School, Cambridge, as well as honorary chancellor of Union University. The honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred on him by Harvard in 1876.

Alexander H. Rice died July 22, 1895, and was buried at Newton Cemetery, Newton, Massachusetts. Some sources list Alexander Rice as a descendant of Deacon Edmund Rice, who came to Massachusetts in 1638. The Edmund Rice Association is aware of secondary sources which suggest this lineage, but cautions that no primary documentation has been located to prove the projected line of descent.

NOTE: Excerpts from Alexander H. Rice's correspondence with President Abraham Lincoln are given in the next item.

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Letters to Lincoln

PART 1

Correspondence of Alexander Hamilton Rice

Rice to Lincoln1 The Request and

the Thank-You

At left is the telegram which Alexander Hamilton Rice sent to President Lincoln, requesting that he send "the mammoth ox" named General Grant over to the Sailor's Fair. At the time, Congressman Rice was Chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs during the Civil War. Lincoln replied: Yours received. I have no other notice that the ox is mine. If it be really so I present it to the Sailor's Fair, as a contribution.

Here is the text of Rep. Rice's Nov. 22, 1864 thank-you letter to Lincoln:

My Dear Sir: I have the pleasure of informing you that the Mammoth Ox, General Grant, which was presented to you on the 8th of the present month, by Carlos Pierce Esq. of this city, and by you donated to the National Sailor's Fair on the ninth inst., has yielded upwards of Three Thousand two hundred dollars to its treasury, and that sum is held as your contribution to this most just and patriotic object. The fair will close this evening, and its avails will be not far from two hundred thousand dollars.

ON BEHALF OF THE SMITH BROTHERS

Court Martialling

Civilians

Alexander Rice was travelling in August of 1864 when he received a message from other Massachusetts members of the Congressional delegation to sign a petition on behalf of the Smith brothers of Boston, who had been arrested for alleged violations of a contract with the Navy. In writing from Bangor, Maine, to the President, Rep. Rice explained that he had no misgivings about the Secretary of the Navy ordering the Smith brothers to be arrested, but that he was reluctant to sign the document that had been forwarded to him. In his words:

I have no hesitation in saying that the community in which the Smith Brothers reside is quite unanimous in believing that they have committed no offence of a criminal or fraudulent character, and that the proceedings which have been instituted against them are not only

needlessly severe, but they are especially ojectionable on the ground(s) that they inflict upon them irreparable injury and punishment in property and reputation, before they have been found guilty of any crime. These proceedings are the more destructive of their interests and reputation because there are no obstacles to the administration of justice in the ordinary forms in Massachusetts, and measures so extraordinary and severe naturally give the impression that the government esteems them guilty of extraordinary crimes, or else that the government is using its authority and power not for the protection, but for the destruction, of private rights and immunities.

What has happened is that the Smith brothers, who are private citizens, have been ordered by the Secretary of the Navy

to face a court martial. Rice believes that ordinary citizens will not understand the necessity for one type of court system for the trial of civil cases between citizens and another more arbitrary tribunal for cases between citizens and their government, especially at "a time when the government eminently needs the respect and confidence of the people."

Rep. Rice notes that enemies of the government can destroy confidence in that government--and the constitutional rights of its citizens--"by the wrongful exercise of arbitrary power...overwhelming the bulwark of personal safety and of public liberty."

Rice argued that the Smith Brothers have the right to trial before a regular civilian court. In that case, whether they be found guilty or not, public sentiment would most likely be with the court, he concludes.

lincoln letter3 Under the signature line is a notation that Congressmen John B. Alley and Oakes Ames, both representing Massachusetts districts, concurred with Alexander Rice's views.

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Source Material:

Alexander Hamilton Rice to Abraham Lincoln, 1864. Available at Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress, Manuscript Division (Washington, D.C.: American Memory Project, 2000-02); accessed in August, 2011.

IN OUR NEXT ISSUE: Correspondence between James Clay Rice and Abraham Lincoln.

NOTES AND TIPS FOR RESEARCHING KENTUCKY RICES

Part Two

In our last issue we briefed readers on the genealogical resources of the Kentucky GenWeb site and of the Filson Historical Society. In this issue are some notes on the holdings of The Kentucky Archives.

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THE STATE ARCHIVES

The Kentucky Department of Libraries and Archives provides an excellent library of genealogy records including: Kentucky census records for 1790-1870 (printed) and 1880, 1900-1920 (Soundex), bonds, deeds, estate settlements, marriages, tax assessment books, wills, compiled service records and pension applications for veterans of all wars from 1776-1900, case files, dockets, naturalizations, minute and order books, and other records from the circuit, limited jurisdiction, and appellate courts, and more...

The Archives is located at 300 Coffee Tree Road (P.O. Box 537
Frankfort, KY 40602-0537.) The website URL is: http://www.kdla.ky.gov/

There is also a search engine for births, marriages and deaths at this website. To give an idea of the scope of this resource, your editor tallied the results for some of the most common Rice family given names. Here are the results:

Charles Rice: 218 birth records 48 marriage records 101 deaths

David Rice: 123 births / 53 marriages / 32 deaths

John Rice: 372 births / 58 marriages / 192 deaths

Robert Rice: 226 births / 64 marriages / 95 deaths

William Rice: 321 births/ 52 marriages / 182 deaths

Mary Rice: 384 births / 44 marriages / 206 deaths

Elizabeth Rice: 104 births / 46 marriages / 45 deaths

There is also a searchable electronic database of Confederate Pensions. There are 487 of these documents pertaining to men named John Rice.

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LDS FAMILY HISTORY CENTERS

There are four LDS Family History Centers in Kentucky. They are located in Bowling Green, Louisville, Owingsville and Lexington. Their genealogy resources include census records, death records, family history records, obituaries, marriage records, vital records, court records, and various other public records.

pen and quill cream

From the

Bottomless

Mailbag

PENNSYLVANIA RICES WHO MOVED TO NEBRASKA

I'm looking for someone who might know something about a Wilson H. Rice, b. Sept. 1857 in Perry Co., PA, married Apr. 24, 1885 in Webster Co., NE, to Anna E. Milligan/Milliken of Juniata Co., PA. Wilson and Anna had at least one son, Charles W. Rice, b. Feb. 1886 in NE. According to Wilson's marriage license application in Webster Co., NE, he was the son of Daniel & Elizabeth (Jacobs) Rice.

I would love to compare notes with anyone interested in this family line.

Thank you!

Mike Milliken

The Daniel Rice who married Elizabeth Jacobs was born Feb. 26, 1829, one of 12 children of William Rice (b. Jan. 21, 1801) and Mary Ann Orris (1801-1871) , who were married Jan, 2, 1823.

William Rice (b. 1801) was a son of George Rice, who was born in 1769 to immigrants Zachariah and Abigail (Hartman) Rice. George married Catharine Geirich and lived in Juniata Co., PA, where he died in 1841 and is buried at Church Hill. (William Rice had a nephew, William Rice, b. 1826, who in 1852 married Caroline Milligan, b. 1830, daughter of Thomas Milligan.)

Zachariah Rice came from Germany to Pennsylvania in 1751 and settled in Chester Co., where he built a mill and married a neighbor's daughter, Abigail Hartman, who had come to America from Germany with her parents in 1750. Zachariah and Abigail provided interesting support to the patriot cause during the Revolutionary War. A story about them and an outline of the first few generations of their numerous descendants appears in Rice Book 2: The Immigrants. Email me if you would like a copy of this book.

Rosemary

LOOKING FOR JAMES ATLAS RICE

Need help locating parents of James Atlas Rice, b-1822 Gates County NC, d-1873 Marshall County Alabama. Married Mary Adaline Eason Gates County NC 1822. Lived in Newton County Georgia 1850 to abt. 1858 then moved to Marshall County Alabama. Thru DNA determined that James Atlas was related to a William/Rachel Rice of Newton County Georgia b-1778 NC, died abt. 1848 in Newton County Georgia. However cannot determine how James Atlas was related to this William Rice.

Believe the parents of James Atlas could be a Thomas/Mary Gwin Rice shown on the 1850 census of Gates County, NC. However cannot prove or document this belief. Also believe this Thomas was the brother of the above listed William.

Thanks for any assistance. GGgrandson of James Atlas.

Bill Rice

This website says the James Atlas Rice who married Adaline Eason was born ca. 1810-1812 in NC, died in 1873 and is buried in the Eason-Johnson Cemetery at Albertville, AL. It reports his father was Joseph Rice, born ca. 1760/61, and his mother was the former Mary Prince Payne. Sources are given so maybe there is some documentation you haven't seen.

                                                                     Rosemary

SEEK ANCESTRY OF WILLIAM RICE, B. CA. 1780, NC

My Rice line has been quite a bit of work, and I am hoping SOMEONE can help.

William Rice, b. abt 1780, North Carolina (as declared on 1850 census), married Frances _(?)_, b. abt 1790, Virginia (as declared on 1850 census). They had seven boys and one girl, but I have the name of only one child, William Moses Rice, b. 1822, Tennessee. By 1830, this family was living in Greene Co., Illinois. William Moses Rice m. Sarah Samantha Fine, 15 Nov. 1859 in Greene Co., IL.

So...my Rice line was in NC (wasn't everyone?) in 1780, Tennessee by 1822, and settled in Greene Co, Illinois, by 1830. Any help connecting my 1780 NC William to a line that I can research will be hugely appreciated.

Trish Lombard, Spokane, WA

Those early William Rices in North Carolina are difficult to sort out. First, you can rule out William Higginson Rice of Caswell Co., NC, who had a son, William C. Rice. This elder William was born in 1761 in Virginia, his wives were named Sarah and Elizabeth, and he and his siblings inherited land in Tennessee from their brother John. His 9 children were all born after 1795.

You can also rule out two William Rices who married women named Frances. First: William Henry Rice and Frances Threlkeld, who were married in 1849 in Owen Co., Kentucky, lived in Obion Co., Tennessee, where their son, William, was born in 1852. They are too young to be the William and Frances you seek. Although the elder William's father may have been named William (unproven), his mother was named Lucy. Second: Some of the Franklin Co., Tennessee Rices are believed to be connected to the Muhlenberg Co., Kentucky Rices, which include William Rice who married Frances Crenshaw. This William Rice's 1824 will is on file in Muhlenberg Co.

Locating ancestors by eliminating possibilities is a lot of work, but is often necessary when dealing with Rices who have such common given names as William, John, Mary and Elizabeth. My indices include more than 500 William Rices.

Another thing you might try is checking out the Jefferson Rice listed in the index to early Greene Co., IL, probate records. Jefferson is an easier name to work with. These probate records are dated in 1836. Since his daughter, Margaret, married Harvey Trimble in 1833, I would place Jefferson's birth as prior to 1802. The probate records are in Book 6, pages 159 and 161-162. Address your request to: Greene County Circuit Clerk, Greene County Courthouse, 519 N. Main St., Carrollton, IL 62016-1033. You can save time by calling ahead (217-942-5443) to find out the copying cost. You might also want to contact a woman named Linda who is listed on the Greene Co. GenWeb page as someone researching the Rice family in Greene and nearby counties.

Rosemary

Southern gentleman

SOUTHERN FAMILY TREES

Bessie (Rice) Kilgore Doshier

Was a Water Witcher

in Newton County, Arkansas

Nancy Elizabeth Rice of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, was a water witcher in Newton County, Arkansas. Known as Bessie, she lived to age 95.

The early settlers from Tennessee and North Carolina brought this old custom to Newton County. Here is how it worked. Before a person dug a well or chose a new home site, the services of a water witcher were sought. Rarely did a water witcher charge for this service. The ability to locate underground water sources was gladly used on a gratis basis.

Some witchers used a long stick with a slit holding a coin at its end. Bessie and other water witchers used a long forked wooden switch. She would grab hold of each end of the forked stick and bend the ends to a U-shape. Working with the pointed end out front, she would slowly walk around the property seeking water. When the end of her forked stick passed over water, it supposedly would point down toward the water.

Bessie Rice (1885-1980) was born in Eureka Springs, Arkansas and died at Harrison, Arkansas, where she is buried in Maplewood Cemetery. She was the daughter of John S. Rice and Amanda (Wishon) David. Bessie married 1) Barry Kilgore and 2) a Mr. Doshier.

Bessie (Rice) Kilgore

Bessie (Rice) Kilgore Doshier

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Rice Burials at IOOF Cemetery, Eureka Springs, Arkansas

Rice, Azro A--born in Stockbridge, Vermont--9-6-1828--4-15-1916
Rice, Clara H wife of Azro b Stockbridge, Vermont--4-10-1834--Eureka Springs

Rice, Mrs E A-- age 83 undertaker's marker---- 5-4-1943
Rice, James B---- 1866-- 1948
Rice, Millie J-- wife of James--1856-- 1941
Rice, Thomas J---- 3-21-1859--2-22-1943
Rice, Mary Ella Wife of Thomas J undertakers marker--1-25-1873--8-24-1966

FUN FOR FAMILY ROOT DIGGERS

AND TREE SHAKERS

A Matter of Quaker Terminology

A family researcher was reading an online family tree that included information on some of her ancestors. She made what was, to her, a shocking discovery. Martha, a young Quaker, had become pregnant by her second cousin, James. Upon hearing of this misfortune, James immediately eloped-- with someone else! The Quakers didn't like what happened to both Martha and James and had them "dismembered". The genealogist reading about this hopes that actually meant they were "excommunicated".

Note: Members of the Quaker sect could be formally "disowned" for marrying someone who was not a Quaker, for having a child "too soon" after marriage, and for various other offenses. You can learn more about Quaker marriages here.

This Family "Weathered" a Lot!

An Australian genealogist reports that in childhood she had a friend who knew a girl named Stormie, who was from another school. Stormie had sisters named Rainie and Hayley. Their brother was named Sonny.

Named in a North Carolina Tax List

A 1779 tax list for Craven Co., North Carolina, names this person:

Fearsnolight BEASLEY

RICE ITEMS FROM THE BROOKLYN DAILY EAGLE

About this series...

For the rest of this year we will be adding on to the end of each e~zine copies of old newspaper stories about Rice family members. Although they are from The Brooklyn (NY) Daily Eagle, they often concern Rices from various regions of the United States.

Part 1

Feb. 19, 1899

TWO BROTHERS SHOT