EXTRACTING HIRAM
More often than not, when working any particular genealogy, we only see our ancestors in black and white. We hunt voraciously for those missing vitals records, those of birth, marriage, and inevitable death, all the time hoping to connect the dots from one generation to the next. Quite often we're stumped—with just exactly who somebody was. Do we have the right person? Are we letting a coincidence of names and circumstances, or the phonetic variance in the sound of someone's "call name" flavor our need to secure their identification? All of these answers and or questions can produce the greatest of genealogical rewards. Sometimes, those questions and answers can come from the places you least expect.
In all of this though, do we lose sight of the lives they lead?
This week, I was contacted by one of my Wilcox cousins, a man of some note, with questions about the identity of the father of our common ancestor, Hiram L. Wilcox (ca. 1819–1893). Now, I hadn't looked at Hiram L. Wilcox, (or his father) in nearly a decade. I'd assumed that what was known about Hiram had reached the proverbial genealogical dead end. (Hey, it happens!) However, this week, and with the improved access we have now to more and better sources, we were able to firmly identify Hiram's father as Jeremiah Sprague Wilcox and push Hiram's paternal line back by one more confirmed generation. All this had been great, and well, and good, but in doing so it also caused me to take another step back and to take another look at the life of Hiram L. Wilcox. And it was in doing so that I saw the most curious thing—a man beyond his vital records.
I found Hiram, the inventor.
An inventor, really?
Did I have the same man beyond a confluence of seemingly appropriate vital records?
At first, I didn't quite believe it. I'd just come through the somewhat arduous verification process of identifying that Hiram's father, "Sprague Wilcox" was one and the same man as "Jeremiah Sprague Willcox," of Smyrna, Chenango County, New York, and seeing as it has been a tough year all around for verifying folks as "one and the same" per GPS standards, my initial instinct was to doubt that I did indeed have "the correct Hiram L. Wilcox."
The crux of what I found was:—that a man named Hiram L. Wilcox was an inventor, or a scientist really, who had managed to extract a resin or substance from a plant in his 1860s Iowa corn field, and realizing that this resin would make the process of tanning hides easier, he subsequently patented and marketed it, and then sadly becoming a version of 1880s corporate villainary. This was astounding to me.
My question could only be:
Was this "my" Hiram L. Wilcox?
I'd only ever known about the tired old rancher Hiram L. Wilcox. He was the tired old guy with the bad looking neck beard in the picture, the progenitor of my Wilcox family lines who'd settled in Wyoming with his family and died on Cow Creek in 1893. Yes, I'd known he'd come "from New York," and I knew about his pit stops from there through Wisconsin where he met his wife Eveline Clark, then their moves onto Iowa, and Nebraska, before finally coming to Wyo. However, I had not given my Hiram L. Wilcox much more credit than that of his being a hard working non-descript nineteenth century pioneer who'd made his way west. In my mind, the Wilcoxs of Wyoming were ranchers, horse people, all solid and staid.
Ah! The hubris of genealogy in forgetting that there were people behind all those vital records.
However, as I looked at all of this "tanning hides and leather" extracts business connected to "a Hiram L. Wilcox" I recalled something I'd seen more than once. It was, at first, something I couldn't quite place. I recalled that "our" Hiram L. Wilcox, in addition to his stated occupation as a farmer was also a "shoemaker."
As in leather. As in tanning hides.
While not exactly a newsworthy revelation in terms of occupations genealogically, having a Hiram L. Wilcox in my own family tree who just also happened to live in Fremont County, Iowa, and also in Lincoln, Lancaster County, Nebraska, and who was also a shoemaker, at the same time as this Hiram L. Wilcox who was of both of those same places and at the same time, and who patented an extract for the tanning process, well, it made me realize that I had indeed "extracted Hiram" and that they were one and the same person.
I was looking at the patent in the image above filed by filed by my ancestor.
UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.
HIRAM L. WILCOX, OF LINCOLN, NEBRASKA.
COMPOUND FOR TANNING.
Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 353,341, dated November 30, 1886.
Application filed August 26, 1885. Serial No. 175,380. (No specimens.)
To all whom it may concern:
Be it known that I, HIRAM L. WILCOX, a resident of Lincoln, in the county of Lancaster and State of Nebraska, have invented a new Improvement in Compounds for Tanning and for other Purposes; and I do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof, which will enable others skilled in the art to make and use the same.
In the manufacture of the extract of polygonum for tanning and other purposes the same is sometimes liable to fermentation, on account of the saccharine matter contained therein, and the object of my invention is to prevent this fermentation and the consequent deterioration of the extract as a commercial article, either in transportation or storage.
My invention consists of a compound or mixture of the extract of polygonum with the extract of Rhus glabrum, as follows: In preparing my new compound, take of the plant Polygonum amphibium or angusticum, say, two parts, and take of the green leaves or branches of the shrub Rhus glabrum, one part, and make an extract of the two substances by any convenient process. In this mixed extract the large quantity of gallic acid in the Rhus glabrum prevents the fermentation of the saccharine matter of the extract of polygonum, and thus affords a superior article of manufacture or commerce.
This new extract may be used not only for tanning, which is the chief purpose, but also for dyeing, medicine, and other purposes.
Having described my invention, what I claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is—
As a new article of commerce and manufacture, the described compound of the extract of polygonum and extract of Rhus glabrum, substantially as and for the purposes set forth.
HIRAM L. WILCOX.
Witnesses:
HENRY E. LEWIS,
ISAAC WHITED.
I'm putting this out there because I think Hiram deserves his due, and well, because to have a patented inventor of something in the family tree, is well, kind of cool if you ask me. I guess what's remarkable to me is how the fact of this got lost to memory. It also raises questions as to what forced some of the Wilcox moves west. I suppose I never understood why any of them had traded in the green fields of Wisconsin for the harsher mountain life of Wyoming. I assumed that it had something to do with an 1880s style land grab. I did, and perhaps correctly so, assumed that Hiram and Eveline moved to Wyoming to follow all of their surviving adult children, Charles, John, Emma, and Dave there, and indeed this is probably no doubt true. However, what I couldn't see in this is the circumstances that helped flavor this move, that of Hiram's lawsuits and of his business collapse, and the loss of his Nebraska Leather Company to less than ethical shareholders.
Indeed, based on the provided documents and historical records, Hiram L. Wilcox of Lincoln, Nebraska, and the Hiram L. Wilcox who settled in the Wyoming territory are proven to be the exact same individual through the precise intersection of his unique name, family structure, and chronological migration - and no other individual of the same name who followed the exact same migration pattern. Census and state records explicitly track Hiram alongside his wife Eveline and their children moving step-by-step from New York and Wisconsin through Fremont County, Iowa, and onward to Lincoln, Nebraska—where he, as a farmer and as a shoemaker, established the Nebraska Leather Company and patented his botanical tanning compound
Hiram L. Wilcox's occupational arc in the shoe and leather industries is documented across multiple decades and regions, beginning in 1850 and 1860 where federal census records in Lafayette, Wisconsin, and Benton Township, Fremont County, Iowa, explicitly list him as a "shoemaker"
I gotta think that after awhile Hiram just gave up and said, "Eveline, let's follow the kids out to Saratoga. I'll teach our boy "Billy" how to make a good shoe..."
"Why he'll be a chip off the old Wilcox block."
Wild, wild, west.
Still, it is a fascinating tale to me, and nearly an unknown and certainly near forgotten fact that Hiram L. Wilcox was quite a man, he was a scientist, even a botanical engineer. He was certainly so much more than what even his own obituary painted him out to be. In my mind's eye I see a sharp and observant soul who discovered something even if by accident and who had the acumen to put it through a scientific process, and discovering that his botanical theories worked and had practical applications, put them to work in an attempt to secure a better future for our Wilcox clan. To this end, and despite the failure of the Nebraska Leather Company, I gotta believe he was most certainly successful.
And just because The Nebraska Leather Company and Grandpa Hiram got screwed over by some nineteenth century Nebraskan robber-barons, doesn't mean we can't celebrate his accomplishments and inventor-syle acumen today.
So in honor of that, and in honor of our ancestor Hiram L. Wilcox, I thought I'd print up a t-shirt. Ya know, for family solidarity.
I mean who really likes nineteenth century robber barons stealing a hard working farmer's invention and subsequent patent?
Hey, it's all a fitting way of "extracting Hiram."
☮
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.