Mummey Mystery #
2
In
a remote cemetery between two large lakes in western Harrison County, Ohio is a
grave that marks the beginning of an unsolved Mummey family mystery. McGee Cemetery is located on a county road
outside the not-so-thriving metropolis of Deerfield, Ohio.
The
person buried beneath the gravestone was born as Nancy Coultrap. The daughter of a pioneer Harrison County
family, her life was all too brief - married at 19, gave birth to three
children, and died at age 26, probably having never left the boundaries of the
county.
But
the mystery isn't about her. It’s about
her husband. The man she married in
1838 was named Alexander Mummey. The
marriage occurred in Harrison County, and is properly recorded in the official
records. Alexander would later re-marry
after Nancy died in January 1845, and have more children with his second wife. The family ended up in Iowa, in the small
farming community of Onawa in the western part of the state. He died there in 1878 and is buried in the
town cemetery. The mystery: who was
this Alexander, and was he connected to Christopher Mummey?
That
he is related in unquestionable. We know that Christopher's descendants moved
from Brooke County, West Virginia to Harrison County, Ohio to Morgan County,
Ohio to Dewitt County, Iowa. While Alexander ended up in western Iowa after he
left Harrison County, he stopped in Morgan County and Dewitt County along the
way, and was there at the same times as Christopher's families. Furthermore,
one of Alexander's children, as part of a pension claim, requested the
testimony of “Ellen Hammond of McConnelsville” to verify a marriage. The only
Ellen Hammond in Morgan County at that time was Christopher Mummey’s daughter Eleanor,
who had married William Hammond. Thus, it is impossible for there not to be a
relationship between Alexander and Christopher.
The
questions arise when we try to determine who his parents could be. Alexander,
according to census records, was born in 1814 in Virginia. In all likelihood,
this was Brooke County in the panhandle of what is now West Virginia. This fits
with the known migration route and dates of the family.
So,
was Alexander a son of Christopher's? This would mean that was Christopher
still having kids at age 61. If the mother was Katie Smith, from a 1775
marriage, she would be well into her 50's, awful old to be having children. If
the mother was Sarah Wright, married in 1787, she would at least be in her
40's, still somewhat old to be giving birth, but not impossible. Of course, the
youngest known child of Christopher is Thomas, born in 1807, so a birth seven
years later is not outside the realm of possibility.
But,
if Alexander was Christopher's son, why did he, at age 10, stay in Harrison
County when the family went to Morgan County in 1824? Granted, the distance
isn't that far by today's standards, but I can't imagine there was a great deal
of traffic back and forth in that era.
Also, no mail delivery, no telephones and no cell phones!
Of
course, we do know that Christopher's son Charles stayed behind when his dad
left, having married in Harrison County in 1821. Charles didn't follow until
1848. Could Charles be Alexander's dad?
While
Charles was old enough to be Alexander's father, there is no record of an
earlier marriage, and I would expect an illegitimate child to stay with the
mother's family and be given that family's name. So Charles as father is
possible - but not likely.
It
might be that Alexander was left to help his older brother (or uncle) work the
farm, as Charles' children were too young at the time to be of much use. But how would you prove such a thing?
In
any case, we have nothing that gives us a clue as to the exact relationship
between the two families - we just know that the truth must be out there.
