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Revised
October 28, 2009 Samuel W.
Long
(1833-1865) Samuel W. Long is the earliest identified member of the Long family that later settled in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Naples, New York. Although he died at the age of 31 while serving in the army during the Civil War, Sam left three children who in turn began a long line of descendants. Sam was the father of: *
Samuel
Parker Long (1860-1926), a Methodist missionary in Burma
and
minister in Minnesota
* Elizabeth
Long (1864-1886), who died at age 22* William George Long (1865-1926), an oil industry businessman in West
Virginia and Oklahoma
Much of the information on all of the families related to the Longs of Tulsa was developed through the research of Rachel Long Misey (1924-2004), a daughter of Clarence Ray Long, with the assistance of numerous other family members. In particular, extensive research on the early generations of Parkers and Longs was undertaken by Nellie Olive “Nickie” Parker Milford (1886-1971). She was a daughter of George W. Parker. Two of George's sisters, Almira and Abbie Parker, were married to Samuel W. Long. The section below is addressed primarily to Samuel W. Long. Separate sections of this report focus on individuals who over time were related to Samuel W. Long:
This material includes these sections: Samuel W. Long's Early Years Samuel W. Long was born in 1833, according to military records. The family history is that he was orphan. No birth date has been established. However, when he enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1864 to join the Civil War, Sam told officers that he had been born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, just east of Pittsburgh, in 1833. Some members of the family believed he had been born in or near Lebanon, Pennsylvania, on the eastern side of the state, but that seemed unlikely. One guess was that, if there was a Lebanon connection, there possibly was a small community called Lebanon in Westmoreland County, but no such community has been located. There is a “West Lebanon” in Indiana County, about 30 miles due east of Pittsburgh, but no link to Sam Long has been established. In the census of 1840, when Sam would have been seven, there was in that county a household of a Samuel Long, aged between 30 and 40, with one female 15-20, and one male, under 5. No names are given except for the head of household. There is a remote possibility that the five-year-old could have been named for his father and could be young Samuel, whose parents later died. Others may research this possible connection further. In any event, it seems most likely that when Samuel told military offices that he had been born in Westmoreland County (and not Lebanon), he knew what he was talking about. The McJunkin Family Long family lore said that Sam was raised by a McJunkin family, two bachelors and two spinsters. However, the family apparently was larger than that. The 1840 census showed a William McJunkin in Muddy Creek Township, near Butler, Pennsylvania, but no names were given of household members, and it is not possible to determine if Sam Long was with them. The 1850 census showed that “Samuel W. Long, 17, farmer,” was living with a large McJunkin family in Bristol Township, Trumbull County, Ohio. The age given in the census would relate to a birth date of 1833, consistent with what Sam told the military officers. This Samuel W. Long seems quite clearly to be the progenitor of the Long family. In addition to Sam, the Trumbull County household in 1850 consisted of James McJunkin, 83, a farmer, and Sarah, 65, William, 41, John, 40, Snowden, 35, Emeline, 29, Agnes, 25, Susanna, 23, and two small children. The McJunkin family remained in Trumbull County, Ohio, in the 1860 census. Samuel W. Long was not with them but the census taken on July 17, 1860, showed him with his bride, Almira Parker Long, living in Johnston, also in Trumbull County, not far from the McJunkin family. The 1860 census report of the McJunkins showed that the older family members had been born in Pennsylvania. This suggests a possible link between the Parkers and the McJunkins at an earlier time. Marrying Almira Parker On December 13, 1859, Samuel W. Long married Almira Parker. (The name was spelled “Elmira” in some records.) She had been born on May 15, 1840, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The record of the marriage was found in a very large ledger in the offices of Trumbull County, Ohio. A marriage certificate said: Hartford, Trumbull Co., Ohio,
December 13
This is to certify that on this 13th day of Dec. 1859 Mr. Samuel W. Long and Miss Almira Parker Was by me legally joined in marriage. Benjamin Walker Pastor of Pres. Church Seven months after they were married, Sam and Almira were shown in the July 1860 census living in Johnston, Trumbull County. Johnston is located along Route 88, about 15 miles northeast of Warren, Ohio, about 20 miles from the Pennsylvania border. Family history said that Almira was very religious and would not allow her picture to be taken. She was one of the six surviving children of James Wilson (Curley Jim) Parker, of Parker’s Landing. It is not known how Sam Long and Almira Parker met. In 1850, when she was 10, Almira was living with her father in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, probably at Parker’s Landing. That same year, Sam was living in Ohio with the McJunkins, not far from Johnston. Did he meet Almira in Ohio sometime between 1850 and 1860, or did he meet her while traveling to Parker’s Landing, Pennsylvania? On October 23, 1860, only ten months after the wedding, Almira died at the age of 20, one month after the birth of her son, Samuel Parker Long. Samuel Parker Long had been born on September 26, 1860. Almira was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Bristolville, near Johnston, Ohio. Years later, Samuel Parker Long placed the headstone in honor of his mother. It was discovered in 1977 by Helen Long Long. It reads: ALMIRA
Wife of Samuel W. Long
Died October 23, 1860 Aged 20 Yrs, 5 Mos, 8 Days Marrying Abbie Parker Two and a half years after Almira died, on February 6, 1863, Samuel W. Long married Almira Parker's sister, Sarah Agnes (Abbie) Parker, who had been born on April 28, 1844, in Pittsburgh. It was the family understanding that about this time, between 1860 and 1865, Sam was a farmer in Lawrenceburg, Pennsylvania, part of the town of Parker. A church record said: Married in Lawrenceburg, Feb. 6th
By Rev. Colter Samuel W. Long and Miss Sarah Agnes Parker Of Lawrenceburg, Armstrong Co. Feb. 6th, 1863 Four years later, in March 1867, an “Official Proof of Marriage,” prepared in support of Abbie’s quest for a widow’s pension gave slightly different information. A Justice of the Peace in Butler County, Pennsylvania, wrote that Rev. James Coulter, a minister of the Gospel, declared that he did, on the fourth day of February, 1863, “at my own house in Parker Tp. in the County of Butler,” unite Samuel W. Long, Trumbull County, Ohio, and Sarah Agnes Parker of Armstrong County” in the bonds of holy matrimony.
Sam’s Death in the Union Army Although married in Pennsylvania, Sam and Abbie went back to Ohio, where he had been living with Almira. Sam was in Ohio when he volunteered to serve for a period of one year as a soldier in the Army of the United States in the Civil War. A document entitled “Declaration of Recruit” showed that Sam enlisted at Warren, Trumbull County, Ohio, on September 1, 1864, when he was 31. Part of Sam’s voluminous pension record, dated March 25, 1865, showed that he was a private in Company E of the 177th Regiment of the Ohio volunteers. The record when he enlisted said he was 31 years old, five feet seven and a half inches tall, fair complexion, blue eyes and auburn hair, and that he had been a farmer, born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. He had been paid a clothing allowance of $29.64, but he had received no bounty pay, and a $100 bounty was due to him. There is no indication that Sam was involved in military conflict. He was assigned to be a guard at the Post Commissary at Tullahoma, Tennessee, about halfway between Nashville and Chattanooga. His service did not last long. Having enlisted on September 1, 1864, he was diagnosed with chronic diarrhea followed by typhoid fever, and he was sent to the hospital in Nashville on October 12, 1864, 42 days after he enlisted. The hospital was described in some records as “U.S. Hospital” and in others as Cumberland General Hospital. Sam died in the hospital on January 18, 1865, still only 31. This was just four and a half months after he had enlisted in the Army, and less than two years after his marriage to Abbie. A family record said that Abbie Parker Long told her children that she possessed a letter dictated by Sam to a nurse when he knew he would not recover, but no family members could find the letter. His personal effects included one cape, one great coat, one blouse, two pairs of pants, two shirts, one pair of boots, two blankets, and one knapsack. He was buried in Nashville. The record said that the “number and locality of the grave” was “11441 City Cemetery.” Sam’s son, Samuel Parker Long, later told his own sons that he could remember his father going off to the Civil War, although he was only four at the time. Young Sam was given one of his dad’s large copper pennies, which he saved, and when his own sons, Donald and Wendell Long, went into the First World War, Sam had the coin cut into two and inscribed with his and their names and perforated so that they could use them at watch charms. There is confusion about the location of Sam’s home. The record of his death said that Sam's widow was Sarah Agnes Long, of Lawrenceburg, Pennsylvania. Sam enlisted in Ohio and became a member of the Ohio Volunteers, but he said he had been born in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania, and his wife said they lived in Lawrenceburg, in Armstrong County. However, when their daughter Elizabeth was born in January 1864, they lived in Trumbull County, Ohio. The physician who attended Sarah appeared before a notary to attest to Lizzie’s birth. He did so before a notary public in Trumbull County, Ohio, but the notary actually wrote his statement – “State of Ohio, County of Trumbull,” etc. – on the letterhead of the Kittanning Woolen Mills of Kittanning, Pennsylvania. The boundary between the two states appeared to have little significance. Why did Sam join the Army so soon after he was married, with one child at home only eight months old and his wife pregnant? One family researcher pointed out that Atlanta had just been taken. The Confederate army had retreated and was heading into Tennessee to cut Sherman’s supply line, and so “Sherman dispatched 30,000 men to reinforce the Union army at Nashville, Tennessee.” Presumably, the army was drafting men heavily at that time, the researcher said, and probably the $100 enlistment bonus appeared preferable to being taken by the draft (although the record showed that Sam had not received it by the time he died). Fighting Bureaucracy for a Pension When Samuel W. Long died, Abbie was pregnant with her second child, and she returned from Ohio, with her daughter Lizzie, to go to Parker’s Landing to live with her father, James Wilson Parker. Curley Jim became the guardian of Sam’s first child, Samuel Parker Long. In March 1865, only two months after Sam died, Abbie applied for a “widow’s pension,” declaring in a notarized statement in Perry Township, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, that she was the wife of Sam and that their daughter, Elizabeth Long, had been born in January 1864. Witnesses for Abbie on that day were her father, James W. Parker, and her sister Leanna M. McGee. Getting the pension apparently was not easy. In November 1865, an assistant adjutant general in the office of the Commissioner of Pensions in Washington wrote acknowledging the claim and noting the reports that Sam had served with the 177th regiment of Ohio volunteers and died in Tennessee, but then concluding that “the name of Samuel Long does not appear on any Roll of Company E, 177 Ohio Vols on file in this office. This is correct Report. Your obedient servant.” Apparently, more evidence would be required. Two years later, in March 1867, Dr. Harry Beach appeared before a notary in Trumbull County, Ohio, to say that he had attended Sarah A. Long of Johnson Township, Trumbull County, “when she gave birth to a child on the 3d day of January 1864, that said child was a daughter and was acknowledged by the aforesaid Samuel W. Long as his child.” That same month, Elizabeth Vanderford Parker, the mother of both Almira and Abbie Parker Long, went before a notary in Butler County, Pennsylvania, to say that she had witnessed the birth of William George Long and that she was personally acquainted with Almira’s husband, Samuel W. Long, in his lifetime, “and that William George Long is the child of the said Sarah Agnes Long and Samuel W. Long.” And in April 1867, the Reverend Benjamin Walker appeared before a clerk of the court in Trumbull County, Ohio, to swear that he had married Sam and Almira on December 13, 1859. That apparently was enough to justify a pension to help support Lizzie and Bill Long -- $2.00 per month per child -- but it wasn’t enough to get a pension for the first-born, Samuel Parker Long. Eight years later, in June 1875, Samuel’s grandfather, James Wilson Parker, had to appear before the prothonotary, or clerk or first officer, of the Court of Common Pleas of Armstrong County, in his capacity as guardian of Samuel P. Long, the minor child of Samuel W. Long. He was requesting benefits provided by the Act of Congress of 1862 granting pensions of two dollars per month to minor children, under 16 years of age, of deceased officers, soldiers, or seamen. Curley Jim declared: *
that he was the guardian of Samuel
P. Long
* that Samuel’s father had died in 1865 as a private in the Ohio Volunteers * that his mother had died in 1860 * that Samuel W. Long was married a second time, to Sarah A. Parker * that two children had been born of the second marriage, Elizabeth A. Long, who would be 16 on January 3, 1880, and William G. Long, who would be 16 on May 9, 1881 * that Sarah had received a pension for herself as widow and for the two children she had borne, under Pension Certificate No. 93792, Recorded in Pension Office Book, Volume 5, page 260 * that Samuel P. Long, who was the only child of the first wife, was born on September 26, 1860 * that from the time of Samuel W. Long’s death, Samuel P. Long had resided with Curley Jim and been supported by him, and that he had never received any pension from the United States or any other sources for the minor. Also in 1875, witnesses had to appear before a justice of the peace in Parker City to verify that they were well acquainted with James Wilson Parker and his daughter, Sarah Parker Long, and that Sarah has resided with James W. Parker, the guardian of Samuel P. Long, since the death of her husband. They certified that through her labor and industry, Sarah had managed to keep her children at home with her and had supported and kept Samuel P. Long with her in her father’s house since the death of her husband, and that Samuel had not received any support except what he may have received from his grandfather. By this time, Samuel Parker Long was 15 years old, and the available record does not show whether his grandfather ever received any pension benefit on his behalf. Living with Curley Jim The 1870 census showed that the household of James W. Parker had moved from Parker’s Landing to the south, to Brady’s Bend, Perry Township, Armstrong County. This was another of the ever-changing centers of activity in the oil business, located along the Allegheny River 60 miles north of Pittsburgh. (See the maps and other material on Brady's Bend here.) The census showed that living with Curley Jim were his daughter Abbie Long and Samuel W. Long’s three children, Samuel Parker Long, 10, son of Almira, and Lizzie Long, 7, and William Long, 6, both children of Abbie. Abbie herself was listed as “Sarah Long,” housekeeper, 25. The 1880 census showed “Sarah Long,” 34, widowed, living in Parker City with her father and the three children. A relative recalled that “the neighbor children called Sarah ‘Aunt Abbie.’ When she had company for dinner, they lined up in the kitchen, as still as mice, waiting for the second table, and were never disappointed.” Abbie Parker Long died almost 41 years after her husband, on March 14, 1906, at the age of 61. Note much else is known about Samuel W. Long. There is no information about the meaning of the initial "W." Wendell Long wrote in a diary in 1938 that his father, Samuel Parker Long, understood that his father, Samuel W. Long, knew how to find water for wells using a forked stick. Wendell wrote that there was absolutely no scientific reason why that should work but it seemed to work anyway. "This seems to be akin to witching water wells with a forked stick," Wendell wrote. "Father [Samuel Parker Long] said that his father [Samuel W.] was a 'witch" and used to locate wells for his neighbors." Since Sam Parker was only four when Samuel W. died, it may be assumed that this was a story passed down in the Parker family. Samuel W. Long and Abbie Parker Long had two children, Elizabeth (Lizzie) Long and William George Long, born in 1864 and 1865. Bill Long was born four months after the death of his father. Children of Samuel W. Long Samuel
Parker Long (1860-1926)
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Long (1864-1886) William George Long (1865-1926) These three children of Samuel W. Long produced six children of their own. The Long Cousins: Travis
O. Long (1883-1919)
Haniel Clark Long (1888-1956) James Parker Long (1889-1970) Clarence Ray Long (1889-1935) Donald Oldham Long (1892-1957) Wendell Partridge Long (1894-1982) Samuel Parker Long (1860-1926) 1. Samuel Parker Long, the only child of Samuel W. and Almira Parker Long, was born on September 26, 1860, in Ohio. He married Sarah (May) Clark, and they had four children, Haniel Clark Long, James Parker Long, Donald Oldham Long, and Wendell Partidge Long. Sam was a Methodist minister, first in Rangoon, Burma, then in Pittsburgh and Duluth. He died in 1926. See the extensive section on Samuel Parker Long and his children. Elizabeth (Lizzie) Long (1864-1886) 2. Elizabeth (Lizzie) Long, the first child of Samuel W. Long and Sarah Agnes (Abbie) Parker Long, was born on January 3, 1864, when the family lived in Ohio, shortly before her father went off to the Civil War. On March 9, 1865 – after Lizzie had been born, but before her brother William was born -- Abbie appeared before a notary public in Perry Township, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, to certify that she was the mother of Lizzie and that Sam was the father. The “Widow’s Pension” document that Abbie signed said that Sarah was 21, that she was the widow of Samuel Long, who was a private in Company 6, commanded by Captain Chase in the 177th Regiment of Ohio Volunteers, and that Samuel Long died at the U.S. Cumberland Hospital, Ward 10, in the City of Nashville, on January 18, 1865, “by reason of typhoid fever contracted in said service and in the line of his duty.” She said there was born to her and her husband one child, Elizabeth Long, born 3d January, 1864. Lizzie reportedly married a man named Reyer and later a man named Brady. She had one son, Travis O. Long. He was born on October 18, 1883, apparently before Lizzie married, and he was given the last name Long. He died in 1919, about 35 years old. Travis married Bessie Miller, who died in 1920. It was understood that Travis and Bessie Long had two girls. Lizzie died about 1886 at the age of 22. William George Long (1865-1926) 3. William George Long, second child of Samuel and Abbie Long, was born on May 9, 1865, in Parker’s Landing, Pennsylvania. He was born less than four months after the death of his father in the Civil War. He married Mattie Thompson, whose father also had died as a result of service in the Civil War. Bill and Mattie had one son, Clarence Ray Long (1889-1935). After Mattie died in 1915, Bill married Maude Little. Bill died in 1926 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. A detailed section on the lives of Bill Long and the Thompson family can be found here. Also see sections on Clarence Long and on the Children of Clarence Long. Back to Top of this Section McLaughlin Family McClurg Family Ralston Family Clarence Ray Long Children of Clarence and Odie Long William George Long Samuel W. Long Samuel Parker Long Parkers and Vanderfords Genealogical Charts for Family Groups Neil Boyer's Family History Page |
