This is actually a mini-history of my Lewis line. My great-grandmother, Mary Emma Lewis, had a brother Thomas - always called Tommy or Brother Tommy by Mary in her diaries. Their father, also a Thomas, had emigrated from Wales about 1825 and was involved in the steel mill business in Wheeling, WV. He was involved in the erection of the first two rolling mills in Wheeling, the old Top Mill and another which stood where the Baltimore & Ohio passenger depot now is. In 1850 Thomas (the elder) was in Cincinnati supervising the moving of a rolling mill to St. Louis. He died while in Cincinnati, leaving the younger Thomas, Mary Emma, two other brothers, and their mother, Emily Tyson, alone. In fact, Mary Emma was not yet born when her father died.
Of the four Lewis children (there were six total, but two died as infants) :
John - never married and died at age 38 of a lung disease. He worked in the mills and lived with his mother and/or siblings all his life.
William B. - began work at the age of seven in the Top mill. Seven Years Old!! He worked at various mills over the years, working his way up until he was manager of the Laughlin Nail Company. He and his wife, Camilla Carpenter, had five children, only two who lived to adulthood, William and Thomas Edward - neither of whom ever married.
Mary Emma - married Lucien Brockunier Martin. They lost two children in infancy and only Luther Philip Martin, my grandfather, lived to adulthood. Mary gets her own blog at some point. Her diaries that have been transcribed can be found here: Mary Emma Lewis Martin Diaries.
Thomas E - Thomas also started in the mills at an early age and did quite well, ending his career as a partner in firm Lewis and Hazlett. As a youngster he worked in the mills by day and went to night school to complete his education. He married Sarah Cotts, who died in 1893. Tommy was heartbroken when she passed on. Thomas & Sarah had two daughters, one who died in infancy. and Ella, born in 1864. Ella made it to adulthood, married and had one son...Thomas Lewis Shinn, who was just three years old when Ella died of complications from a gall bladder operation, a very risky operation in January of 1900. Her father, Thomas, was again heartbroken and according to Mary Emma's diaries felt his life was over. He retired from business and for a few years travelled the world, often sending travel reports, which were published in the Wheeling newspaper. He died in 1906 - From his obituary:
Mr. Lewis early in February joined a party at Chicago on a tour through Mexico. While traveling on this tour he acquired a cold, which developed into grippe, but he continued on the trip, arriving home on April 1. It was on Sunday at noon that he reached home a sick man and went to the City hospital, where Bright's disease developed. Despite the tenderest care of special nurses and two physicians he grew gradually worse until this morning when the end came.
So, the four Lewis children had a total of ten offspring, only four of whom lived to adulthood. This had not jumped out at me until I started looking for Thomas Lewis Shinn. It is not unusual to see infant mortality in those days, I just had not realized this line had so many.
When Ella Lewis Shinn lay on her deathbed she requested her son go to his grandmother's in Russellville, Ark to be raised. Ella had married George William Shinn, a lawyer who was practicing in Chicago at the time of Ella's illness. Little Tommy was born in Chicago in 1897. George William, called Will, was the son of Jacob Lawson Shinn who, with his father and several other Shinn families left North Carolina and migrated to Russellville, Arkansas. Will graduated from Bethany College in West Virginia in 1874 and completed his law degree at the Cincinnati Law School in 1880.
So, after his mother's untimely death, Tommy went to Russellville, Arkansas with Martha Battenfield Shinn. Her husband, Jacob Lawson Shinn, had died in 1899 so she might have appreciated the addition to her household. Although she was 61 years old she was a strong woman and, in fact, lived to be 92 years old. Did Ella have a premonition about her spouse? It is a little puzzling the child was sent to Arkansas with his grandmother and not to Chicago with his father. In the 1900 census Martha is living with her mother, two of her grandchildren from one of her other sons, a housekeeper and little Tommy. If you go to Mary Emma Martin's Diary for 1900 and read January you will find her daily reporting on Ella's death and the visit of the Shin's.
A few year later, in 1903, Will Shinn became ill. His obituary states "The beginning of his illness was caused from sunstroke while returning from church, from which he never fully recovered. This was followed by paralysis, unfitting him for the duties of his profession and resulting in his death, Monday, August 30, 1910." So, in 1903 Will returned to his mother's home in Russellville and the 1910 census we find Martha, Will, Tommy and the same servant/housekeeper.
In 1912 Thomas Lewis Shinn applied for a passport.
Later that year, he was a passenger on a ship called the Nippon Maru, which left Hong Kong on October 29, had a stopover in Yokahama, Japan on November 9th and arrived in San Francisco on November 25, 1912. The article (Chinese Slave Girl Plot Foiled) I found is absolutely the same ship and voyage. The names of the girls are listed on the first page of the ship's manifest as "stowaways". He was only 15 at the time and he is the only Shinn listed. As the list is alphabetical, it's hard to say who he was with. Certainly he wouldn't have been alone, but after going through every page of the manifest I can find no one else his age or from Arkansas. Perhaps he went with a group but had to come home on his own? Have no idea, but this was a very cool "find". What an adventure it must have been.
In 1917, like all adult males during 1917-1918 Tommy filled out a draft registration card.
I found Tommy in the 1920 census, still with his grandmother and the same housekeeper. He is 22 years old and his occupation is listed as "none".
1930 census shows us Martha and her long-standing housekeeper Amanda but no Thomas and so far he has eluded me in the 1930 census. Where in the heck did he go? I do know, from his grandfather's will, that he received $125,000 on his 25th birthday. That amount of money had been put in trust for him on Tommy Lewis' death and the interest and profits were to be paid to Martha Shinn for his upkeep. At age 21 he began receiving the profits and interest and at age 25 the principal came to him. the sum was originally $50,000 but in 1903, I would assume because of the illness of little Tommy's father, the sum was increased to $125,000.
I spent quite some time on ancestry.com, Shinn is not a common name, but no Thomas Lewis Shinn to be found in the 1930 census. At least, not my Thomas Lewis Shinn, second cousin, once removed.
A dead end? Well, no. On a whim, I went to a site called findagrave, put in the relevant information and up popped a screen with just the information I was looking for. Thomas Lewis Shinn, born 1897, died 1933 is buried in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California. What an interesting place to be buried, along with a lot of celebrities.
Here's what I put together from using this information and going back into ancestry.com, California has birth and death index information on line which includes birthdates and maiden name of mother.
Thomas Lewis Shinn born 1897, died 1933 age 36
....married Margaret Dolan born in 1902 & died in San Diego in 1974
They had two children:
Thomas Lewis Shinn, Jr. - born in 1923 & died in 1926 at age 3
Roderick L Shinn - born in 1927 & died in 1961 at age 33
Roderick L Shinn married Patricia Ann Whittemore
They had two children:
Roderick L. Shinn, Jr. - born and died in 1949
Stephen Alexander Shinn - born in 1950.
Patricia Ann Whittemore Shinn married a second time to Warren L Dodson 0n 3/28/1962
Her son Stephen Alexander Shinn was adopted and/or took the Dodson name.
Why so many early deaths in this family? I am going to try and get a copy of Thomas Lewis Shinn's death certificate and see if I can find what happened to him. I'll also up my search in the 1930 census but as of now I cannot find Tommy, his wife Margaret and his son Roderick. Did the census miss them somehow? The only mystery I have yet to solve is what Tommy was doing in Los Angeles - I will need the 1930 census for that and/or his death certificate.
After Tommy died in 1933 I found Margaret took little Roderick on a cruise to Hawaii and then another cruise in 1937 from Los Angeles to New York.
All in all, this has been an interesting project. I've learned about the Shinn's of Russellville, Ark., a bit more about the Tyson family and I've put some closure to where poor little motherless Tommy ended up. I wish my father was still alive, he used to wonder about his cousin. It is also clear that with the exception of Stephen Alexander Shinn/Dodson the only decendants in the Lewis line are my Martin family.
