Category: Ancestor of the Week

Posted in Ancestor of the Week

Ancestor of the Week: Thomas William Nickerson (1871–1946) — The Livery-Stable Man of Francesville

Posted on by conidubois.com

Some ancestors you find in a courthouse. Thomas William Nickerson I found in a barn — a livery barn, in a little Indiana town, with the horses stamping in their stalls and the smell of hay and harness leather in the air. That was his world, and for a while it was a good one.

Thomas William Nickerson. From Coni’s research files.

Thomas was born in McLean, McLean County, Illinois, on November 30, 1871 — a son of George Albert Nickerson and Malinda Ann Johnson. (My own family file long carried November 20; his Indiana death certificate says November 30, and where the records argue, the man’s own record is the one I follow — the argument is shown at the end of this post rather than hidden.) The 1880 census finds him at eight years old in Wapella, De Witt County, Illinois, in a full house: his parents, brothers James, Everett, and little Richard, a baby sister Cora, and Jennie, sixteen. A farm boy in a farm family, one of many — nothing yet to say where his road would run.

His road ran to a Kentucky-born girl. Nancy Elizabeth Pratt was born September 12, 1873, in Estill County, Kentucky, a daughter of William Henry Harrison Pratt and Caroline M. Trent. Thomas and Nancy were married September 28, 1892, at Heyworth, Illinois — the McLean County marriage register itself says so (License No. 19759), with her obituary and the 1900 census in agreement. The register keeps the witnesses’ names too: Arthur Johnson and James A. Nickerson — Thomas’s own brother James stood up with him — and the minister was M. F. Ingraham, of the Christian church. Their first boy, Oliver, arrived in March 1894. Hold onto that Trent name, because it matters to this family twice over: Nancy’s mother Caroline was a daughter of Zachariah Green Trent — the sheriff and justice of the peace some of you met here as our Ancestor of the Week on October 11 — and of Matilda Coffman, the great-grandmother at the heart of my mother’s-side mystery. So when Thomas married Nancy, the Nickersons didn’t just gain a wife and mother. They married straight into the Trent line I have chased for years.

The marriage register, McLean County, Illinois, p. 305, License No. 19759: Thomas W. Nickerson and Nancy Pratt, married September 28, 1892, at Heyworth. Image via FamilySearch (film 007625296).

They settled in Pulaski County, Indiana — Nancy’s obituary says they came in 1893 and “lived here continually” — and Thomas built his living the way a horse-country man could: a livery and feed stable in Francesville. The old listing reads like a promise: “Livery & Feed Stable — Barns 5, Residence 35 — 1st class rigs.” In 1900 the census finds the young family in Salem Township: Thomas, 28, head of house; Nannie, 26; Oliver, 6; Orval, 4; and baby Viola, 1. By 1910 he’s working at the livery barn, and the house has filled out — Nancy, Ollie at 16, Orval at 14, Viola at 11, and Bessie at 9. Four children, a working stable, a church they belonged to. If you had passed through Francesville in those years and needed a rig, Thomas Nickerson is who the town would have sent you to.

Then the sorrows came, the way they did to so many families of that generation — not all at once, but one after another, until the shape of the family was changed for good.

Nancy had been sick, her obituary says, “much of the time during the past fourteen years.” In October 1915 she underwent an operation for acute abdominal trouble at the home of Mrs. Anna Banwart in Francesville. She rallied, and her recovery looked hopeful — and then, the paper says, “heart complications unlooked for counteracted her only chance and she sank into unconsciousness and death.” Her death certificate fixes the moment: Sunday, October 24, 1915, at two o’clock in the morning — the very words her obituary used. She was 42 years old. The Pythian Sisters of Francesville Temple No. 385 draped their charter in mourning for thirty days and sent their resolutions to “the bereaved husband and children.” She was laid to rest in Nauvoo Cemetery, outside Francesville, where her own Pratt kin already rested. Thomas was 43, with four children, the youngest fourteen.

Nancy’s death certificate, Indiana, 1915: died October 24, 1915, Francesville, Pulaski County. Indiana Death Certificates, 1899–2011, from Coni’s research files.

Three and a half years later came the knock every soldier’s family dreaded — except Ollie had nearly made it home. Oliver Holl Nickerson, the oldest boy, had enlisted on May 12, 1917, at Fort Thomas, Kentucky — Private First Class, 30th Infantry. He married Katherine Auer in August 1918. He was, the Francesville paper wrote, “soon to be released” when, on April 28, 1919, the bus he was riding near Camp Merritt, New Jersey — he was on his way to see his wife — met another bus head-on at the top of a hill. Seven people were killed. Ollie was not killed outright; he was taken to the hospital, where he died as surgeons amputated his crushed right leg. He was 25 years old. A comrade, Private Brown, escorted his body home as far as Monon. The funeral was held from the Christian church in Francesville, and Ollie was buried at Nauvoo, near his mother. The full newspaper account is in my files, and it is in the records below — I have not softened a word of it, because it was written by people who were there, and it deserves to be read the way they wrote it.

Oliver’s headstone application, U.S. Headstone Applications for Military Veterans, 1925–1963 (National Archives). From Coni’s research files.
Oliver’s tombstone, Nauvoo Cemetery, Pulaski County, Indiana. Photograph from Coni’s research files.

His younger brother Orville — Sergeant First Class Orville Albert Nickerson — had signed up ten days before Ollie, on May 2, 1917, at the same Fort Thomas. Orville came home: the Army transport lists carry him back, and he lived on in Plymouth, the son who signed his father’s death certificate as informant in 1946. We tell his piece of the story from those records, which are in the list below.

Orville Albert Nickerson, the sergeant. Photograph from Coni’s research files.

Thomas carried on. He married again, to Daisy Fenton — a widow when he met her, Daisy (Fenton) McClure; she is in the family photograph with him and his father George — and they had no known children. That marriage did not last: her death certificate records her as divorced, under the name Daisy McClure, working as a hospital maid in South Bend when she died there on April 29, 1929. She was brought home to Plymouth and laid in Oak Hill Cemetery on May 1, 1929 — the same ground where Thomas himself would rest seventeen years later.

Thomas Nickerson and Daisy (Fenton) McClure, with Thomas’s father George Nickerson. Photograph from Coni’s research files.
Daisy’s death certificate, Indiana, 1929: died April 29, 1929, South Bend; buried Oak Hill Cemetery, Plymouth. From Coni’s research files; her obituary came by the help of the Plymouth Public Library.

The censuses follow him the way they follow so many men of his time: 1920 in Plymouth, Marshall County, then 1930 and 1940 in Vernon, Jennings County, where the 1930 census taker wrote him down as a widower. Late in life he came back to Plymouth, and there, on Saturday, April 27, 1946, at 12:30 in the afternoon, at the Austin Nursing Home, after an illness of three weeks, Thomas William Nickerson died at 74. His obituary remembers him plainly: a member of the Christian Church, survived by his son Orville and his daughter Mrs. Bessie Gilbert, both of Plymouth, by ten grandchildren and eleven great-grandchildren, by a brother Otis in Canada and two sisters back in Illinois. He was buried April 30 in Oak Hill Cemetery, Plymouth.

1920 census, Plymouth, Marshall County, Indiana. National Archives; image from Coni’s research files.
1930 census, Vernon, Jennings County, Indiana (Roll 594, p. 4A). Image via FamilySearch.
1940 census, Vernon, Jennings County, Indiana. National Archives; image from Coni’s research files.
Thomas’s death certificate, Indiana, 1946: born November 30, 1871; died April 27, 1946, Plymouth, Marshall County. Indiana Death Certificates, 1899–2011, from Coni’s research files.

His estate took three more years to settle — real estate sold, a monument paid for, the funeral bill paid — and when the Marshall Circuit Court approved the final report in December 1949, the last $484.80 was divided among his heirs in careful equal shares. I want you to see one name on that list, because it’s where his story becomes mine: among the $40.40 shares — a granddaughter’s third of a daughter’s portion — stands Mildred Gilbert. Mildred Marie (Sheetz) Gilbert, my grandmother. Her mother was Thomas’s daughter Viola Beatrice Nickerson, who married Bernard Gregory Scheetz on November 11, 1919, in Pulaski County. Viola died in 1944, two years before her father — which is why, in 1949, her portion came down divided among her children.

So the line runs straight and documented: Thomas → Viola → Mildred → my mother Nancy → me. The livery-stable man of Francesville is my great-great-grandfather. And through Nancy Pratt, his children’s Trent blood runs back to Zachariah and Matilda too — two of my lines, joined in one Francesville household, in a house full of children, a mile from a livery barn.

Welcome home, Grandpa Thomas. The rigs are all motor cars now, but we still know the way to Nauvoo. 🕯️

— Coni Dubois

The records behind this story

Every claim above rests on one of these, from my own research files — the Ancestors of Coni Allen book, entries 30–31 and family.

  • 1880 United States Federal Census — Wapella, De Witt County, Illinois; Thomas W. Nickerson, 8, son of George A. & Malinda A. Nickerson. Roll T9_203, Page 464, ED 79.
  • 1900 United States Federal Census — Salem Township, Pulaski County, Indiana; Thomas W. Nickerson, head; Nannie E.; Oliver H., 6; Orval A., 4; Viola B., 1. (This census gives his birth as March 1871 — see the note below.)
  • 1910 United States Federal Census — Salem Township, Pulaski County, Indiana; Thomas Nickerson, works at livery barn; Nancy; Ollie, 16; Orval, 14; Viola, 11; Bessie, 9. Roll T624_375.
  • 1920 United States Federal Census — Plymouth Ward 2, Marshall County, Indiana. Roll T625_456, Page 15A, ED 169.
  • 1930 United States Federal Census — Vernon, Jennings County, Indiana; “Tom W Nickerson.” Roll 594, Page 4A, ED 16.
  • 1940 United States Federal Census — Vernon, Jennings County, Indiana; “Thomas W Nicherson.” Roll T627_1058, Page 6B, ED 40-16.
  • Indiana, Death Certificates, 1899–2011 — Thomas William Nickerson, 1946: Marshall County Board of Health Certificate of Death, Certificate #47, Book CH-32, Page 92; Registered No. 12647. Born November 30, 1871, McLean County, Illinois, son of George Nickerson and — Johnson; informant Orville Nickerson of Plymouth; died April 27, 1946, Austin Nursing Home, Plymouth; buried April 30, 1946, Oak Hill Cemetery, Plymouth.
  • Obituary of Thomas William Nickerson (Plymouth paper, April 1946): died Saturday afternoon, April 27, 1946, age 74; funeral at Danielson & VanGilder Funeral Home; burial Oak Hill Cemetery, April 30, 1946.
  • Final Report of the Estate of Thomas Nickerson — Marshall Circuit Court, September Term 1949; final distribution of $484.80, including Mildred Gilbert $40.40.
  • Obituary of Nancy Elizabeth (Pratt) Nickerson (Francesville paper, October 1915), with the Pythian Sisters’ Resolutions of Respect, Francesville Temple No. 385.
  • Indiana, Death Certificates, 1899–2011 — Nancy E. Nickerson: wife of Thomas Nickerson; daughter of Wm H. Pratt and Carolina Trent; died October 24, 1915, at 2 a.m., Francesville, Pulaski County; buried October 25, 1915, Nauvoo Cemetery.
  • Francesville newspaper account of Pvt. Oliver H. Nickerson’s death (May 9, 1919): Camp Merritt bus collision, April 28, 1919. Supported by the Indiana Gold Star Honor Roll, 1914–1918, and U.S. Headstone Applications for Military Veterans.
  • McLean County, Illinois, Marriage Register — License No. 19759, Register of Marriages, p. 305: license issued September 27, 1892; Thomas W. Nickerson, 21, of Heyworth, son of George Nickerson and — Johnson, married Nancy Pratt, 20, daughter of William Pratt and — Trent, on September 28, 1892, at Heyworth, by M. F. Ingraham, a Christian minister; witnesses Arthur Johnson and Jas A. Nickerson. (The clerk wrote “Pratt” in the groom’s name box; the entry’s own parent columns name him plain.)
  • Indiana, World War I, Enrollment Cards, 1917 — Orville Nickerson of Francesville: Army service from May 2, 1917, Fort Thomas, Kentucky; rank Sergeant First Class (FamilySearch). This is why no WWI draft registration card exists for Orville: he was already in the Army a month before registration day, June 5, 1917.
  • U.S. Army Transport Service Passenger Lists — Orville Albert Nickerson, returning home.
  • Indiana, Death Certificates, 1899–2011 — Daisy McClure (Daisy Fenton), Registered No. 420: born August 4, 1874, in Iowa, daughter of Lewis H. Fenton and Maryette Stephens; divorced, former husband Thos Nickerson; died April 29, 1929, South Bend, St. Joseph County; buried May 1, 1929, Oak Hill Cemetery, Plymouth.
  • Find A Grave — Thomas William Nickerson #81825788.
  • The book’s figures for this entry: the family photograph (Nancy with Thomas, Orville in his lap and Oliver at his side), shared by Cynthia Huntsman Haller, April 24, 2019; the portrait of Tom Nickerson, shared by HoldawayCarolWanlass1, May 9, 2019; Thomas’s grave; his death record (Marshall County Board of Health, purchased May 14, 2014); Nauvoo Cemetery.

Where the records disagreed, here is how I settled it — shown, not hidden. Thomas’s birth: his own death certificate says November 30, 1871, and his obituary agrees, so November 30 stands; my book’s November 20 and the 1900 census’s March 1871 do not. The marriage: the register itself gives September 28, 1892. Nancy’s death: her own certificate says October 24, 1915, at 2 a.m. — agreeing with her obituary’s “Sunday morning at two o’clock” — so October 24 stands. Nancy’s maiden name is Pratt in every record behind her; one published family history in my book spells it Platt, and I flag the variant rather than hide it. Thomas’s certificate records his late-life occupation as “Laborer”; his livery-stable years rest on the 1910 census and the Francesville listing. Clerks wrote what they heard — “Nicherson” among the spellings — and the family is the same.

This collection exists by the help of many — Cynthia Huntsman Haller, HoldawayCarolWanlass1, the Plymouth Public Library, and every cousin and clerk who kept a piece of it. Thank you, all.

© 2026 Ever Widening Circle Research by Coni Dubois LLC. All rights reserved.

Tintype portrait of Dorman J. Cortright and Elizabeth 'Eliza' Egbert Cortright
Posted in Ancestor of the Week

Ancestor of the Week: Born on Halloween — Dorman J. Cortright (1825–1872)

Posted on by conidubois.com

Some ancestors hide in plain sight, behind nothing more than the sound of their own name.

Dorman J. Cortright was born on Monday, October 31, 1825 — Halloween day — in Butler, Wayne County, New York, a son of Lt. Simeon Emerson Cortright and Margaret Haines. Sit with that a moment. Two hundred years ago this month, in a farming town in upstate New York, a Halloween baby opened his eyes — and nobody in that house could have guessed that his great-great-great-granddaughter would one day come looking for him in October, and find him by the sound of his name.

Because the name would not sit still. In the records he is Cortright, and he is Courtright. In other papers the clerks wrote it the way their ears heard it, and our family grew up saying it — “Cartright.” I grew up hearing it sounded out just that way. He was the same man every time: a farmer, a husband, a father. The spelling changed with whoever held the pen. That is how an ancestor gets lost — not because he left no trace, but because his trace is filed under three different names.

Tintype portrait of Dorman J. Cortright and Elizabeth 'Eliza' Egbert Cortright

On Tuesday, October 23, 1849, Dorman married Elizabeth Egbert — “Eliza” — a daughter of John L. Egbert and Lydia Crandall, born May 12, 1829, in Tompkins, Delaware County, New York. The newlyweds began their life under her father’s roof: the 1850 census finds them in Veteran, Chemung County, New York, in John L. Egbert’s household, Dorman listed at 24, a married son-in-law, Eliza beside him at 22.

Then the family did what so many New York families did — they went west. By the fall of 1860 the census taker found them in Clarence, Calhoun County, Michigan: Dorman — written down as Courtright — 35 years old and farming, Eliza keeping house, and their little girl Emma five years old, with baby Doy just arrived. There had been a first son, Ferdinand, born in Clarence on March 18, 1851 — and lost on July 10, 1853, “a lil over 2 yrs old,” as the family’s own note says. Some griefs this family carried quietly for a very long time.

Eliza did not get to grow old. She died in Clarence on October 16, 1864, at only 35, and was laid to rest in Clarence Center Cemetery — Section B, Row 5. Dorman married again, to Elizabeth Bennett of Erie (born April 2, 1833), and they had a daughter, Ella, born in 1868. In the 1870 census Dorman is still in Clarence, 44 years old, working by then as a house carpenter, with Emma, 15, at school.

His own time ran out on June 15, 1872. The county death record gives his age as 47 and the cause: consumption — the record’s word for TB. His gravestone, carved by the family who buried him, says June 16 and gives his age to the day — 46 years, 7 months, 16 days, counted from his Halloween birthday. The record and the stone stand one day apart, and I go with the record — but both are here for you to see. He was buried in Clarence Center Cemetery, Plot B05.10 — back in Section B, in the same ground as Eliza. That fall, on October 29, 1872, his estate went through the Calhoun County probate court — Case No. 2184, a sixteen-page packet of petitions and administration papers, the whole paperwork of a life being settled by the people he left behind.

Calhoun County Return of Deaths, 1872, page 128 — Dorman J. Cortright's line, record No. 335
Calhoun County Return of Deaths, 1872, p. 128 — record No. 335: Dorman J. Cortright, died June 15, 1872.
Facing page of the Calhoun County death return — cause of death: consumption
The facing page of the same return — cause of death: consumption; born New York; farmer.
Gravestone of Dorman J. Cortright, Clarence Center Cemetery
His gravestone, Clarence Center Cemetery — it reads June 16, 1872, aged 46 yrs 7 mos 16 ds.

But here is where Dorman stops being just a name I found, and becomes mine.

His daughter Emma Estelle Cortright — born Friday, June 8, 1855, in Chemung, New York — grew up and married D Elton Mathye Griffith on Friday, July 4, 1873, in Lansing, Michigan, he 23 and she 18. (The marriage record spells her Courtright one more time, for good measure.) Emma lived to 84, dying in Rochester, Michigan, on October 22, 1939 — and her Michigan death certificate, filled out in a new century, names her parents one final time: father, Dorman Courtright; mother, Eliza Egbert. Among Emma and Elton’s ten children was a son named Ernest Emmit Griffith — the young father some of you met here as our Ancestor of the Day on September 26, lost in the dynamite explosion of 1915. Ernest’s daughter Marion was my grandmother. Her son Rex was my dad.

So the Halloween baby of 1825 is my great-great-great-grandfather — and the line from his New York cradle to a porch in Louisiana runs straight and documented, census by census, record by record.

This week, two hundred years after he was born on Halloween, we light his candle first.

Welcome home, Grandpa Dorman. We found you — under every name they ever wrote you down with. 🕯️

— Coni Dubois

The records behind this story

Every claim above rests on one of these, from my own research files.

  • 1850 United States Federal Census — Veteran, Chemung County, New York (Sept 30, 1850); Dorman Cortright, 24, in the household of his father-in-law John L. Egbert. NARA M432_486, p. 120.
  • 1860 United States Federal Census — Clarence, Calhoun County, Michigan (Sept 11, 1860); “Dorman Courtright,” 35, farmer; Eliza; Emma, 5; Doy, 1. NARA M653_539.
  • 1870 United States Federal Census — Clarence, Calhoun County, Michigan (July 13, 1870); Dorman J. Courtright, 44, house carpenter; Emma, 15, at school. Roll 666, p. 519.
  • Michigan, Wills and Probate Records, 1784–1980 — Dorman J. Cortright, probate Oct 29, 1872, Calhoun County; Case No. 2184; Probate Packets 2153-2201 (16 images: petitions, orders, administration papers). Michigan Probate Court (Calhoun County).
  • Michigan, Marriage Records, 1867–1952 — Dorman’s second marriage (Elizabeth Bennett); and daughter Emma’s marriage to D. Elton Griffiths, July 4, 1873, Lansing, Ingham County, Record No. 2168; witnesses Ida M. Griffith & Charles M. Braduer; performed by J. W. Robinson.
  • Michigan Death Certificates, 1921–1952 — Emma Estelle Griffith, d. Oct 22, 1939, Rochester, Oakland County; parents named: Dorman Courtright & Eliza Egbert. GS Film 001973061, Image 00262.
  • Michigan, Death Records, 1867–1950 / Deaths and Burials Index, 1867–1995 — incl. the Calhoun County Return of Deaths, 1872 (p. 128, record No. 335): Dorman J. Cortright, died June 15, 1872, Clarence; age 47, married; cause: consumption; born New York; farmer; parents unknown — and Emma Estelle Griffith.
  • Find A Grave — Dorman J. Cortright #11133561 (Clarence Center Cemetery, Plot B05.10; his stone reads June 16, 1872, aged 46 yrs 7 mos 16 ds); Elizabeth “Eliza” Egbert Cortright #20160553 (Section B, Row 5); Emma Estelle Cortright Griffith #61105532 (Mount Avon Cemetery, Rochester, Addition 3, Plot 644, Space 8).
  • County histories on the Internet Archive — Peirce, History of Calhoun County, Michigan (L. H. Everts & Co.); Biographical Review of Calhoun County, Michigan (Hobart & Mather / Benson).
  • U.S., Indexed County Land Ownership Maps, 1860–1918 — Cortright, Clarence, Calhoun County (1894).
  • From my own notes (Dec 10, 2010): I called the Rochester clerk’s office and spoke with Toni — five Griffiths rest at Mount Avon; Emma lies in Addition 3, Plot 644, Space 8, and her son Dill in Space 4.

A note on the name: the surname appears across the records as Cortright, Courtright, and in family speech as “Cartright.” These are the same family — clerks writing what they heard. This post uses the spelling carried in my family file: Cortright.

Who do you want to see next? Tell me below.

© 2026 Ever Widening Circle Research by Coni Dubois LLC. All rights reserved.

1860 U.S. federal census, Sneedville, Hancock County, Tennessee, showing Zachariah G. Trent enumerated as "Z G Lunt"
Posted in Ancestor of the Week, Coni Dubois

Ancestor of the Week: The Sheriff Who Left a Paper Trail a Mile Long — Zachariah Green Trent (c. 1801–1860)

Posted on by conidubois.com

He was the law in Hancock County, Tennessee. He laid out roads, settled disputes, collected taxes, and owned 830 acres of East Tennessee farmland. He married three times, fathered children with each wife, and when he died around August of 1860, they buried him in the family cemetery in Sneedville.

This is my 4th great-grandfather — Zachariah Green Trent. And if Matilda, his third wife, is the mystery of my mother’s line, Zachariah is the anchor. He left a paper trail a mile long, and today I’m walking every inch of it with you.

The chain, so you can follow it home: me → my mom, Nancy Lee Gilbert → my grandma Mildred Marie Scheetz → Viola Beatrice Nickerson → Nancy Pratt → Caroline Trent Pratt → Matilda, Zachariah’s wife. Every step mother to daughter, and Zachariah stands right there beside Matilda at the far end of it.

The Offices He Held

Zachariah wasn’t just a farmer who happened to live in Tennessee. The records show a man his community trusted with real authority.

Justice of the Peace — appointed June 11, 1832, in Hawkins County, Tennessee. In frontier Tennessee, a justice of the peace wasn’t a ceremonial title. He married people, settled small disputes, witnessed documents, and kept the peace in a county that was still rough around the edges. When your neighbors pick you for that job, it says something about who you were.

1829 newspaper clipping showing Zachariah Trent appointed justice of the peace for Hawkins County, Tennessee.
Zachariah Trent appointed justice of the peace for Hawkins County — National Banner and Nashville Whig, November 7, 1829, p. 3. (Newspapers.com clipping.)

3rd Sheriff of Hancock County, Tennessee — serving 1849–1850. The third man to hold that office in a young county. He would have served papers, collected taxes, kept order, and ridden out to wherever he was needed. Hancock County in 1849 was mountain country — Sneedville, the Clinch River valley, farms carved out of ridges. Being sheriff there meant knowing every hollow and every family.

Now, I want to address something directly, because that’s how we do this. There’s a family story that Zachariah was killed in the line of duty as sheriff. I love that story — what genealogist wouldn’t? But his sheriff service ended in 1850, and he died around 1860. Ten years later. I have no record, no newspaper account, no county document confirming how he died. Until I find proof, it stays out of the fact column. It might even be a different ancestor entirely. Facts only. Always the facts.

The Land

On April 30, 1830, Zachariah acquired 830 acres from Samuel Nicholson. Then on March 18, 1833, he acquired additional land from William D. Trent and Alexander Trent.

Eight hundred and thirty acres. Let that number sit with you for a minute. In 1830 East Tennessee, that wasn’t a farm — that was an estate. That was a man building something meant to last, meant to pass down.

He shows up in the Hawkins County court minutes too: on juries laying out roads in 1831, 1836, and 1837. Present at court in August 1831. Involved in a writ for money owed in July 1838. On the 1836 Hawkins County tax list and the early Tennessee tax records. This is a man woven into the civic fabric of his county — not passing through, but planted.

U.S. federal census non-population schedule, 1850–1880, entry for Zachariah G. Trent

The Census Trail — Every Decade I Can Find Him

Here’s Zachariah walking through the federal census, decade by decade:

1830 — Hawkins, Tennessee. Seven people in the household. He’s a young man building a family. (NARA Series M19, Roll 178, Page 83.)

1830 U.S. federal census, Hawkins County, Tennessee, listing the household of Zachariah Green Trent

1840 — Knox, Kentucky. Just two in the household this time. The family was in transition — and if you’ve followed my Brick Wall Wednesday on Matilda, you know these were complicated years. (NARA M704, Roll 116, Page 315.)

1840 U.S. federal census, Knox County, Kentucky, listing the household of Zachariah Green Trent

1850 — Sneedville, Hancock County, Tennessee. He’s here with Matilda now, listed as his wife. (Subdivision 32, Roll M432_881, Page 25B.)

1860 — Sneedville, Hancock County, Tennessee. Age 59, farming, with Matilda. And here’s the part that makes every genealogist smile: the enumerator mangled the surname as “Z G Lunt.” Lunt! If you’re searching for this family and can’t find them, try the mangled versions. Enumerators, bless them.

1860 U.S. federal census, Sneedville, Hancock County, Tennessee, showing Zachariah G. Trent enumerated as "Z G Lunt"

That 1860 census is the last time anyone sees Zachariah on paper. He died about August 1860, in Sneedville. He’s buried in the Trent Cemetery there — Find a Grave Memorial #130592796.

About His Name

You’ll find him as Zachary, Zachariah, and Zechariah Green Trent — and in the records themselves as Zachari, Little Zack, Zak, Zackie, “Z G Trent,” even “Zackasi Trent” and “Fackariah Trent.” I’m mentioning it once so you can find him when you search. That’s just genealogy — names shift like sand, and his is no exception.

Three Marriages

Zachariah was married three times that I can document. Here’s each one, honestly laid out:

1. Naomi Taylor Greene — married 1818, Hawkins, Tennessee. Naomi was born January 7, 1801, in Rowan County, North Carolina, daughter of Jeremiah and Anne (Hartley) Greene. Her maiden name was Taylor — she’d married a Greene first, and was known as Naomi Greene when she married Zachariah. She died December 26, 1877, in Morristown, Hamblen County, Tennessee, and she’s buried in the old city cemetery there.

Seven children I can document: Nancy Trent, John Hicks Trent, James William Trent, Stokely Donaldson Trent, Manila Trent, Cinthea Greene Trent, and Mary Jane Trent. Manila married Jefferson Baker, and their descendants carry this line forward.

2. Myra Singleton — “partners” about 1832, Hawkins, Tennessee. I want to be careful here: the record doesn’t call this a marriage. It says “partners.” Myra (also recorded as Mira, Miriah, Miry) Singleton was born between 1812 and 1814 in Lee Valley, Hawkins, Tennessee. Their children carried “Singleton” as a middle name: Frances “Frankie” Singleton Trent and Lucinda Singleton Trent. There may have been a third girl, Rhoda. Myra later appears as Myra Lawson — she married a Lawson after Zachariah. The records give me “partners, 1832,” and that’s what I’m reporting.

3. Matilda — wife by the 1850 census. My Matilda. She appears as Zachariah’s wife in the 1850 and 1860 censuses. I have no confirmed marriage date for them. Four children I can document: Sarah Jane Trent, Caroline M. Trent, Nancy Trent, and Daniel Lewis Trent.

Now here’s a confusion I want to flag for fellow researchers, because it will trip you up: Zachariah had two daughters named Nancy — one by Naomi (the elder) and one by Matilda. As descendant Caroline Tassey wrote to me: “the two Nancy Trents has caused much confusion.” She’s right. When you’re researching this family, always check which Nancy.

Caroline’s Obituary — The Daughter Who Carried the Line

Caroline Trent Pratt — Zachariah and Matilda’s daughter, my 3rd great-grandmother — got a beautiful sendoff in The Argos Reflector on November 13, 1919. Born June 12, 1845, in Hancock County, Tennessee, she married William Harrison Pratt in 1865, and the paper called their marriage “one long happy and harmonious experience.” Ten children, twenty-nine grandchildren living, four great-grandchildren. She died November 5, 1919, at 74, a faithful member of the Church of Christ at Francesville, Indiana. Through Caroline, Zachariah’s blood runs straight down to my mother, my grandmother, and me.

Her death notice ran in the Weekly Republican the same week (November 13, 1919, p. 5) — and it spells her name “Tratt.” Another variant for the search files. It notes she died Wednesday at 2:45 at her daughter Mrs. Jesse Tomlinson’s home in Argos, suffered a stroke the Saturday before, and her body was shipped Friday to Francesville, Indiana for funeral services.

William Pratt, Caroline Trent Pratt, and Orville Nickerson standing outside a house, early 1900s.
William Pratt and Caroline Trent Pratt with Orville Nickerson (center). Caroline was Zachariah and Matilda’s daughter — my 3rd great-grandmother. (Family photo, identifications handwritten on the back.)

Pictured left to right: William Harrison Pratt (my 3rd great-grandfather), Orville Nickerson (center), and Caroline Trent Pratt (my 3rd great-grandmother, Zachariah and Matilda’s daughter). The identifications are handwritten on the back of the original — it’s a real photo postcard from the early 1900s, the kind families mailed to each other.

The DNA Backs the Paper

My files carry a research note: “3 Trent lines and their DNA.” A Family Tree DNA Trent Project participant descends from William D. Trent Sr. and Charity Burton — and also from Zachariah G. Trent and Naomi Greene. The Y-DNA results show the William D. Trent line matches the Trent lines of Campbell County, Virginia, including the lines of Alexander Trent.

Zachariah was the son of Alexander Trent, who served in the War of 1812 — and Zachariah was Alexander’s heir, with a War Bounty Land Warrant in his name as Alexander’s heir. The Trent Y-DNA results fall into three distinct groups, and the East Tennessee/Campbell County group — which includes Zachariah’s line — all match each other.

What that means: the DNA supports the paper trail connecting Zachariah to Alexander Trent to the Campbell County, Virginia Trents. The paternal side is solid.

A Same-Name Warning

Fellow researchers, heed this one. In my files there are two Confederate Civil War records for a “Zachariah Trent” — a private in Capt. Patteson’s Company, Virginia Heavy Artillery (Campbell Battery), enlisted March 5, 1862.

That is not our Zachariah. He died about August 1860 — two years before that young man enlisted. This is a different, younger Zachariah Trent, and it’s exactly the kind of same-name trap that can send your research sideways for months. As Caroline Tassey warned me: “there were two Zachariah Trents at that time.” Always check the dates. Always.

What I Still Don’t Know (The Honest List)

How he died. The killed-in-service story is unproven — no record, no newspaper, nothing. It stays out of the fact column until I find proof.

Whether the Native ancestry claim holds. Family tradition says Zachariah was reported to have Native ancestry, and the Bolin line connects to Saponi tradition. But it’s a family/research claim, not a proven fact. I’m still digging.

His exact birth year and place. Between 1801 and 1803, Grayson County, Virginia — though one source says Hawkins, Tennessee. Census ages wander, as we all know.

Why He Matters

Zachariah Green Trent is my 4th great-grandfather, and he’s the reason the Trent line has a paper trail at all. Matilda may be the mystery — but Zachariah is the proof that the family was real, rooted, and respected. A justice of the peace. A sheriff. A landowner. A man whose name shows up in court minutes, tax lists, land deeds, and census rolls across three decades.

And through his daughter Caroline — my 3rd great-grandmother, who married William Harrison Pratt and carried the family from Tennessee to Kentucky to Indiana — his blood runs straight down to my mother, my grandmother, and me.

He left a paper trail a mile long. I just walked it with you.

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Sources

  • Justice of the Peace appointment, June 11, 1832, Hawkins County, Tennessee
  • Justice of the Peace appointment — National Banner and Nashville Whig (Nashville, TN), November 7, 1829, p. 3 (Newspapers.com)
  • 3rd Sheriff of Hancock County, Tennessee, 1849–1850
  • Land acquisition: 830 acres from Samuel Nicholson, April 30, 1830; additional land from William D. Trent and Alexander Trent, March 18, 1833
  • Hawkins County court minutes: road juries (1831, 1836, 1837); present at court (August 1831); writ for money owed (July 1838)
  • 1836 Hawkins County tax list; Tennessee early tax records
  • U.S. Federal Census: 1830 Hawkins, TN (NARA M19, Roll 178, Page 83); 1840 Knox, KY (NARA M704, Roll 116, Page 315); 1850 Hancock, TN (Roll M432_881, Page 25B); 1860 Hancock, TN (NARA M653, Page 462 — enumerated as “Z G Lunt”)
  • US Selected Federal Census Non-Population Schedules, 1850–1880 — Zachariah G. Trent
  • War Bounty Land Warrant — Zachariah Green Trent, heir of Alexander Trent (War of 1812)
  • Find a Grave Memorial #130592796 — Zachariah Green Trent, Trent Cemetery, Sneedville, Hancock County, Tennessee
  • Tennessee State Marriages, 1780–2002 — Caroline M. Trent marriage record
  • Obituary of Mrs. Caroline Pratt, The Argos Reflector, November 13, 1919, p. 1 (courtesy Marshall County Historical Society, Plymouth, Indiana — researched by Judy McCollough, Historical Archive Manager, April 2003)
  • Death notice of Mrs. Caroline Tratt, Weekly Republican, November 13, 1919, p. 5 (courtesy Marshall County Historical Society, Plymouth, Indiana)
  • Caroline Trent Pratt death certificate, Marshall County, Indiana, Certificate #307 (father “Zachari Trent”)
  • Family Tree DNA Trent Project — Y-DNA results, East Tennessee/Campbell County group
  • Brick Wall Wednesday #1: Matilda — Who Was She Before She Married Zachariah Green Trent? (conidubois.com) — companion piece on Matilda
  • Personal correspondence: Douglas Trent to Rhonda Yamauchi, June 2003; Caroline Tassey to Coni Dubois, May and September 2013

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