Solving the Mystery of What Happened to the Edward Linn Elrod family

     As my husband’s family was told, his grandfather, Homer Milton Elrod, was an 
orphan. I knew he had a sister, Edith, but that there might be no other sisters 
and brothers who lived past their teens. What had happened to the children of this 
family, and what had happened to the parents, Edward Linn Elrod and Mary America 
Freeman Elrod? 

     The first Elrods in Indiana settled in the early 1800s near the town of 
Orleans in Orange County, having come from near Winston-Salem, N.C., where they 
had lived in a Moravian community since the early 1700s. So it was a surprise to 
learn, via the 1880 census, that Edward Linn Elrod and his wife and some children 
were living in Songer Township, Clay County, IL.

     In fact, Edith was born in Illinois in 1872, and two girls, Nellie and Jessie, 
were born in Indiana in 1868 and 1870, respectively, so the date of migration was 
probably sometime between 1870 and 1872. Including Edith, six children were born in 
Illinois; Homer Milton, my husband’s grandfather and the baby of the family, was 
born in 1885.

The Illinois births were:
Edith, 1872
Albert Clinton, 1874
Charles Noble, 1875
Earl, 1879
Mary E., 1881
Homer Milton, 1885

     Clay County, Illinois, death records show that Charles Noble died 21 November 
1879 in the town of Oskaloosa, Illinois at age 3 years 11 months of diphtheria. 
Claud E(arl) died 23 March 1880 at 1 month 7 days of Pertussis, also in Oskaloosa. 
And Albert Clinton died 13 June 1890 at 16 years 3 months in Flora, Illinois (a 
nearby town) of lead poisoning. He was a compositor, and lead poisoning was an 
occupational hazard for people who worked setting type.

     Edward Linn Elrod, the father of this family, died 19 May 1886 in his residence 
near Oskaloosa. Several months before he died, he had applied for a Civil War pension 
in the “invalid” category. The National Archives record shows a second filing 8 June 
1886, just three weeks after his death, by his widow and a third filing by a guardian 
16 September 1889. 

     According to the Illinois Statewide Death Index, Pre-1916, a Mollie A. Elrod, 
age 43 years, died in Farina, Illinois on 31 March 1889. She was the right age to be 
the mother of this family, and when I learned that Mollie is a nickname for Mary, I 
was reasonably sure I had the right one. This index also showed a Nellie Elrod, 20 
years old, dying in Farina, Illinois on 30 March 1889. (Farina is in Fayette County, 
which is contiguous to Clay County.) The death register from Fayette County showed 
that both Nellie and Mollie A. died of consumption.

     So far, I have not learned why they went to Farina to die. I have found no 
evidence of a TB sanitarium there, nor have I found that they died in the home of a 
friend or relative.

     At the time Mollie A. Elrod died, her youngest child, Homer Milton Elrod, was 4 
years old. He was 1 when his father died.

     I decided to pay the $75 for Edward Linn Elrod’s Civil War pension file, which 
turned out to be full of information, to include the fact that he was 6 feet 3 inches 
tall and had red hair. My husband is 6 feet 4; our son is 6 feet 6. We never knew 
precisely where the height came from. Our daughter has auburn hair. These were fun 
facts to learn.

     Edward Linn’s first pension application noted that he had entered the service 1 
March 1864 and on 20 March 1864 he contracted measles, which affected his lungs. A 
letter from the war department said he returned to duty 25 March 1864, but was 
admitted to the hospital again on 3 July 1864, this time with dysentery. His term of 
service expired on the 26th day of November 1865.

     Back in Orange County, Indiana, where he had joined the Union Army, he appeared 
before a notary public, to whom he was well known, on 28 November 1885. A deposition 
by a former hospital steward, Calvin Sparks, said that after Edward was treated for 
the measles, he was taken by steamboat to his next assignment in Baton Rouge, and 
while on the boat, he caught cold, had a bad cough and complained of his chest 
hurting. This complaint continued.

     The character of Calvin Sparks was attested to by several letters in the file.

     Edward Linn gave another deposition in Orange County on 4 December 1885, and two 
men vouched for his honesty, having known him for 30 years. “At the time he enlisted 
in the Army he was considered sound able bodyed (sic) and after his return from the 
army we often heard him complain of his lungs hurting him and he said was caused by 
having measels (sic) while in the Army.” They attested that he had pneumonia twice 
while they lived near him in 1867.

     A William Freeman, former hospital steward in Edward Linn’s regiment, but living 
in 1885 in Flora, Illinois, said Elrod complained of his lungs throughout his service 
and that once in 1885 Freeman was with him when he had a hemorrhage of the lungs. 
Freeman acknowledged that after they were discharged from the service, Elrod married 
Freeman’s sister, Mary (Mollie) A. Freeman. Freeman said Elrod was incapacitated such 
that he could not perform manual labor but about half the time on his farm.

     Papers filed on his behalf in June of 1885 said he was easily fatigued and 
experienced shortness of breath on exertion. At 6 feet 3 inches he weighed but 142 
pounds. “His general appearance shows him to be in poor health,” the affidavit said, 
adding that in the opinion of the examiners, he was suffering from tuberculosis of 
both lungs and that this began while he was in the Army. His disability, the examiners 
said, was equal to losing a hand or a foot.

     As far as can be told from the pension application to this point, he was not 
granted any money.

     Mollie A. Elrod signed an “affidavit of decease” which said her husband died 19
May 1886 and that he left no last will and testament to the best of her knowledge. He 
died in his residence in Oskaloosa, Clay County, she attested. His personal estate, 
she said, in papers filed in front of the Clay County Court, was worth $300.

The appraisal listed, among other things:
Beds and beding      $25.00
Table                  2.00
5 chairs               1.00
cook stove and pots    5.00
shovel                  .50
spade                   .50
harness                3.00
breaking plow          2.00
spring wagon           8.00
cow and calf          30.00
mare                  10.00
hogs                   5.00
2 stands of bees       4.00

     One of the more interesting papers in the file was a testament by Samuel H. 
Laswell and John Dawkins of Clay County, who wrote that “we were personally 
acquainted with Edward L. Elrod and knew him to be a pensioner on the roll of the 
Chicago Agency and that we are personaly (sic) known to his death on the 19th day 
of May 1886 as he resided some seven or eight miles from any undertaker and we 
went and procured a coffin and conveyed the body to the cemetery and was present 
at funeral this is dated the 1st day of June 1886.”

     Mollie A. Elrod was granted a widow’s pension in the amount of $12 per month 
plus $2 for each surviving child beginning June 8, 1886 and payable until each 
turned 16. My husband’s grandfather, Homer Milton Elrod, was to receive his $2 
monthly until April 10, 1901.

     On 25 October 1892, Thomas Switzer, guardian, of Farina, Fayette County, 
Illinois was awarded payments on behalf of the surviving minor children – Earl, 
Mary E. and Homer Milton.

     My husband and I visited Clay County in the summer of 2010. Oskaloosa, near 
where Edward Linn and Mary (Mollie) lived, existed only as two or three derelict 
houses. The cemeteries in the area turned up nothing about any in the family. The 
death record for Mollie and Nellie says they were buried in Oskaloosa, but that 
could have meant they were buried in a cemetery on the family farm. 
So far, we have not determined its location. It is possible they were all buried 
in the Oskaloosa Cemetery, but without gravestones to mark the site.

     There are still many facts to learn about this family, but I have made a good 
start in solving the mystery of what happened to them after they migrated to 
Illinois.

Charlotte Curlee Ramsey
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~cramsey/index.html