For Descendants of Christopher (Doc) Cranston & Bess Melby
Josephine P. Cranston’s relative, LHB Park, writes a letter to his mother (Charles’s aunt) about his loneliness as a soldier in the Union Army in Virginia and asks her to write. He composes two poems – “The Potomac” and “Spring.” He was the son of the brother of Charles’s mother and therefore a second cousin […]
Read More…This is the commissioning document for Charles Edward Cranston (Chris’s father) in the Ohio Militia as a 2nd Corporal. 15 August 1863 Ohio Volunteer Militia appointment of Charles E. Cranston as Second Corporal, Aug 15, 1863 (Woodstock, Champaign Co., OH) (A partly-printed Ohio Volunteer Militia commission/appointment form with manuscript fill-ins. Engraved eagle vignette with banner […]
Read More…This 1824 deed records John Cranston acquiring a 300-acre tract (the east half of Virginia Military District Survey No. 3689) from William Lytle of Cincinnati for $500. It is not John Cranston’s first Ohio land. John came to Ohio as the family pioneer in 1815, and by the time he made his will in March […]
Read More…“Cranston”: a printed narrative history of the Cranston family (found among Josephine P. Cranston’s possessions; she d. 1905) (A printed text — two columns/sections, clean and fully legible — recounting the Cranston family’s English and Scottish origins and the Rhode Island governors. Found among Josephine’s effects after her death; the printing predates 1905. Reproduced as […]
Read More…Charlie Jett Comments – Listen to this first – Josephine Park Cranston is the heroine of this entire website. We owe all of the historic documents to her. A Woman Ahead of Her Time Josephine P. Cranston and the 1866 Character Delineation from Dansville A study of one document in the Cranston family papers Among […]
Read More…Letter from Ephraim Cranston from the Oregon Trail – 1850 – near Missouri River NW of St. Joe, Missouri. E. Cranston to John A. Corwin, Esq., June 16, 1850 — written on the Oregon Trail (“Indian Territory,” ~100 mi NW of St. Joseph) (A letter written in camp on the overland trail, in E. Cranston’s […]
Read More…Transcription — “The Samuel Cranston Story” (Josephine P. Cranston, copied; received Nov 25, 1879 / dated Jan 5, 1896) (The Samuel Cranston story) In connection with Newport & piracy, the “History of Rhode Island” records a touching story which, as the author says, seems more like fiction than fact. We give the domestic tale which […]
Read More…Commentary — read this one with care. This is a typeset reprint, not a manuscript in Josephine’s hand, so what we’re transcribing is somebody’s later printing of her text (note the modern typesetting and the editorial subtitle). The header says “Lincoln–Douglas Debates at Lombard College, Galesburg.” The fifth Lincoln–Douglas debate was indeed at Galesburg on […]
Read More…Grandma (Bess) Melby is famous!
Read More…These are photos taken from “Prairie Tales” – a collection of stories about homesteaders in Bowman County, North Dakota in the early 1900s.
Read More…This was written by Helen Cranston Peterson about “Uncle Bill.”
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