III. Neal – Vanderpool – Zink

My father, Charles Glenn Neal,¹ was born at the home of his maternal grandparents, Samuel Green Vanderpool and Anabel {Zink} Vanderpool, near Hymera, Indiana.² The date of his birth was April 29, 1906.³ In his reminiscences, my father said that he was born in his grandfather's "log cabin," a structure we will try to identify a little later on in this section.⁴

My father died of prostate cancer on December 29, 1982, in the apartment (H-262) that he and my mother shared at 2013 Medford in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He is buried alongside my mother at Michigan Memorial Park, a cemetery that is located near Carleton, Michigan (west of Flat Rock).⁵

My father's father was CHARLES MCKENDRE⁶ NEAL, a minister of the Protestant denomination known as the Church of Christ. My father's mother was GLENN {VANDERPOOL} NEAL. Charles M. Neal was born on April 13, 1878, probably on the farm in Hamilton Township, Sullivan County, Indiana, where his parents lived at the time.⁷ According to information that my grandfather passed down to me, Glenn Vanderpool was born on May 14, 1884.⁸ The 1900 census gives her birthplace as Indiana, but I could not find at the Indiana Historical Society (IHS) any record of her birth in any of the most likely counties in the state.⁹ Indiana, like most other states, did not begin to collect vital statistics like births and deaths until late in the 19th century (in 1882, in Indiana's case), and even for years thereafter its collection of that information was spotty. I think it most likely that she was born in Sullivan County, Indiana, as a later section will show.

Charles M. Neal and Glenn Vanderpool were married in Sullivan County, Indiana,¹⁰ on April 9, 1905.¹¹ My father was their first and only child together, for Glenn {Vanderpool} Neal died in Hymera of infectious complications of childbirth on May 7, 1906 – just a little over a week after my father was born. She is buried in the Bethel Cemetery in Hymera.¹² Charles M. Neal died of uremic poisoning in the Clark County Hospital in Winchester, Kentucky, on November 9, 1956. He is buried in Winchester Cemetery.¹³

We will explore the line of Charles M. Neal in due course, but first we will trace that of Glenn {Vanderpool} Neal. Glenn Vanderpool was the daughter of SAMUEL GREEN¹⁴ VANDERPOOL and ANABEL {ZINK} VANDERPOOL.¹⁵ He was born on November 18, 1847, probably in Lawrence County, Indiana. She was born in Greene County, Indiana, on February 16, 1861. Samuel and Anabel are buried together in the K of P¹⁶ Cemetery just outside of Hymera. Their joint grave marker¹⁷ does not bear their dates of death. I have not yet found an official report of the date of death for Samuel Green Vanderpool, but one source says that he died (probably in Hymera, Indiana) on March 2, 1946 – just shy of the century mark. According to a newspaper obituary, Anabel {Zink} Vanderpool died at her home on the afternoon of July 17, 1948.¹⁸

My grandfather wrote that Samuel Green Vanderpool and Anabel Zink were married on April 14, 1878 – just one day after my grandfather himself (whom their daughter, Glenn, would marry) had been born. The marriage records of Clay County, Indiana, show, however, that the couple was wed on April 11, 1879. The officiating minister was a man named Abraham Briley.

Finding Samuel Green Vanderpool on the census before 1900 was not always easy, as we shall see, but from the 1890s onward at least he and Anabel can be consistently located in one place: near Hymera in Jackson Township of Sullivan County, Indiana. They are shown living here in 1900, 1910, 1920, and 1930 – the last census information that is available until early 2012, when the National Archives will make available the 1940 census.¹⁹ In addition, Samuel Green Vanderpool is listed on two other, earlier, censuses. In 1850, just two years old, he is in his parents' household in Lawrence County, Indiana. Ten years later, he lives with his widowed mother in Clay County, Indiana; now he is shown as 11 years of age.²⁰ (These censuses had the same official date, June 1, and yet young Samuel's two ages were calculated differently. We must keep in mind that ages shown on the censuses are not entirely reliable.)

In 1870 and 1880, though, we have to look harder to locate Samuel Green Vanderpool – and we find some surprises when we do find him. The 1870 census was a special challenge since without any index at all (at the time I was researching Samuel Green Vanderpool – there are now indexes available on line) the researcher's only resort was a tedious line-by-line search. After scanning dozens of census sheets, I came across Samuel (22 years old) in Vigo Township of Knox County, Indiana. He is described as a farm laborer. Samuel lives next to a man who must be his older brother, John M. Vanderpool, also a farm laborer, but it is not evident from the census information for whom either of them work. Samuel has personal property in 1870 valued at $200.

Many years later, using an on-line index to verify some information, I inadvertently discovered, to my considerable surprise, that Samuel Green Vanderpool is actually enumerated a second time in 1870 – also in Vigo Township of Knox County. The first listing, cited above, is dated August 18; the second, on a later sheet, is dated September 5. Both show Samuel and his family lived near the Edwardsport post office, which is quite close to the Greene County line. This second listing (recorded by the same enumerator) is unmistakably the same family, as both adults and both children are correctly named, although ages vary slightly – Samuel, for instance, is shown as being only 21 years old on the later entry.

It seems safe to conclude that the Vanderpools moved while the enumerator was making his rounds of the township, and so they were captured on the census twice within a three-week period. It is also possible, however, that they had already moved before August 18 but the enumerator, adhering to his instructions, recorded their place of abode as of the official date of the census, June 1; in that case, he erred in listed them the second time, since they were not living there on that date. It is more likely that the enumerator simply encountered Samuel and family twice and recorded them twice.

According to the 1870 census, Samuel Green Vanderpool is married – not to Anabel Zink (whom he married in 1878) but to a woman named Lydia Vanderpool, age 20 years (19 years on the second entry). This woman, born Lydia A. Reeves, was the widow of Benjamin Rice Chambers, whom she had married on May 21, 1866.²¹ After Chambers died (having been struck by lightning sometime between 1866 and 1868), she and Samuel Vanderpool were married on October 25, 1868. Both of these marriages (Chambers-Reeves and Vanderpool-Chambers) took place in Knox County, Indiana. Lydia died of tuberculosis on July 2, 1875, three years before Samuel Green Vanderpool married Anabel Zink.

The children listed in Samuel Green Vanderpool's household on the 1870 census sheets tell more of the story. Lydia and David R. Chambers had had a daughter, Rosetta, and this girl, age three years in 1870, is listed bearing the last name of Chambers. The 1870 census shows another young female (just 1 year old on the first entry and 10 months old on the second); she is named Eliza Vanderpool, and so she must be the first child of Samuel and Lydia. This is confirmed by information in my files that identifies two daughters of Samuel and Lydia: Louisa Jane²² (born in 1869) and Lillian Leona (born in 1872).²³ I also found records for both of these daughters in the vital statistics at the IHS.²⁴ Louisa is undoubtedly the "Eliza" listed on the 1870 census.

By the time of the 1880 census, things have changed: Anabel is now Samuel's wife. The Soundex²⁵ index for that year's census includes only those households with children under the age of ten years and so should include Samuel Green Vanderpool, but he is not found in that index. Again searching the census, line by line through numerous counties and townships, I eventually discovered him living in Lewis Township of Clay County, Indiana. He is listed as a farm laborer, 31 years old, and married, who is living with the family of an F.J. Briley (and near some Chambers families). Both of Samuel's children live nearby, Lilly with an Absolom Briley and Louisa with Nathan Stout, the son-in-law of Rebecca {Stark} Chastain, whom we will meet when we discuss that family.²⁶ One supposes that Samuel left Knox County after Lydia's death in 1875, arrived back in Clay County (where his mother lived) by 1878, met and married Anabel there, and boarded his children with these two families. There is no evidence to suggest that the Vanderpool and Zink families had known each other in Clay County before Samuel went off to Knox County and there married Lydia, but it is possible that they did.

There is an oddity here, however. Anabel's parents, two more persons we will meet later, William R. Zink and Sarah Elizabeth {Rickabaugh} Zink, whom we will meet later, also live in Clay County. And even though Samuel and Anabel had been married for more than two years in 1880, she is listed in her parents' household – and as Anabel Zink, strangely enough. One imagines that Samuel actually lives in the Zink household as well but was enumerated a few miles away on the farm where he is working during the day, but it is also possible he is boarding with the Briley family. We know from a short memoir written by one of Samuel and Anabel's other children, Glenn's sister Birdie, that when Birdie was born in 1883 her parents were living upstairs from the Zinks on the farm of a Mr. Foxworthy,²⁷ two miles from Hymera, and it is reasonable to think they might also have been living with the Zinks in 1880.

But there seems to be more to the story of Samuel and Anabel Zink in 1880, for not only is she listed as Anabel Zink in that year but her census entry shows a small D in the column for her marital status. Unless the census enumerator erred somehow, or got the wrong information from someone outside the family, we are led to suspect that sometime after their marriage in 1878 the couple decided to divorce (or, more likely, to separate, a divorce being rather difficult to obtain during that era) before the 1880 census was taken.²⁸ Thereafter, they reunited and had their first child together in 1882 – and, it should be said, remained married for another sixty years and more. It may be that the disparity in their ages caused a brief disruption in what proved to be a long and harmonious relationship, but we cannot say more without additional information.

Census and other records help us to construct a likely scenario for the movements of Samuel and Anabel Vanderpool between 1880 and 1900 (there being no 1890 census to assist us). We know that Samuel's mother had inherited from her father, Peter Chastain (another man we will meet later on), 40 acres in Lewis Township of Clay County, Indiana, and presumably she lived on that land until her departure for Kansas sometime before 1880 – the details about this move are given below. It is clear from the 1880 census that the young Vanderpool couple is not living on that land. Based on what the records tell us, our scenario would probably suppose that they either remained in Clay County through the 1880s or perhaps moved a few miles west, just over the county line (the western boundary of Lewis Township), into Jackson Township of Sullivan County. Here, we know, they purchased land in December 1890 (a lot in the town of Pittsburg, later called Hymera). This purchase was soon followed by another the next year, the first segment of the farmland north of town where they would reside until they both died during the 1940s.²⁹

In fact, there was a surprising departure from this imagined scenario. All of the documentary records in Indiana reveal nothing about some other intriguing aspects of the history of Samuel Green Vanderpool and his family. We are indebted to daughter Birdie for describing these aspects in the memoir that she wrote (at age 95). There are some discrepancies between her account and other records that survive, but we can piece together enough information to support her statements, and there is no reason to doubt the general accuracy of what she wrote. What she tells us is very helpful in charting the movements of Samuel Green Vanderpool and his family during these years.

According to Birdie, sometime in mid-1883 Samuel and his father-in-law, William R. Zink, decided "to sell out and go to Sullivan and buy a hotel." It is not clear what Samuel had to sell, since there is no deed of purchase or sale for him in Sullivan County until 1890, and there is never a deed of sale for his father-in-law in that county. Birdie says that her family lived in Sullivan, the county seat of Sullivan County, for two years, during which time Glenn Vanderpool was born in the hotel. At about this time, Birdie relates, William R. Zink's parents died and left a large farm, but it had to be divided among the (several) children. She indicates that Samuel G. Vanderpool and his father-in-law ended their hotel partnership at that time, after which the former took his family west. Birdie's account clashes here, though, with what we know from other sources: although as we shall soon see the Vanderpools did head for Kansas at about this time, William R. Zink's parents (Michael Zink and Clarissa {Hughbanks} Zink, to whom we will return later) died in 1888 and 1889, respectively, which is quite a bit later than in Birdie's chronology. It seems likely that Birdie simply misremembered the actual sequence of events in this instance, but we are still left wondering about the circumstances that would explain the purchase of the hotel.

Can we determine which hotel Glenn might have been born in? According to the Sanborn insurance map for Sullivan, drawn up just a few years later (in January of 1888), there was a sizable McCammon Hotel on the northwest corner of Washington and State, with an entrance on the corner itself at 211 Washington Street.³⁰ This hotel opened in early 1881, so its construction and the move into Sullivan that Birdie describes occurred at about the same time. A William McCammon is listed as the hotel's owner a few years later; did he purchase it from Samuel Green Vanderpool and William R. Zink, or might they have actually have managed the hotel for McCammon, the owner all the while?³¹ It is easy to see how the Vanderpool children, including young Birdie, might not have grasped the distinction between owning and only managing the hotel for someone else. One wonders where Samuel and his father-in-law could have gotten sufficient capital to purchase the hotel anyhow (though it must be noted that William R. Zink's father owned considerable property and so may have been affluent enough to have provided significant assistance).

Sullivan also had a Depot Hotel on Depot Street, just across the railroad tracks (on the southeast corner of the next block, at 308 Depot Street), and a National House at 395 Main Street. Both of these hotels were smaller than the McCammon Hotel, and it seems probable that if Samuel and his father-in-law owned a hotel in Sullivan it was one of them, which would have been more affordable than the McCammon Hotel. As the county seat, Sullivan evidently had still other hotels that do not appear on the Sanborn insurance map (which covers only a portion of the town). Without more information we cannot pin down exactly where Glenn Vanderpool was reportedly born.³²

Birdie goes on to say that at about the time Glenn was born their father Samuel got word that his mother, a woman named Sarah {Chastain} Vanderpool, was very ill in Oklahoma. In fact, Samuel's mother was living in Chautauqua County, Kansas, in the southern tier of Kansas counties adjoining the Oklahoma border. So it was that soon after Glenn was born the Vanderpools "sold" (Birdie's word) their share in the hotel in Sullivan, loaded a wagon, hitched a team to it, and set out for Kansas so that Samuel could see his mother. They could have left almost any time after Glenn was born in May of 1884,³³ but of course would have wanted to travel in good weather and after Anabel had recovered from childbirth, probably no earlier than mid-summer. The Indiana Vanderpools probably spent the winter of 1884-1885 in Kansas. We can be quite sure that they had arrived in Kansas by mid-March of 1885, for we know from a statement in the Civil War pension application of George Vanderpool, Samuel's brother, that Anabel was present in Chautauqua County at that time.

Birdie states that her father's mother died during the winter of 1885-1886 and that her parents then decided to settle in Kansas. Birdie's chronology is off again slightly, for Sarah actually died in July of 1885, but otherwise her story seems basically accurate. (She was, we should bear in mind, only a youngster at the time and 95 years of age when she recounted these events.) Birdie explains that an Uncle Bower and Aunt Mary Coulson lived near Chapman, in the eastern part of Dickinson County, Kansas.³⁴

From Birdie's account and other evidence we know that it was during the late summer or early fall of 1885 when the Vanderpools and their wagon headed north from Chautauqua County to where the Coulsons were living. Bower Coulson is not listed on the census in Kansas in 1870 or 1880, and the local historical society informed me that he is also not in Dickinson County on the special Kansas censuses in 1875 and 1885. If an 1885 landownership map is correct, Coulson (here identified as "A.J. Coulson") and his family resided on the northern boundary of Dickinson County near Keystone. This is quite a distance from Chapman, but it is possible that the Vanderpool family's stay in Kansas came before or after the Coulsons actually resided in the Keystone area. Birdie's description of her father's work implies that the family was living near Chapman and not near Keystone at least some of the time the family was residing with the Coulsons, so there are questions about whether or not this is the right Coulson couple.³⁵

On their way to see the Coulsons, Birdie continues, Samuel and family stopped – and he worked – for two or three months at a Kansas ranch owned by a Mr. Bayly. This must be John Bayly, Sr., listed on the 1880 Kansas census as living in Grant Township of Ottawa County, which is somewhat west of Chapman and Keystone. Birdie noted that Louisa Vanderpool, her half-sister (daughter of Samuel Green Vanderpool and Lydia Chambers) married one of Bayly's sons, James Bayly. Louisa, born sometime in 1869, would indeed have been old enough to marry in 1885, and marriage records in Ottawa County show that James, age 27 years, married Louise I. Vanderpool, age 16 years, on December 24, 1885.³⁶ This piece of information both confirms the overall accuracy of Birdie's account and helps to date the Vanderpool movements in Kansas.

Needing more room than their covered wagon alone afforded, Birdie says, the family built a dugout in a cottonwood grove at a popular picnic spot on the Smoky Hill River about one and one-half miles from where the Coulsons lived.³⁷ Such a dugout, one or more small rooms burrowed into a hillside facing away from the wind with a front wall of sod bricks and more sod on top, was a common expedient on the almost-treeless prairie. It was reasonably warm during the winter and cool during the summer – but hardly dry at any time. Birdie states that one of her sisters, Lydia, was born in this dugout, in July of 1887, and other information bears this out.³⁸

Assuming the family had arrived in Ottawa County by late 1885, therefore, they arrived in Dickinson County in early 1886 and had lived in the dugout as much as a year and a half by this point. Later, Samuel Green Vanderpool got a job on another ranch, owned by a man named Thistler, that Birdie described as being about a mile from Chapman. This was Otis L. Thistler, whose Riverside Stock Farm was a mile and three-quarters west of Chapman.³⁹ Thistler owned several large pieces of property along the Smoky Hill River west and southwest of Chapman.

In his own reminiscences, my father says that Samuel Green Vanderpool had homesteaded for awhile in Kansas. We do not know whether Samuel did file the necessary papers for a homestead: the land records pertaining to such filings, housed in the National Archives, unfortunately are not organized in a manner that allows us to say one way or the other. I am inclined to doubt that he filed a homestead claim; if he did, he abandoned it before the required three years had elapsed, or at least abandoned the idea of making the land he was claiming the family's future home. For in the fall of 1888, Birdie says, Anabel got homesick.⁴⁰ In December Samuel put his family (including a pregnant Anabel) on a train in Chapman and sent them back to Indiana. He himself followed a few months later and was definitely back in Indiana by June of 1889.

Upon their arrival back in Indiana, Anabel and the children stayed with her parents, who lived just across a field from the No. 5 School in Jackson Township, Sullivan County – about two miles due north of Hymera.⁴¹ When Samuel himself returned from Kansas the next spring (1889), Birdie continues, he moved the family to a house one mile from Hymera. (I cannot determine exactly where this house, possibly a rental, was located.) The next movements of the family are somewhat difficult to follow. Birdie seems to indicate that William R. Zink had also moved in 1889, to a house two miles north of Hymera, but that in 1890 he moved into his own father's house – on what Birdie termed its "big farm" about a mile from Hymera – when other people (renters perhaps?) moved out of it. Birdie's family then moved into the house that William R. Zink had been living in and stayed there three years. We cannot be sure about the location of this house that first William R. Zink and then Samuel Green Vanderpool used as residences for their families.⁴²

In general, though, all these moves seem consistent with the death of Michael Zink in 1888, the probable rental of his farm pending the probate process leading to the settlement of his estate (to be discussed later), and then William R. Zink's possession of the farm once this process had concluded and the renters had vacated what had been Michael's "big" farm. Michael Zink had inherited and otherwise acquired considerable land just north of Hymera since coming to the area some decades before, and William R. Zink is shown occupying some of this property (about 105 acres, relatively large for this township) in 1899.⁴³

About 1893, Birdie goes on to say, Samuel Green Vanderpool bought a 40- or 45-acre (actually, 47 2/3 acre) farm with a big log house, also just across from the No. 5 School; as we have seen, her father actually bought this property in three stages between 1891 and 1894). In the spring of 1899, Birdie continues, Samuel built a two-story house "on the highway," right next to the same school, and the family moved into it. Presumably the log house remained, however, and this must have been the structure in which my father was born in 1906. One wonders if Glenn {Vanderpool} Neal's pregnancy was a difficult one, which might mean she was living with her parents throughout much of 1905 and 1906. It was also probably in this house where she died, a few days after my father was born.⁴⁴

As we have seen, Anabel {Zink} Vanderpool's parents were WILLIAM ROGERS⁴⁵ ZINK and SARAH ELIZABETH {RICKABAUGH} ZINK, who it appears typically went by her middle name of Elizabeth. This couple presents us with numerous puzzles, only some of which I have solved satisfactorily. The Zink line, though somewhat the longer of the two chronologically, is the more straightforward and so perhaps the place to begin. Once we have followed it as far as we can, we will return to Sarah Elizabeth Rickabaugh and her line.

It was difficult to identify when William R. Zink was born, and who his parents were. I learned from the 1860 census that he was born in Indiana, from the 1900 census that he was born in October of 1838, and finally from his headstone in Bethel Cemetery in Hymera that he was born on October 8, 1838.⁴⁶ The breakthrough in solving the mystery of his parents was a brief notation in a Zink family history listing William R. Zink as the oldest child of MICHAEL⁴⁷ ZINK and CLARISSA {HUGHBANKS}⁴⁸ ZINK. No date is given there for Michael's birth, but extrapolation backwards from the dates of later siblings listed would place it sometime during the late 1830s. Subsequent research has proved the validity of this information about the parents of William R. Zink. Members of the Zink family state that William R. Zink was born in Hymera.

Early census listings are consistent with this information. In 1840, William R. Zink is shown as 5 years old or younger; he is listed in the household of his father in Jackson Township of Sullivan County, Indiana. Ten years later, he appears again there, now as 11 years old. He is not shown attending school during the previous year. How William R. Zink came to be living in Greene County, Indiana, during the late 1850s we cannot say, but marriage records show that William R. Zink and (Sarah) Elizabeth Rickabaugh were married there on June 30, 1859, by a justice of the peace named John Collins.⁴⁹ As we shall see, Elizabeth had been residing in the home of her grandfather, John Crooks, who lived near Marco in Greene County.

The 1860 census for Cass Township in that same county shows the young Zink couple (21 and 16 years old, respectively) living near Newberry; William is described as a farmer. Since he is not shown owning land in that county, they may be renting, but it seems more likely that they are working property owned by Elizabeth's grandfather, some of which was near Newberry. Elizabeth has recently become pregnant with Anabel, who was born in February of 1861.⁵⁰

We cannot track this young family during the years between the 1860 and the 1870 census, but we do know from William R. Zink's registration for the Civil War draft in mid-1863 that they are living then on a farm in Jackson Township of Owen County, Indiana. Again William R. Zink is not shown owning property; he may be living on the land of Joseph Zink, presumably a relative, who does own property in that county. How long William and his family continue to live in Owen County we cannot say, but by the time of the 1870 census, William and Elizabeth (now 32 and 25 years old) are back in Greene County – this time near Marco in Washington Township, where William is farming. Their daughter, listed as Anna B. here, is 9 years old.⁵¹

In 1880, the census finds William (now 41 years of age) and Elizabeth (now 37 years old) in Lewis Township of Clay County, Indiana. There is no explanation for why they have moved to this county, where Zink owns no property. (In fact, he had purchased 20 acres in Sullivan County on December 14, 1873, and why he and his family are not living there in 1880 is a mystery.) As we have seen, Anabel (19 years old) lives with her parents although she is already married to Samuel Green Vanderpool.⁵² This census also states that William and Elizabeth had a daughter born in Iowa in 1865, but there is no evidence that they ever lived in that state. The 1870 census shows this daughter's birthplace as Indiana, like the couple's other children, so the notation "Iowa" in 1880 is probably nothing more than a simple recording error.⁵³

Because there is no surviving census for 1890, we must jump two decades before we see William R. Zink again. If Birdie Vanderpool's account can be credited, these two decades saw William R. Zink sell out and move to Sullivan in order to run a hotel (early 1880s), move to a house near No. 5 School in Jackson Township of Sullivan County (by 1888-89), move again to a house two miles north of Hymera (1889-90), and then take over his father's big farm a mile from Hymera (1890 onward). Once again we are indebted to Birdie for shedding light on movements that are not revealed by the census and other information.

Deeds in Sullivan County help to flesh out this picture somewhat, although they do not enlighten us about the supposed purchase of the hotel in Sullivan. William R. Zink purchased some property from his parents on February 9, 1887, then additional land in the same area on June 12, 1891, on December 25, 1891, on April 18, 1892, and on March 26, 1894. In addition, Zink had bought some land very near that of Samuel and Anabel Vanderpool) on December 4, 1890. There is no doubt that he was able to accumulate a large amount of property, some of which is shown on the plat maps referred to earlier.⁵⁴

But in 1900 we suddenly encounter a new series of mysteries. On that year's census, William is shown living back in Lewis Township of Clay County, Indiana, and his wife is now a woman named Sarah M. Zink. Whether William is farming the same land as he did in 1880 is not clear, but the fact that he is said to own it with a mortgage suggests that the 1900 farm is a different place. Deed information in Clay County does not include any purchases by Zink that would identify this property, and in fact, as we shall soon see, it appears that the property actually belonged to Zink's second wife. Thus we learn that sometime after 1890 William left his father's big farm and moved back to Clay County and also that he remarried sometime between 1880 and 1900. Marriage records reveal that he wed Sarah M. Tennis, a widow, on March 8, 1899.⁵⁵

The natural conclusion to draw from all this is that Sarah Elizabeth {Rickabaugh} Zink has died, sometime between 1883 (when we know the couple had a child) and 1899, but we shall see that this is not the case. In fact, William R. Zink's first wife is buried near him in Bethel Cemetery in Hymera. Her grave marker describes her as Elizabeth J. Zink, who lived between December 20, 1844 (approximately correct for the Sarah Elizabeth Rickabaugh whom William married) and June 25, 1901 – two years after he married Sarah Tennis. In script an S and a J are easily confused, and dating errors on grave markers are not uncommon. Moreover, her marker says "Mother," and she is buried between two children our records tell us were those of WIlliam R. and Sarah Elizabeth Zink. Thus it would seem that this woman is in fact William Zink's first wife Sarah Elizabeth, buried with her two given names reversed as she apparently preferred them.⁵⁶

Fortunately, this woman is listed on the 1900 census for Jackson Township of Sullivan County and we can look more closely at her; unfortunately, the information provided there raises as many questions as it answers. What is most interesting is the fact that in 1900 the census form lists Elizabeth J. Zink as divorced, which would be consistent with a second marriage for William dated before his first wife's death. In addition, Elizabeth J. Zink is shown as the mother of nine children, eight of whom are living – exactly the number of living and deceased children my analysis shows that William and Sarah Elizabeth produced during their marriage. Even the death of one child among the nine matches what we know: that William and Elizabeth Zink lost a daughter, Clarissa, at about the age of five. Both Sarah Elizabeth Zink and Elizabeth J. Zink report that they were born in Indiana. So far as I have been able to determine there is no Elizabeth Zink in Indiana or anywhere else in the United States in 1880 who matches the woman we see in 1900, other than the Sarah Elizabeth {Rickabaugh} Zink who is listed as we would expect with William R. Zink in 1880 as in 1860 and 1870.⁵⁷

What clinches the matter is a court case in Sullivan County, filed on November 12, 1896, in which William R. Zink accused his wife, Elizabeth J. Zink, of adultery with a man named John J. Plew. Indeed, Zink charged, two of the couple's supposed children – born during the 1880s – were actually the products of her illicit relationship with Plew. He asked for divorce from Elizabeth and custody of the two children. Elizabeth and Plew denied the allegations. The case came to a non-jury trial on January 5, 1897, and the judge found for the plaintiff: William R. Zink was granted the divorce and given custody of the children. In a related case, Zink sued Plew for the "debauchery" of his wife, asking for $10,000 in damages. This case also was decided in Zink's favor. After prolonged legal wrangling, on January 26, 1898, a jury found for Zink but awarded him only one dollar in damages.

(John J. Plew's identity is unclear. The only man with that name appears on the census in Sullivan County only in 1870 and 1920, when he is a fireman living in Hymera. If he worked on the railroads, travel might explain his absence in other years. There is also a John H. Plew, a physician who lived in Fairbanks Township of Sullivan County in 1880 but by 1900 has moved on to Owen County, Indiana. This man's profession, relative wealth, and subsequent relocation make one suspect that he was the individual involved, but the court records are clear about John J. Plew's names and middle initial.)

Five years later, as we have seen, Zink married a widow living nearby, Sarah Margaret Tennis, who seems, like Sarah Elizabeth Rickabaugh, to have preferred her middle name. This union, too, did not last, and Zink sued for divorce in October 1904. He stated that he had redeemed his new wife's farm in Clay County, after which she sold the coal rights. He also complained that she refused to join him in Sullivan County but persisted in living in Clay County. What was worse, he said, she sided with an "indolent" son against her husband, Zink. On October 27 of that year, again in a trial without jury, William R. Zink was granted his second divorce. His now-former wife was allowed to regain her previous name, Sarah Tennis.

After this second unhappy incident, Zink's movements are obscure, perhaps because he moved around quite a bit. Without selling any of his land in Sullivan County, he purchased additional properties – which he leased to coal companies – in Owen County in 1906 and 1910, and as we shall see there is good reason to think he lived in Coal City in the latter county for a time during these four years. On the 1910 census, however, he is shown residing with a son in Beech Creek Township of Greene County, which abuts Owen County. ⁵⁸ He is described as having his own income, which suggests that the arrangement was a temporary one.

By 1912 Zink may have been living back in Clay County, because it was in that county (on November 19 of that year) where three of his children filed suit to have him declared insane and incompetent to handle his affairs. How much his (presumably) troubled marriages and two acrimonious divorces served to affect the mind of William R. Zink can never be known, but one suspects that both incidents contributed to his insanity. In addition, when in November 1912 Zink's son-in-law, Bower Coulson (with whom the Vanderpools had lived in Kansas), signed a statement attesting to his father-in-law's condition, he mentioned as a possible cause the accidental deaths of two of Zink's children. Both he and Zink's own doctor described him as both homicidal and suicidal as well as dangerous to those around him; the former also cited Zink's sexual excesses.

The Clay County court committed Zink to the Southeastern Hospital for the Insane in Madison, Indiana, and named a guardian to manage his affairs while he was housed there. We must keep in mind that those who described both him and his condition were limited by the era's rudimentary understanding of mental illness, but the records of this institution do provide glimpses of Zink's condition when he was admitted and during his stay there. Doctors ascribed his melancholy and abusive behavior primarily to epilepsy, the symptoms of which he had been demonstrating (as Coulson had stated) since about 1908. Otherwise, he was in reasonably good health for a man his age.

The hospital's records state that he died on March 22, 1915, after a series of epileptic convulsions. But the evidence suggests that William R. Zink, feeble and unable to care for himself throughout his stay at Southeastern Hospital, may have had other medical problems as well – perhaps even Alzheimer's Disease, based on some of his reported symptoms. He is buried in Bethel Cemetery in Hymera, Indiana. Following his death, a court-appointed administrator in Clay County dissolved his estate. Anabel Vanderpool was among those receiving a share, in her case $500.

This is not the entire story, even yet, because there appears to have been another woman in William R. Zink's life. First, when the Clay County court wrapped up his estate in 1915 and 1917, it noted that Zink's childless third wife, referred to as Jane, also was not competent to manage his affairs; furthermore, as a widow, Jane was also awarded $500. The plot thickens when we learn that a Nancy Jane Zink, who died in 1922, lived for a time in Coal City – where William R. Zink owned a lot – during the first decade of the 20th century, soon after Zink's divorce from his second wife. This woman was born Nancy Jane Kendrick. During the 1860s she was married and divorced and then remarried to the same man, Ephraim E. Gilmore. Then, after divorcing Gilmore again – this following the births of eight children with him – she married a man named Henry C. Byars in 1894. There is no record of her divorce from Byars, and in 1900 she described herself to the census enumerator as married (that is, not as a widow or divorced).

A thorough search of Indiana marriage records has not turned up a marriage between Nancy Jane Byars and William R. Zink. Could it be that they were never legally married, though they considered themselves – and called themselves – as such while they lived together after his divorce from Sarah Tennis? In 1910, when as we have seen Zink is residing in Greene County with his son, Nancy (or Jane) is living with another man (Frank Christianbery) in Owen County. Yet Zink on that same 1910 census described himself as having been married three times, the Clay County records twice identify Jane as Zink's third wife, and this woman used the Zink name until she died in 1922. As a result, we cannot completely rule out a marriage – perhaps in another state – for them.

In any event it should be no surprise that having traversed such thorny and convoluted (as well as strikingly similar) marital paths to their own liaison William Zink and this woman seemingly were unable to make a success of that short-lived relationship too, though in fairness to him a worsening mental state a year or so into their marriage (or cohabitation if there was none) may have been a significant contributing factor.

We turn now to William R. Zink's father, Michael. The Zink family histories state that Michael Zink was born in Salem, Washington County, Indiana, on December 24, 1816, and that he was brought to Hymera at the age of 9 years. According to family members, he died in Hymera on April 11, 1888. His grave marker in Bethel Cemetery in Hymera gives that date for his death and states that he was 71 years, 3 months, and 16 days old when he died. (There is a variance of two days here, as this calculation yields April 9, 1888, as his date of death.) A newspaper obituary states that he had been active in township politics in his earlier years but had been ill for some time and that eventually his mind "gave way."⁵⁹

We also learn from the Zink family histories that Clarissa was born in Maysville, Mason County, Kentucky, on January 18, 1822. Maysville was the later name of the important Ohio River town at the mouth of Limestone Creek that was originally called Limestone; at the time Clarissa was born it had perhaps 500 inhabitants. She died in Hymera on June 9 or 10, 1889, and is also buried in Bethel Cemetery in Hymera.⁶⁰ A newspaper obituary for "Mrs. Mike Zink" states that her death, which took place while she was visiting in Sullivan, was very sudden and unexpected, although her throat disease was the underlying factor; one presumes the reference was to cancer of the throat.

Both Michael and Clarissa died intestate. The partition of his estate was not without controversy, as Clarissa filed suit against the other heirs (children and grandchildren) for her one-third share. The court appointed three commissioners, who in January 1889 divided up the Zink property and awarded Clarissa her portion. From this proceeding we learn about some of the property Michael Zink had owned, but it is not clear what had occasioned the acrimony that led to her having to file suit.⁶¹

Michael Zink married Clarissa {Hughbanks} Zink on May 2, 1837, probably in Indiana since both of their families were already in the state, but where we do not know; Washington County, Indiana, is the most likely location.⁶² The history of Jackson Township (written by a local high school class in 1915) states that Michael Zink was one of the first persons to enter public land in the most eastern portion of that township (in School District 7), in about 1837, and the Zink family histories note that Michael and his father filed land claims at the Vincennes, Indiana, land office that year.⁶³ One of the Zink family histories says that Michael and Clarissa purchased their farm at the time they were married, and this is approximately correct: the actual purchase date was September 9, 1837.⁶⁴ The 1915 history further states that Michael Zink was one of the first persons to settle in the more central area of the township that became the town of Hymera, arriving in about 1830. Thus Michael might have been residing in the area before he and Clarissa purchased their own property.

Curiously, only one of the ten children of Michael and Clarissa – Albert, born in 1855, who was the ninth – is listed in information that has been contributed to the LDS, but he does fit properly into the list of ten we find in Zink family histories. The 1840 census for Jackson Township of Sullivan County, Indiana, shows Michael (a farmer aged 20-30 years) with a boy, most likely the William R. Zink we are seeking, under 5 years old. Clarissa is said to be 15 to 20 years of age. There is a William Hewbank, who is 50-60 years old, listed a few lines below Michael and Clarissa; he is almost certainly her father, as we will see presently. William (after whom William R. Zink was named, most likely) has two females in his household. As they are both 20 years old or younger, they are probably his remaining daughters.

Ten years later, in 1850, the census shows much the same picture: Michael (33 years old) and Clarissa (30 years old) are living in Jackson Township of Sullivan County, Indiana; the latter's name is spelled "Claircy.". William Hughbank (as his name is now spelled) resides in the same township; he is now living alone.⁶⁵ Looking at the same township in 1860, we see that Michael has aged to 44 years old and Clarissa, misnamed "Theresa" on the census sheet, is 39 years old.⁶⁶ They live near Hymera. William Hughbank again lives nearby; he has now reached 73 years of age.⁶⁷ In 1870 and 1880, William Hughbank is no longer listed (in fact, he has died), but Michael and Clarissa continue to live in Jackson Township of Sullivan County, Indiana. On the 1870 census he is 53 years old and she (finally recorded as "Clarissa") is 47 years old; he is 63 years old and she is 58 years old in 1880. By 1870 Michael Zink's net worth has grown to $4,000 (real property) and $1,400 (personal property) – not bad at all for a farmer who, the last two censuses reveal, could not read or write. His affluence helps us to understand how William R. Zink could afford to acquire so much land – and also the dispute over Michael's estate in 1889.⁶⁸

It must have been about the time the 1880 census was taken, on June 10 of that year, that Michael (and perhaps Clarissa – the evidence is ambiguous) decided to help two of their children get situated near Loup City, Nebraska, which had been first settled during the 1870s. The younger Zinks, like many other Easterners, were drawn to Nebraska by a succession of years after 1878 with higher-than-normal rainfall. They filed homestead claims of 160 acres each adjacent to the Middle Loup River, about two and one-half miles southeast of the town of Loup City; apparently Michael himself did not file a claim. According to one account, the Zink contingent traveled by covered wagon from Hymera to Nebraska in 1880 and stayed there until 1882. Michael Zink appears on the Indiana census either because the Zinks left Indiana after June 10 or because someone, possibly Clarissa, reported the census data for both her husband and herself. Michael does not seem to be listed on the Nebraska census for 1880 (although his son, Alonzo is), and so we have no documentary evidence to verify that Michael, and possibly Clarissa, did go to Nebraska.

(It is interesting, then, that both my Vanderpool and my Zink ancestors moved to the Great Plains – albeit temporarily, in both instances – during the 1880s.)

As we have seen, Michael Zink died on April 11, 1888. Contemporaries described him as an extensive and well-to-do landowner in Sullivan County, and the high school history of Jackson Township regarded the amount of property he owned at the time of his death, 288 acres, as significant enough to deserve mention. The census returns from 1850 to 1870 confirm the growth of the value of his property.⁶⁹

We will return to the Zink line – beginning with Michael Zink's parents – presently. Before we do, we will pause to investigate the line of his wife, Clarissa {Hughbanks} Zink.

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rev. 7/21/09

Notes

¹When we discuss my father's parents, it will become obvious that his middle name came from his mother's given name: Glenn. My father did not learn until his old age, however, that his father (my grandfather) added this middle name only after my grandmother had died, just a few days after giving birth to my father. My father went by the name Glenn until his grammar school years in Portland, Maine, when he began to be called Charles, but many people – especially in my mother's family – called him Glenn all through his life. Being called Glenn surely was a constant reminder to his stepmother that he was a product of my grandfather's first marriage and undoubtedly did not help my father's relationship with her.

² Hymera was named Pittsburg from 1870 until 1890, when its name was changed to that of the post office (established as Hymera in 1855). The history of Sullivan County states that the new name came from the original owner of the land, whose name was Pitt, but that the coal deposits in the area may also have contributed to the choice of Pittsburg. This is interesting in light of my father's long working career for a steel company based in Pittsburgh (spelled without the h during the late 1800s), as well as our own family's years as residents in the Pittsburgh area. Hymera had about 2,000 residents as of 1915, probably a few more than it had had in 1906.

³My father was born in the midst of a bitter coal strike in the area. The strike lasted from April 2, 1906, to June 13 of that year. The strike notwithstanding, Hymera may have been an unusually good mining town. John Mitchell, then president of the United Mine Workers, said on a visit to Hymera in 1904 that it was the neatest and most progressive coal-mining town in America.

⁴This structure was still standing as late as 1976, according to my father's reminiscences, but it seems to have disappeared between then and 2006 when I visited the area. Return to text

⁵ See slides 03855 and 03856, taken in 1990, for views of this cemetery and of the graves of my parents. Return to text

⁶He sometimes spelled his middle name McKendrew, but most often he spelled it McKendre. This name sounds Scotch-Irish (he thought himself Scotch-Irish by descent), but I do not know where it came from except that my grandfather wrote, in 1956, that his parents had given him the name. There is no obvious source for the name in either family's ancestry, and neither could I find a friend or neighbor who bore the name. A Methodist bishop, William McKendree, was well-known in southwest Indiana during the early 19th century. Given my families' prevailing denominational affiliations this seems an unlikely source for the middle name my grandfather bore, but I do not know to which denomination the family of my grandfather's mother, Mary Ellen Shake, belonged. They may have been Methodists and she suggested this name.

⁷It is possible my grandfather was born in Paxton, in Haddon Township of Sullivan County, Indiana, because his mother's family lived there. Two other boys in Sullivan County, near-contemporaries of my grandfather, became men of some prominence. One was the novelist [Herman] Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945), who resided on the edge of Sullivan (and also on the edge of destitution) from 1879 to 1881. It is possible but unlikely that my grandfather knew Dreiser, who lived a few miles away, did not socialize much with other boys, and attended a parochial school. The second was Will H. Hays (1879-1954), who was an attorney in Sullivan, chairman of the Republican National Committee, postmaster-general of the United States (1921-22), and, most notably, president of the Motion Pictures Producers and Distributors (1922-45). This organization developed the landmark Hayes Code, which from 1930 to 1967 governed what was morally permissible in films. Both my grandfather and my father spoke of knowing Hays.

⁸A Vanderpool relative wrote me to say that the family Bible gave Glenn Vanderpool's year of birth as 1885, but I have not seen this Bible myself. Glenn's sister, Birdie, in one place states that Glenn was born in 1884 and in another says it was in 1885, but Birdie's account of the family's movements during the 1880s supports the former date. The 1900 census (the only one on which Glenn {Vanderpool} Neal appears) shows her birth as May 1884 and states that she attended school during eight of the twelve months ending June 1, 1900. In the information that he put together, my grandfather only mentions Glenn Vanderpool once and gives no dates for her. My father recorded her birth year as 1884. The family Bible mentioned, incidentally, lists my father's birth date with the notation, "Baby Neal."

⁹Clay, Greene, Knox, Sullivan, and Washington. Return to text

¹⁰It seems safest to repeat the names of the states in which counties are found since so many states have counties with identical names – and especially since some of my families lived in two or more counties with the same names and there might be confusion over which one is which.

¹¹Their wedding picture is on page 11 of the photograph album. Note that, a year later, the same photograph has had my father's baby picture superimposed on it.

¹²See my 1989 photograph (slide 03475) of her grave marker, which states "She was a Christain [sic]." See the USGS map for Hymera/Indiana for this cemetery, and for Hymera generally. Slides 07143 and 07161 (taken in 1994) give overviews of Bethel Cemetery, located across the street from Bethel Methodist Episcopal Church. I was thus in the somewhat unusual situation, growing up, of never having known a real grandmother. Both of my grandfathers had remarried, but never did I view either of these women as "Grandma" – and neither did they regard me as a grandson.

¹³My grandfather left no will. See my photographs of his grave marker on page 14 in the photograph album and the following slides, taken in 2008: 12881-83 and 12986. My grandfather never knew the extent of his family's connections with the part of Kentucky in which Winchester is located (and where he had lived for more than twenty-five years), although he understood that the Neal family had passed through there en route to its eventual home in Indiana. Having lived for many years on French Street in Winchester, he would have chuckled at the irony of having married a woman – Glenn Vanderpool – who had such a strong French heritage, had he but known about this heritage. We will learn more about this heritage later. Return to text

¹⁴The source of Samuel's middle name is not known. It does not appear to derive from any family connection, either on his father's side or his mother's side. Nor did his parents ever live in Greene County, Indiana (as did some other families to be discussed here, including the Zinks), so that county is apparently not the source either. Perhaps it was a friend's name.

¹⁵We should take note of some spelling variations here. Her name is sometimes spelled Annabelle or Anna Bell, but it is spelled Anabel on her grave marker and so that is what I have used throughout.

¹⁶Undoubtedly Knights of Pythias, a secret philanthropic order popular during the late 19th century. See the USGS map for Hymera/Indiana for this cemetery, incorrectly labeled the "Knights of Columbus" Cemetery. This cemetery, incidentally, is located on land once owned by Michael Zink, Anabel's grandfather.

¹⁷See slide 07160, taken in 1994.

¹⁸Visiting Sullivan County, perhaps for her funeral, is one of my earliest memories. Return to text

¹⁹ In each of the years from 1900 through 1920, the census shows the Vanderpools as farm owners with a mortgage; the 1930 census, which did not ask for mortgage information, simply lists them as owners. The 1930 census also shows that the Vanderpools had no radio that year; since no other household in their neighborhood had a radio either, the area probably did not yet have electricity. Samuel's age is incorrect on the 1900 census (he is actually 52 years old, but the census lists him as 62 years old). Perhaps the census enumerator was confused by the presence in Samuel's household of his older brother, Abraham, who was 61 years old that year. (The years of birth shown for both men are correct.)

²⁰Samuel is described as having attended school during the previous year. Return to text

²¹Benjamin Chambers was the son of John Chambers, whose first wife was a daughter of Abraham and Sarah Stark. Benjamin, apparently the product of his father's second marriage, was a Civil War veteran. So were Benjamin's two brothers, one of whom served with him in the Union Army while the eldest fought for the Confederacy. When Samuel Green Vanderpool and his family relocated during the 1870 census year, they moved to be near Lydia's brother. The second listing does not show personal property for Samuel, and so economic difficulties might explain the move. Samuel is shown as a farm laborer on the second census entry as well. Return to text

²²Louisa Jane Vanderpool was born on August 1, 1869, according to one source and on January 13, 1869, according to another one. Her age on the second census entry in 1870, 10 months, argues for her birth in August 1869.

²³Lillian Leona Vanderpool was born on February 5, 1872, in the first source and on May 2, 1872, in the other one.

²⁴With a birth year of 1871 for Lillian Leona, however. Return to text

²⁵The Soundex process groups family names according to the common sounds of their consonants rather than by how they were spelled by the individuals or in the records. It is possible, therefore, to browse through a list of all those persons with similar-sounding names.

²⁶This census thus underestimates Samuel's age by one year. Return to text

²⁷This is probably John Foxworthy, listed in the 1860 through 1880 censuses as living in Jackson Township of Sullivan County. In 1880 he appears on the census just below Michael and Clarissa {Hughbanks} Zink, Anabel's grandparents, so he may have lived somewhat north of Hymera as they did – and not far from where the Vanderpools would ultimately settle. Foxworthy was described as a physician in 1880. Birdie notes that her half-sister, Lillian, was doing housework for the Brileys, and perhaps Louisa was doing the same in the Stout household. Return to text

²⁸The census form in 1880 did not include a provision for separations, and it could be that the enumerator believed he had no choice but to enter the D for Anabel. Return to text

²⁹The lot was number 10, which the Vanderpools bought on December 15, 1890. On March 28, 1891, they purchased part of the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 15, Township 9 North, Range 8 West. They added 2 more acres in this section on February 23, 1892; 6 2/3 acres more on August 6, 1894; and 37 2/3 acres more on July 13, 1931. Anabel Vanderpool bought, in her own name, 26 2/3 additional acres in Section 15 on July 24, 1916; she sold two portions (perhaps all) of this purchase to a son and his wife on June 16 and November 21, 1924. In addition, Samuel and Anabel Vanderpool purchased 40 acres in the southeast quarter of the northeast quarter of nearby Section 17 on April 24, 1894, and part of the southeast quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 28, which is just north of Hymera, on September 13, 1906. The Vanderpools also seem to have invested in town lots, probably for rental, for they purchased several more over the years in addition to the one they bought in Hymera in 1890: lot 8 in Hymera (April 24, 1894); lot 79 in Shelburne (November 7, 1904); and lot 45 in Sullivan (also on November 7, 1904). For views of some of the Vanderpool properties in Section 15, see slides 11985 and 11987; for views of the site of the Vanderpool home, see slides 11985 and 11988. All these slides were taken in 2006. Return to text

³⁰The McCammon Hotel no longer exists, having burned in 1908. It was on the north side of the courthouse square. It is intriguing to note that Samuel Vanderpool's lot in Sullivan, which he purchased in 1904, was also on the north side of the square. One wonders if there is a connection: did he and his father-in-law build a hotel there?

³¹It is suggestive that when Anabel and her children returned to Sullivan after living in Kansas for several years (described below), a McCammon couple helped them when their train arrived. Since there is no record of a family relationship between the McCammons and either the Vanderpools or the Zinks, it could be that he and Samuel had been business associates of some kind (perhaps in the McCammon Hotel?) years before, but we should be careful not to read too much into this encounter. As we shall see, the McCammons are related to the Neals. Return to text

³²The Depot Hotel had become the Ross Hotel by 1892. For a view of its location in 2006, see slide 11968. Return to text

³³Birdie incorrectly remembered here that Glenn was born in 1885 when she was actually born in 1884 – as Birdie herself indicated in another document in my files. It should also be noted that the 1920 census, taken more than a dozen years after Glenn's death, lists Kansas as her place of birth. Perhaps this error is faulty information furnished by whoever supplied information about Glenn that year and was based on a recollection that Samuel Green Vanderpool's family had lived in Kansas at about the time of her birth. Or perhaps the census taker was confused by the fact that Charles M. Neal's second wife was born in Kansas and concluded his first one had been born there too. Return to text

³⁴Alvin Bower Coulson had married Mary Zink, Anabel's younger sister, in mid-1880. Return to text

³⁵The 1880 census shows an Albert B. and Olivia Coulson living in Abilene, Dickinson County; they have two children and Albert is a bookkeeper. Not only are the parents the wrong ages but both were born in Pennsylvania, so this may be a different couple. If so, we are left wondering why Bower and Mary are not on any census in 1880. Return to text

³⁶Her actual name, as we have seen, was Louisa J. Vanderpool. On the 1880 census, John Bayly's son, James, is 21 years old, which correlates with the age of the James Bayly who married Louisa Vanderpool five years later. Return to text

³⁷See the USGS maps for Abilene/Kansas, Chapman/Kansas, and Kansas Falls/Kansas for this area of Kansas, a flood plain through which the Smoky Hill River meanders in wide bends. Pioneers in Kansas and other prairie states where few trees existed dug shelters, often into a riverbank or the side of a hill, until they could build a proper home. It would appear that Samuel Green Vanderpool and his family lived in their dugout most of the time they lived in Kansas. The Smoky Hill River is much more than a mile and a half from the Coulson property along the northern border of the county, and it is possible that Birdie was confusing this property with the Thistler ranchlands, which generally ran along the river itself.

³⁸On the 1900 census, however, all of Samuel and Anabel's seven children born between 1883 and 1895 (including Lydia) are listed as having been born in Indiana. Since it is very likely (as Birdie's account says) that Samuel and his family did not return to Indiana until the end of 1888, the 1900 census information for Lydia must be in error. (It is possible that Anabel went to Indiana in order to bear a child in 1887 and then returned to Kansas, but this seems rather farfetched.) The 1900 census, incidentally, also reveals that Anabel had lost one of her eight children, a son we know was born and died in 1882. In 1910 the figure is seven of nine children living because she had a son born in 1901 – but had lost Glenn, my grandmother, five years later. Return to text

³⁹Thistler had arrived in Kansas in 1872. Return to text

⁴⁰Is it possible that the death of her paternal grandfather, Michael Zink, (in April of 1888) had sparked Anabel's desire to return – especially in light of the extensive land holdings that had to be dealt with? Sometime before 1910 Bower and Mary Coulson also returned to Indiana, as we shall see. Return to text

⁴¹For the exact location of this school, see my copy (a reproduction) of the 1899 illustrated atlas of Sullivan County and a 1915 history of the township. By 1899 (as Birdie states), William R. Zink had moved closer to Hymera and no longer owned this property, but it may well have been the same property that the Vanderpools would ultimately settle on. The site of School No. 5 is now farmland; see slide 11986, taken in 2006.

⁴²The 1896 county directory shows William R. Zink owning 186 acres half a mile north of Hymera, and the 1899 plat map of the township shows William R. Zink on the property once owned by his father, Michael. The other residences mentioned here (William's home in 1888-1889 as well as the place where he lived in 1889-1890 and also where Samuel lived for three years thereafter) must have been close together if they were not the same place; all are also very near to the farm that Samuel and Anabel would live on the rest of their lives. Return to text

⁴³This does leave us wondering about the situation of Michael's widow, Clarissa, but it is possible she lived with William R. Zink (her oldest son) until she too died in 1889. This is only conjecture. Return to text

⁴⁴The 1896 Sullivan County directory, a 1899 plat map, and the plat map shown in the 1915 Jackson Township history differ somewhat in detail in showing what the Vanderpools owned, so perhaps the deed information we have is incomplete, but we do have the general picture of what properties the Vanderpools owned in Sullivan County. The 1899 plat map shows three structures on the principal property belonging to Samuel and Anabel Vanderpool. One, in the eastern part, is probably the original (log) home. Two others are on the highway along the western edge, and one of them is quite close to No. 5 School. Plat maps of Jackson Township for both 1920 and 1930, found in the Library of Congress, show this same property marked "S.V." See the USGS map for Hymera/Indiana and slides 11985 and 11987 for views of the principal Vanderpool property in 2006. When I visited Sullivan County during the late 1940s (perhaps for Samuel's funeral in 1946, since I seem to recall that Anabel was still alive when I was there), I remember seeing the Vanderpool house. My father pointed out that it, like the other houses in the area, had a slate roof. By 2006, this house had disappeared; see slides 11985 and 11988 for its approximate location. There were two schools on the highway, which is now State Route 48, but it is the No. 5 School that was near the Vanderpool property. The school relevant to our discussion was built in 1899, on the site of the old school. This school, too, has now disappeared; see slide 11986 for its approximate location. The informal history of the township lists Glenn Vanderpool as a graduate of this school in 1903. (Hymera High School was not organized until 1910.) Return to text

⁴⁵I have not been able to find the source of this middle name, which no earlier Zinks I have encountered bear. Can it be a coincidence that in 1900 William R. Zink lives next to a younger man named Rogers? Return to text

⁴⁶See slide 07140, taken in 1994.

⁴⁷Perhaps James Michael Zink: some researchers refer to him as James, and in keeping with German tradition he might have used his middle name (which was also his father's middle name) rather than his formal given name. I have seen no definitive evidence that James was part of his name, however.

⁴⁸This name can be spelled numerous ways, including Hughbank, Hewbanks, Eubanks, Hewbank, and Eubank, but Hughbanks seems to be the way Clarissa herself spelled it. I will return to this issue later. Return to text

⁴⁹One source gives the date of the marriage as June 29, 1859. This may reflect confusion between the date of the marriage itself and the date when the proof of marriage was "returned" to the official registry. The 1860 census correctly indicates that the couple had been married during the preceding census year, which ran from June 1, 1859, through May 31, 1860. Return to text

⁵⁰William and Sarah have personal property valued at $150. Return to text

⁵¹Their personal property has doubled in value in ten years and is now worth $300. Interestingly, William R. Zink refused to state his age when he registered for the draft. The 1870 census does not show that Anabel Zink attended school during the previous year. Return to text

⁵²The agricultural census for 1880 does not specify the acreage of William R. Zink's farm. Cash values were $15 for implements, $260 for livestock, and $50 for slaughtered animals. He owned a horse, a milch cow, one other head of cattle, and 14 swine. The previous year, William Zink had produced 200 bushels of Indian corn and 25 pounds of molasses. The value of all his farm products was $165. The 20 acres Zink bought in 1873 were in the south half of the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 7, Township 9 North, Range 8 West.

⁵³This is worth noting because, as we shall see, a large colony of Rickabaughs lived in Iowa. Return to text

⁵⁴Zink's several purchases between 1887 and 1894 were concentrated in Section 28, Township 9 North, Range 8 West; ultimately he would own a large chunk of the section. Return to text

⁵⁵It may be that William R. Zink sold the big farm to one or more coal companies, which were expanding their operations throughout the county in these years: during the decade and a half between the 1899 plat and the 1915 plat, copies of which I have in my files, much of the farm land north of Hymera came into their possession. For the second time in his life, in 1900 William R. Zink was able to report that he had been married during the previous census year. This census also shows that the farm he owned in 1900 was mortgaged. Sarah Tennis may have been the widow of John Tennis (who lived a mile or so away from William R. and Sarah Elizabeth Zink and was the only man with that name in the county in 1896 ), but she may have been the widow of another Tennis male in Clay County. Return to text

⁵⁶See slides 11962 and 11963, taken in 2006, of the headstone of Sarah Elizabeth {Rickabaugh} Zink. Return to text

⁵⁷There are some interesting discrepancies to take note of here. Although the grave marker of the woman buried in Bethel Cemetery says she was born in 1844, the 1900 census form gives her birth as December 1842. In itself this is not a serious discrepancy, but there is another consideration to bear in mind: although the census sheets for William and his first wife consistently show her to have been born between 1844 and 1846, a little reflection tells us that to marry in mid-1859 Sarah Elizabeth Rickabaugh almost certainly had to have been born no later than mid-1843, and probably a year or more before then. She and the mysterious Elizabeth J. Zink thus were born just about the same time. The 1900 census form states that Elizabeth J. Zink's parents were born in Kentucky, whereas Sarah Elizabeth's form in 1880 says that her parents were born in Indiana. The reported birthplaces of parents are notoriously inaccurate, as Sarah Elizabeth's is here: her father, Henry, was actually born in Ohio. More seriously, the 23-year-old daughter (born in 1877) with whom Elizabeth J. Zink is living in 1900, Honor, is not listed among the children born to William and Sarah Elizabeth {Rickabaugh} Zink. Although this couple did have a daughter born just the year before that, in 1876, she is listed on the census by her nickname, Dollie, rather than her actual name, Arlene. Most significantly, perhaps, the census form in 1900 quite definitely shows this woman's name to have been Elizabeth J. Zink, with no Sarah or S in sight. (One is tempted to add that it seems unlikely that William and Sarah would divorce after all those years of marriage, but obviously Elizabeth J. Zink and her husband had been married a good long time too when they divorced.) The daughter who is 23 years old called Honor on the 1900 census is perhaps a mishearing of Arlene, the name of the daughter we know was born to William and Elizabeth at just about the same time. This daughter married a man named Norris, with whom she is in fact listed in 1900. The J for Elizabeth's middle initial on the 1900 census may be an error, or it may be that she gave herself another middle name to replace the name Sarah that she apparently disliked. Return to text

⁵⁸Ironically, this son was one of the two children Zink had alleged in his divorce suit was not his own but was fathered by Plew. Return to text

⁵⁹ A history of the township says he arrived when he was 13 years old. This history, a copy of which is in my files, was written by a high school English class in Hymera in 1915. It is quite helpful, though not without errors. See slides 11965, 11978, and 11979 for views of Michael Zink's headstone in Bethel Cemetery in 2006. Return to text

⁶⁰Clarissa's grave marker gives the date as June 9; the Zink family histories say it was June 10. The history of Jackson Township cites 1892 as the date of her death, but this is almost certainly incorrect See slides 11964 and 11979 for views of Clarissa's headstone in Bethel Cemetery in 2006. As we shall see later, there is good reason to think that Clarissa was born near Maysville rather than in the town itself. Return to text

⁶¹The Zink properties mentioned in the report of the commissioners included the southeast quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 28, Township 9 North, Range 8 West; the north half of the northeast quarter of the southeast quarter of the same section; and the southwest quarter of the northwest quarter of the adjoining Section 27; Clarissa received a portion of the last of these, as did William R. Zink. Michael had patented some of his properties in 1839 and had purchased others at various times from 1848 to 1870. Michael and Clarissa had also sold to William R. Zink part of the southeast quarter of the northwest quarter of Section 28 about a year (on February 9, 1887) before Michael died. Much of this property was strip mined for coal and then reclaimed. See slides 11990 and 11991, taken in 2006, for views of the Section 27 portion of this property. Some of Michael's purchases were not included in the settlement, and it is not clear what became of them. An 1851 purchase had actually been a swap of lands with Jacob Zink, Michael's father: the former sold him 40 acres in Section 28 (the southeast quarter of the northeast quarter) and Michael sold his father the northwest quarter of the northwest quarter of Section 35 and the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 34, a total of 80 acres. (See below for the source of this property and slide 11992, taken in 2006, for a view of it.) This sale was dated September 18, 1851, which has a significance we will discuss later. Clarissa inventoried the estate of Michael, which would seem to indicate she was not estranged from the family, but there must be more to the story that we do not know. Return to text

⁶²There is no record of their marriage in the database of Indiana marriages.

⁶³One of those histories described the filing as occurring "under President Van Buren." Martin Van Buren served as president from March of 1837 to March of 1841. Zink's patents in 1839, "signed by Van Buren," stemmed from these filings.

⁶⁴Half of Michael and Clarissa's property was the northwest quarter of the northwest quarter of Section 35, and the other half was the adjoining northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of Section 34 – both in Township 9 North, Range 8 West. This land, for which they received the patents on August 1, 1839, cost them $100. Slide 11980 shows the Section 35 portion; it was this property that Jacob Zink acquired in the 1851 trade mentioned above. See the USGS map for Hymera/Indiana and Appendix II for a description of how public lands were surveyed and sold by the United States government. It is interesting to note that the very northwest corner of Michael Zink's, and then in 1851 Jacob Zinck's, property in Section 35 is now the Knights of Pythias Cemetery, referred to earlier, in which Samuel Green Vanderpool and Anabel {Zink} Vanderpool are buried. I do not know who sold or donated the land for the cemetery. Return to text

⁶⁵He is said to have real estate worth $500.

⁶⁶We can be positive this is the correct Michael Zink despite the mistake in Clarissa's name, for not only is he the sole Michael Zink listed in 1860 but one of the children in his household is named Albert. Michael's real property is now valued at $1,275 and he has personal property worth another $450.

⁶⁷His worth is now described as $800 in real estate and $150 in personal property.

⁶⁸It is a good thing that Michael Zink was so easy to find, in large part because he stayed in one place, since he appears in only one census index – that for 1830. For other years I had to search line by line until I found him. The nearest post office for Michael and Clarissa in 1870 was no longer Hymera but a place called Bateham, which I have not been able to locate. Return to text

⁶⁹He had $300 (possibly $380) in 1850; $1,275 in real estate and $450 in personal property in 1860; and $4,000 in real estate and $1,400 in personal property in 1870. The 1870 census indicates that Michael Zink could not read and write but that his wife, Clarissa, evidently could. This information may be incorrect, however, for the boxes for cannot read and cannot write are not checked on the 1880 census. Return to text

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