Edwin H. Mallory

Edwin H. Mallory was born on April 13, 1837, in Marengo, Calhoun County, Michigan, the son of Henry (b. 1810 in Connecticut?) and Mary A. (b. 1813 in New York).

Edwin’s parents moved to Michigan sometime before 1837, and in 1844 settled in Barry County. By 1850 Edwin was attending school with his younger sister Jennie (?) and living with his family in Maple Grove, Barry County. By 1860 he was working as a teacher and living with his family in Maple Grove, Barry County, where his father owned a substantial farm.

Edwin was 24 years old and probably still residing in Maple Grove when he enlisted in the Hastings Rifle Company in April of 1861. The company was disbanded shortly after it arrived in Grand Rapids and its members distributed to other companies of the Third Michigan infantry then forming at Cantonment Anderson just south of the city, and Edwin eventually enlisted as Seventh Corporal in Company K on May 13, 1861. He was color Corporal in October of 1862, on duty at Brigade headquarters from March of 1863 through June, and in July was a provost guard. He was reported detached to the Third Corps headquarters from October 10, 1863, through March of 1864, and was slightly wounded in the thigh sometime in early May and subsequently admitted on May 11 to Finley hospital in Washington, DC. He returned to duty on June 7, and was mustered out at Detroit on June 20, 1864.

After the war Edwin returned to Barry County, probably to Maple Grove, where he married Michigan native Mary J. Otis (1839-1902) in May of 1866, possibly in Michigan, and they had at least five and possibly six children: Caroline (b. 1868), Wilkie O. (b. 1869), Edwin D. (b. 1872), Otis (b. 1873), Clyde (b. 1875) and possibly Grace (1872-1906). They settled on the family homestead in Maple Grove.

Edwin was elected sheriff of Barry County in November of 1866, a position he held until the early 1870s. In fact, he was listed as both sheriff of Barry County and keeper of the jail in 1870, and was living with his wife and two children at the jail in Hastings. Next door lived and/or worked a shoemaker named Alonzo Bennett who had also served in the Old Third during the war.

As sheriff of Barry County, Edwin played a small role in one of the state’s most sensational murder trials and one that involved another former member of the Old Third Michigan, George Vanderpool. George had been accused of murdering his banking partner in Manistee in the fall of 1869 and had already been found guilty once, was retried on appeal resulting in a hung jury and was about to tried a third time, in Hastings.

On Friday, August 25, it was reported that Deputy Sheriff E. H. Mallory arrived in Hastings with Eliza Springer, a key witness in the third Vanderpool-Field murder trial then underway in Hastings. He had found Mrs. Springer living in a boarding house in East Saginaw under the name of Stephens.

Edwin also served as a postal clerk on the Michigan Central railroad until 1881, and in 1880 he was listed as a mail carrier and living with his wife and children in Nashville, Barry County; his father Henry lived door. In 1882 he moved to Grand Rapids where he lived through 1885. He moved to Nashville, Barry County in 1886 where he lived the remainder of his life.

In 1889 he applied for and received a pension (no. 526101).

He was a member of the Old Third Michigan Infantry Association and apparently became involved in the spiritualism movement. “The last years of his life,” one obituary noted, “he devoted to his one absorbing creed, that of healing through spiritualistic agencies, and in this department of his life's work he made many warm and lasting friends.”

Edwin died on October 30, 1895, at home in Nashville, and the funeral occurred at the house on Friday afternoon, November 1, 1895, with Elder Holler officiating. Edwin was buried in Nashville cemetery. “He was,” wrote one memorial report, “a true and faithful husband, a kind and indulgent father, and will be sadly missed by his family and friends.”

In 1895 his widow applied for and received a pension (no. 421266).