On an old map of the Sherwood Forest Town Cemetery, Sherwood Township, Clark County, Wisconsin, there is written the name of a Civil War veteran, “McCormick”. No marker had adorned his grave until two years ago when myself and friend, Lowell Freedlund, put up a makeshift slab of cement with hand painted script to mark his gravesite. All memory of him had been lost through the passing of time.
A few years ago another friend, Kevin Struensee, came across a newspaper article on microfilm from 1884 with a small obituary for a Patrick McCormick of Sherwood. The obit told of Mr. McCormick’s four years of service in the Union Army and contained a most interesting note that he had served as one of Sheridan’s Scouts during the war. It did not list the state he fought for. He died from tuberculosis, or consumption, as it was then called.
Our wish was to give Mr. McCormick an appropriate marker. In order to obtain a gravestone from the Veteran’s Administration one needs to know the state and regiment a veteran served with. I begin by looking on the Internet for those brave men named Patrick McCormick who fought in the Civil War. I was overwhelmed to find that there were over 90 veterans with this same name, Patrick McCormick, who served. In studying the service records of several men from this list that fought for Wisconsin, none of the names matched the obit. They had either died before March 17, 1884, or lived much longer than our Mr. McCormick had.
My focus concentrated next on early census records and I searched an index for all Patrick McCormicks in 1870 and 1860 who resided in Wisconsin on the Federal Census. In this case, again, there were several men with the same name listed. Knowing the history of Sherwood Township and the fact that over 80 percent of the township’s early residents had origins or relocated from Waushara County, Wisconsin, I began to focus on a particular man, “Pat McCormick” on the 1870 Federal Census at that location. This Pat, was born in NY and lived with his young wife, Anorilla McCormick, in Waushara County. Pat was old enough (born about 1840) to have served in the Civil War and appeared to have just begun married life with an occupation of farming. It seemed very possible that Pat McCormick of Waushara County, WI, in 1870, could have relocated as so many other settlers from that region had, to Sherwood Township by 1884. I continued on a mission to learn all I could about this man. Could he have been the man who no one remembered, buried in Sherwood Cemetery?
On the 1870 Federal Census, Pat and wife, Anorilla, were living in Oasis Township, Waushara County.
Ten years later on the 1880 Federal Census for Oasis I found Anorilla McCormick with her 3 children; Daniel, Charles, and Ernest McCormick in the household of her parents Nelson and Mehitable Kennison, but no Patrick. Under the “Health” column, if the person on the day of the enumeration was sick or disabled so as to be unable to attend to ordinary duties, a comment was made. Anorilla suffered from “lung complaint”. Her marital status was given as “Married”. I believe she was too ill to care for her children hence had taken board with her parents, and husband Patrick had sought employment elsewhere.Next I posted a query at an online genealogy website seeking descendants of Nelson and Mehitable Kennison, parents of Pat’s wife, Anorilla, in hopes that they could enlighten me on the whereabouts and service record of Patrick McCormick. I wanted to learn more about the McCormick children, Daniel, Charles, and Ernest, as well, and so I obtained information from each of their marriage records on file at Waushara County. Eldest son Daniel stated his parents’ names as Patrick and Anorilla McCormick. Charles and Ernest both listed their parents’ names on their marriage records as Charles and Anorilla Kennison McCormick. Now I had two different given names for Mr. McCormick of Oasis, both Charles and Patrick. On an additional note, sons Charles and Ernest were both born in New London, WI, according to their marriage records.
A friend I met online, Wanda Morris, gave me information from the East Oasis Cemetery in Waushara County. A tall gravestone with writing on adjacent sides bears the names of Nelson Kennison, father, and Anorilla McCormick, daughter, at this cemetery. I received a photo of the stone from Pat Cauthron, descendant of Anorilla’s brother, Sheridan Kennison. Anorilla McCormick died August 8, 1881, just a year after the 1880 census listed her health problems of “lung complaint”. Her brief obituary from the Plainfield Times of Aug. 9, 1881 reads, “Mrs. P. McCormick of Oasis died on Monday last, after an extended illness.” Another connection was evident, Mrs. Patrick McCormick of Oasis and Patrick McCormick of Sherwood both died of lung diseases, most likely contagious tuberculosis. Son, Charles McCormick, also died of TB at the age of 29. He was undoubtedly infected as a small child, and overcame the disease for a time until he was weakened by a case of typhoid fever in his adulthood, as stated in his obituary.
In January of 2002, I received a reply to my online query seeking descendants of the Kennison/McCormick family from Darliene McCormick Kempe of California, 76 year old granddaughter of Ernest McCormick. Ernest was the youngest son of Patrick and Anorilla McCormick. Darliene was not aware of her great grandfather’s Civil War service or his burial place. Her grandfather, Ernest, having lost his parents so early in life, was raised by an aunt and had few recollections to share of his parents. Darliene did verify that her great grandfather used both the given names of Charles and Patrick McCormick and knew of the family residence in Waushara County, WI.
Learning about the family was important and interesting, but I still lacked any military information on Patrick McCormick. If Charles Patrick McCormick of Oasis was one in the same, I had another given name to search for. There were also several Charles McCormicks who fought for Wisconsin in the Civil War but again none of them matched the death date in 1884.
Turning to the Internet I decided to try to learn more about Sheridan’s Scouts, of which Patrick McCormick was a member as stated in his obituary. Paul Simpson of Haverford, Pennsylvania, expert on Sheridan’s Scouts, had a list of veteran scouts online of which he was seeking further information. One of the names Paul gave was that of a Charles McCormick who served with Michigan’s 1st Cavalry in Companies A, D, and F, and also as one of Sheridan’s Scouts. Paul shared with me material he had uncovered from the National Archives on this soldier. Charles of Michigan’s 1st Cavalry was born about 1840 in NY, enlisted at Detroit, Michigan, and served 4 years in the Civil War. I now had a similar age in the two men, same length of service, and the same state of birth - New York. Mr. Simpson has extensively researched, for more than 5 years, all of the men who were members of General Sheridan’s Scouts, just over 100 soldiers. They joined the scouts from various states, often were from Civil War Cavalry regiments. In Paul Simpson’s careful research of the entire group of Scouts, he had only one McCormick on his list, a veteran named Charles McCormick!
In February 2002, I ordered a pension file for Charles McCormick of Michigan’s 1st Cavalry from the National Archives and military records from the state of Michigan. Michigan Historical Center sent me, in addition to military records, pertinent pages from a list veterans including their known death dates and burial sites. Charles McCormick’s death date and burial place was unknown by the state of Michigan. In July 2002, I received the much awaited pension file from the National Archives. It contained just 4 pages. From this file I learned that in the summer of 1880, Charles McCormick of Michigan’s 1st Cavalry, also a Scout for Sheridan, applied for an invalid pension and gave his residence as Scranton, Wood County, Wisconsin. His reason for filing was that he had acquired what he thought to be bronchitis while a prisoner of war in 1864 at Richmond, Virginia. Charles claimed that he was now partly disabled. He had also been shot in the right finger in January of 1865 while a Scout. (I believe the bronchitis was actually tuberculosis that plagued him the remainder of his life and caused his untimely demise.) He listed on his pension application the occupation of farmer, his age at 40, and stated that he had lived at “different places” in the State of Wisconsin since his service. Charles McCormick’s pension was denied on grounds that there was no record of his disability or hospital regimental records on file. This document of denial was dated March 31, 1883. After nearly a three year ordeal, he ended up receiving no compensation.
I then turned again to Federal Census records perusing the 1880 census from Scranton, Wood County, WI, (the location where Charles McCormick of Michigan’s 1st Cavalry filed for his pension in June of 1880). Scranton was near its peak in 1881 with a population of 65. It was a small but booming sawmill town located next to the railroad track just east of City Point, Jackson County, WI. Nothing remains of Scranton today; it was just 6 miles south of Sherwood Township! Among ten boarders at the residence of lumberman James Hiles, I found the name of P. C. McCormick. He was born in New York, was 40 years of age, and listed his occupation as a machinist. James Hiles was in the sawmill business at Scranton. Two other boarders on the census with McCormick were brothers, Mathew and Robert Meddaugh of Sherwood (with Waushara County origins). Also residents of Scranton were E. P. and Della Sawyer. Della Sawyer’s brother, Hugh Perkins, formerly of Waushara County, operated a sawmill in the spring of 1884 at Sherwood that employed several men.
With data gathered and submitted to the Veteran’s Administration in the fall of 2002 a gravestone was ordered and placed at the site of Charles Patrick McCormick’s grave in the Sherwood Township Cemetery replacing the makeshift cemetery slab. It was a good feeling.
