Today I'm going to share one of my favorite family members and stories. I love stories about my great-great-great-great-grandfather Abraham Dupre (related through my materal grandfather). He was a boat builder who would build boats and sail them down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers so that he could sell them in New Orleans. In order to facilitate his sales, Abraham spoke five languages -- I doubt he was fluent but he at least spoke enough to haggle and sell his boats. He was born on the Isle of Jersey around 1810 or 1811. By the 1830s, he had immigrated to America. On December 5, 1833, he married Polly Deckard (daughter of Richard Deckard and Hannah Eagle) in Vinton, Gallia County, Ohio. Abraham died on the 25th of September in Sciotoville, Gallia County, Ohio. He was the son of Abraham Dupre and Mary De Merrick or Maria Dumaresq.
According to family lore, he was a hero - when Morgan's Raiders came through the area during the Civil War, Abraham - who was an old man by this time - helped hide the women and children in the woods to save them from the Confederates. Some of the women and children he saved were the ancestors of my maternal grandmother.
The following was taken from an email my great aunt Esther Jo (my grandfather Fink's sister) sent my mother - "A more recent story about our ancestors, when my parents were dating, folks
sat around and told family stories, etc., since there was no radio. One evening they were talking about the Civil War and the time the Confederate troops known as Morgan's Raiders went through Jackson and Gallia Counties. Mother's family told about Gr Grandpa Levi Gleason going out with a local "militia" to help protect the local area from the raiders. I think it was the summer of 1863 (if interested, I have exact date). While Levi was gone his wife Califernia Esther(Cal)(about 17 or 18 yrs old) gave birth to their second child. The little girl was just 3 days old when the Raiders were getting close to the Gleason home (lived in Huntington Twp. Gallia Co then,so far as I can determine). An old one arm man came to the Gleason house. He told young Cal he was too old and too crippled to go with the Militia, so he was trying to make sure the women left behind were safe. He took Cal, her toddler and her 3 day old and hid them in the woods, so the Raiders wouldn't find them and hurt them. The Raiders sometimes hurt the women whose husbands were out with the Militia, or in the Army. Have you guessed who the old man was? It was my Gr Gr Grandpa Abraham Dupre who had lost one hand and 3 digits on the other hand, in a mill accident. When Mother's family started to tell about Grandma Gleason being hid in the woods, they had no idea that the old man was my Dad's Gr Grandfather. But my Dad had heard the story about Gr Grandpa hiding the women in the woods."
No comments:
Post a Comment