Tom Martin Chapter 3

 Peace?

   The war was over and the three Martin brothers all survived. Sam, the oldest, had moved to Texas before the war and had been drafted into the Confederate army. He had been assigned as a POW guard in the prison camp at Tyler, Texas. Levi, two years older than Tom, had enlisted in the Union army in 1862 at the age of 19. He had been captured and sent to the POW camp where Sam was a guard; he spent the rest of the war in the prison camp as relatively comfortable as possible. Tom the youngest enlisted in 1864 at 19; he was captured, then escaped, and then fought in two of the bloodiest battles of the war. When he returned home to Coles County, Illinois in 1865 he was surely not the same teenager who had gone to war a year and a half ago.

   In 1866 Tom’s father died, and it is likely that Tom left his sisters to take care of their mother. In any case by 1868 Tom had joined his brother Sam in Lancaster, near Dallas. In the 1870 census Sam is married and has two sons 3 and 1, and Tom is living with Sam’s family as a farm hand.

   In 1871 Tom’s world changed again. On 19 October 1871 Thomas Jefferson Martin married his second cousin Anne Marie Atterberry. He was 26 and she was 18. For the next 14 years he raised cattle, first in Lancaster near his brother Sam, and later in Hood County, Texas. Tom and Anne had 7 children. My grandfather Stephen Albert Martin, their second child, was born in 1874 and Estes Martin was the youngest, born in 1885. In the 1880 census they were still in Lancaster, and Tom made the first mention of debilitating rheumatism in the Federal Census form where column 15 asks the question if the individual is sick or disabled. Also in another venue he complained that he believed he “caught” rheumatism when herding cattle in 1875.

    Once again Tom’s world changed, but this time his wife and children bore the brunt. In about 1886 Tom disappeared. I have found no evidence that he ever again contacted his family in Texas. However he did occasionally write to his sister Polly and his nephew Ivory Martin. The period from about 1886 to 1889 is void of documents; the comments I found in his later pension requests and his contacts with his nephew, in some he said he had been in Canada and in others he said Mexico, Idaho, and Washington. In fact, he may have been “riding the rails” and it is possible that he had visited all of them. In any case the 1890 register of Union Soldier and Sailor Veterans has Tom in Chelan, Okanogan County, WA enumeration district 23. Chelan was opened for homesteading in

1886, and Tom had become a homesteader possibly as early as 1888 and certainly by 1890.

   In the early 1890s Tom apparently formed a loose partnership with another homesteader (David Henry Correll) for raising work horses. There was a boom in wheat growing and there was a need for draft horses, up to 20 horse teams. Tom seems to have done well. His partner was a colorful character - a cowboy, a lawman, a gunslinger, a gambler and perhaps an outlaw. Tom was the opposite - a solid citizen, a member of Harrison Post 104 of the Grand Army of the Republic, and an Odd Fellow and a Mason both in Lipan, Hood County, Texas and in Chelan. And once again, in 1895 Tom’s world changed.

   The farmer next to Tom was Turner H. Culbertson, who had a daughter Maggie Minnie Culbertson. Tom and Maggie were married on Feb 27, 1895. On the marriage license Maggie’s age was 16 and Tom’s was 39. It is likely that Tom did not know his birth date exactly, but claiming to be 39 was blatant. He was most likely 50. It is practically certain that he was born in 1844 plus or minus a year, and when he was required to give his birth date he seemed to pick a random date from the air. For the rest of his life his variable birth date haunted him.

   The next five years, until 1900, were probably the best in his life. His rheumatism and problems with his eyes continued to bother him, but he was happy with his new wife and was a well liked and respected citizen. Tom and Maggie had 2 children, William (Willy) Chesley Martin b. Apr 12 1895 and Zola Selena Martin b. Dec 12 1899. It seems that Tom and his father-in-law Turner were good friends, and Tom was about 10 years older than his father-in-law. It did not seem to bother Turner that Willy was born 6 weeks after Tom and Maggie were married. But then tragedy came in 1900. Zola’s birth must have been very hard and Maggie died on March 18, 1900; Zola was 3 months old and Maggie was just 21.

   Tom and the 2 children moved in with the grandparents, Turner and Selena Culbertson. Tom was receiving a veteran’s pension of $6.00 per month to help with the household expenses and if he had a qualifying disability he could get $12.00 per month. But the application for the greater amount required physical exams, reports from physicians, letters of support from neighbors, and a precise date of birth. This was the beginning of a large amount of correspondence with the Bureau of Pensions which provides a great deal of information about Tom’s location and welfare.