The Definitive Dwiggins no. 84—W.A. Dwiggins’ Ancestry, Part IV: Aunts and Uncles on the Dwiggins Side

W.A. Dwiggins had two uncles and one aunt on his father’s side: Charles, James, and Elizabeth (known as Lizzie).

Charles B. Dwiggins
Charles B. Dwiggins was born April 3, 1850. [1] He married Mary Shepherd on February 13, 1873. [2] They had three children: Clarence Victor (b. 1874), Claudia (b. 1877), and Vern (b. 1879). [3] Charles was as active locally as his father Zimri. He was a member of the Clinton County Grange, Patrons of Husbandry, Wilmington Lodge no. 52 of the Masons and the Custer Light Guards, Company D, 13th Regiment of the Ohio National Guard. [4] He was also a founding member of the Clinton Fire Engine, Hook and Ladder and Hose Company of Wilmington in 1875; and, from 1876 on, a Justice of the Peace. [5] Soon after being admitted to the Bar in May 1872 he joined the law firm of Hildebrandt & Sloane in Wilmington. [6] He remained there until June 1877 when he briefly went out on his own before going into partnership with his mentor Melville Hayes seven months later as Hayes & Dwiggins. [7] Sometime in the 1880s Charles B. and his family moved to Findlay, Ohio following a gas and oil boom in the region. He died in Los Angeles in 1922.

James F. Dwiggins
James F. Dwiggins was born August 9, 1855. He attended Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana during the 1875–1876 school year. [8] After his return to Wilmington he married Sallie Briggs on April 5, 1877 in a ceremony officiated by the Rev. B.Y. Siegfried (the future father-in-law of Moses Dwiggins). [9] He was a farmer, working what was apparently part of his father’s 120 acres of land until 1883. That year he and Sallie year moved to Richmond, Indiana to join Moses and his family. [10] There he became an insurance salesman, first for Samuel Bellis and then for the Western Assurance Co. In late May of 1885 James and Sallie moved to Cincinnati where he went to work for the J.R. Preston insurance agency. [11] He was granted a certificate to join the Cincinnati Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends in 1888. [12] Sallie died in 1897 and James moved back to the family farm to live with his parents. [13] Later in the decade, following Zimri’s stroke, all three moved to Wilmington where James found work in a paper mill as a machinist. There he married Mary D. Vandervort in 1904. Sometime between then and 1910, James and his second wife moved to Mankato, Minnesota where he died on October 28, 1926. [14]

Elizabeth Dwiggins
Elizabeth Dwiggins was born September 21, 1858. She married W.A. O’Neall on December 17, 1884. [15] They lived in Waynesville, Ohio where they had five children within ten years. [16] After her husband died November 29, 1895, Elizabeth—known as Lizzie throughout her life—moved with her children to Wilmington. There she found work as a seamstress until the infirmities of old age caught up with her. After her brother James moved to Minnesota, her mother Phoebe moved in with her and three of her children, Hugh, Anna and Hazel. They were supported by Hugh’s income as a draughtsman at the Farquhar Furnace factory. [17] Lizzie died in 1934.

Notes
1. Charles B. Dwiggins should not be confused with his cousin Charles E. Dwiggins (b. 1856), the son of Robert J. Dwiggins.
2. Clinton County Courthouse marriage records (Wilmington, Ohio) vol. 4, p. 204.
3. The three children are listed on the 1880 United States Census as Claire [sic], Claudia, and Vena [sic]. The Ohio Births and Christenings, 1773–1974 database has a record (but with no image) for Clarence Victor (16 June 1874), but none for either Claudia or Vern. Information on their dates of birth is taken from California Death Index, 1940–1997: Claudia Mae was born 21 July 1877 and Vern Richard was born 29 November 1879. All three children died in Los Angeles. Clarence Victor Dwiggins became famous as a cartoonist and illustrator named “Dwig.”
4. See The Wilmington Journal, 26 December 1877; and The Clinton Republican, 8 February 1877.
5. The History of Clinton County, Ohio (Chicago: W.H. Beers & Co., 1882).
6. The Clinton Republican, 6 June 1872.
7. The Clinton Republican, 21 June 1877 and 20 February 1878.
8. Email from Mary Ann Coons, Earlham College 24 June 2003. Also see Catalogue of Earlham College, Richmond, Ind., for the Year Ending 6th Month 28th, 1876 (Richmond, Indiana: Press of the Telegram Printing Company, 1876), p. 12.
9. Clinton County Courthouse marriage records (Wilmington, Ohio) vol. 4, p. 500. The Clinton Republican, 12 April 1877 mistakenly describes the marriage as having taken place on April 4 while The Wilmington Journal, 12 April 1877 simply notes that the marriage took place the previous week.
10. 1880 Census Clinton County Index indexed by Josephine M. Williams (Wilmington, Ohio: n.p., 1986). The assumption that James was farming his father’s smaller plot of land is based on the census entry in which he and Sally are listed as living in the next dwelling after that of Zimri and Phoebe.
11. Richmond City Directory for 1883–84 Comprising a List of the Inhabitants of the City and Suburbs Above the Age of Fifteen Years together with a Classified Business Directory, and Other Useful Information compiled and published by M. Cullaton & Co. (Richmond, Indiana: M. Cullaton & Co., 1883); Kramer Publishing and Advertising Company’s Miscellaneous Directory of Wayne County and Richmond, Ind. 1885–86 Vol. I compiled by the Kramer Publishing and Advertising Co. (Lafayette, Indiana: Kramer Publishing and Advertising Co., [1886]); and The Richmond Evening Item, 28 May 1885 and 31 May 1885.
12. Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy (vol. VII: Abstracts of the Records of the Society of Friends in Indiana, Part One) by Willard Heiss, ed. (Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1962), p. 100.
13. See the 1900 United States Census for James’ residence and profession. There is no record online for the death of Sallie Briggs Dwiggins, but a probate notice in The Wilmington Journal 2 February 1898 indicates he died in late 1897.
14. See The Wilmington Journal 16 November 1904 for an announcement of James’ marriage to Mary D. Vandervort. There is no online record of the marriage, but it has been confirmed in an email 1 February 2018 from Bobbi Hoffman, Records Manager, Clinton County Records & Registrar. Both were widowed. James is listed as living in Mankato, Minnesota in city directories for the city in 1912, 1914—with the profession of painter—and 1924, but in 1920 he and Mary are recorded as boarding with the Truax family Minneapolis. See the 1920 United States Census. The record of his death is in the Minnesota Death Index, 1908–2000.
15. Marriage Records of Clinton County, Ohio (1810–1900) compiled by Joyce Hopkins Pinkerton ([Wilmington, Ohio]: Clinton County Genealogical Society, 1997).
16. The children were Hugh (born 1885), Phoebe Elizabeth (born 1888), James Kelly (born 1890), and twins Anna and Hazel (born 1893).
17. See The Definitive Dwiggins no. 83—W.A. Dwiggins’ Ancestry, Part I: Zimri and Phoebe Dwiggins.