Monday, May 7, 2012

The Secret of Abner Lemon

 

I work on different families at different times.  Last week it was all about the Merediths.  The week before that every little thing had to do with the Knapps.  This past weekend I've been studying the Lemons again, my favorite subject.  Today I found some things that almost literally left me gasping.

So Abner Lemon, my records say, was born in Canada.  Probably not.  His older siblings were born in Pennsylvania, and the sister born 2 years after him was born there, too.  But my records say he was born in Canada, so that's what we're going with.  And for some reason, he comes down to Michigan and settles in Macomb County.  There is another Isaac Lemon there, much older than Abner, living in Macomb County in 1850.  He states he was born in New York.  His age is 42.  He was born about 1808.  He has a wife, Melvina, a 12 year-old daughter named Eliza, and a 2 year old son named John. This would be John B. Lemon. 

Many Lemons stayed behind in Pennsylvania when the other Lemons went to Canada.  And there were other Lemon families unrelated to ours in the United States.  I think this Isaac Lemon was related to Abner and was the reason Abner brought his family down to Michigan.

So Abner is found living in Lennox Township, Macomb County as early as 1863.  I found his Civil War Draft Registration listing.  He's living with his wife, Lucy Ann Harmon Lemon, whom he married in Canada, and his children; Jemima, his oldest, born in Canada in 1852, William B. (it's always a "B" or an "M" with these families, if they're not named outright for Mary Mendenhall's parents and grandparents.), who was born in Michigan in 1855.  And everything goes along as it goes along.  The children of his own brother Isaac come down from Canada and work and marry and start families of their own.

Then Abner disappears.  I find him in 1880 with his family in Macomb County, but when next I find him, he's in Coral, just down the road from where I sit typing this now.  And he has a new wife.  And another daughter who was born in 1886.  But Lucy Harmon Lemon, his wife, is not dead.  She's not found in the 1900 Census that I can find, but she's with Jemima and her family in Armada, Macomb County in 1910, listed as Jemima's widowed mother.  And Abner died in Montcalm County in August of 1900.  The Census that year was taken before August because Abner is in it with Nellie and Victor Bentch, who are listed as his grandchildren, which they are.  They are the children of his daughter Charlotte Louisa Lemon, or "Lottie". 

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