Franklin Tubbs

Franklin Tubbs was born on August 4, 1841, in Liverpool, Medina County, Ohio, the son of Lester (1801-1883) and Charlotte (b. 1811).

Vermonter Lester married Connecticut native Charlotte (b. 1811) and sometime between 1833 and 1837 they moved from New York to Ohio, eventually settling in Liverpool. By 1850 the family was still living in Liverpool where Lester worked as a cabinet-maker along with his oldest son Thaddeus and where Franklin attended school with his siblings. (Next door lived one Davis Gregory, possibly related to Julia A. Gregory who was probably Lester’s second wife.) Sometime around 1851 Lester remarried Julia A. Gregory (b. 1811).

As a small boy Franklin moved with his family from Ohio to Lamont, Ottawa County, probably sometime between 1845 and 1857, boarding for a time with Francis Barlow (who would join Company I) and his wife while he attended school. By 1860 Franklin was a farm laborer working for Oscar or Occa Davidson, a farmer in Polkton, Ottawa County; also living with the Davidson family was Franklin‘s younger sister Julia and his father who was working as a carpenter and his mother Julia. (Franklin claimed in 1894 that after he quite boaridng with the Barlows he went to live with his parents, who resided about 1/2 mile from the Barlows in Lamont.)

Franklin stood 5’6’’ with blue eyes, light hair and a light complexion and was 19 years old and residing in Polkton when he enlisted in Company B on May 13, 1861. Franklin was discharged for consumption on August 15, 1861, at Hunter’s Farm, Virginia.

Franklin eventually returned to Michigan and settled in Grand Rapids, where he may have worked at one time as a seaman. (His father and stepmother Julia were living with the Oscar Davidson family in Grand Rapids’ Fourth Ward in 1870. Also living with them was Frank Barlow, age 13.) In fact, Franklin claimed in 194 that he was living on the west side of the Grand river in Grand Rapids in 1864.

Frank was married to Pennsylvania native Rachel Hagedorn (1848-1927) on February 15, 1869, in Grand Rapids, and they had at least two children: Mrs. Anna M. Darling (1870-1950) and Walter L. (b. 1873).

Franklin was living in Grand Rapids in 1879, and by 1880 he was working as a musician and living with his wife and children in Grand Rapids’ Sixth Ward, and still living in the Sixth Ward in 1894 and working as a musician, in Grand Rapids in 1895 and in 1896 at 328 Turner Street; for a time he was a member of Squire’s Orchestra in Grand Rapids. By 1915 he was residing in Grand Rapids at 903 Lake drive. In 1920 he was living with his wife, daughter and granddaughter in Grand Rapids.

He was a member of the Old Third Michigan Infantry Association, and a witness in the pension application of Francis Barlow’s widow. In 1891 he applied for a pension (no. 1028282) but the certificate was never granted.

Frank entered the Michigan Soldiers’ Home (no. 8126) in late fall or early winter of 1927, where he died a widower of “senility” on Saturday evening November 26, 1927. The funeral service was held at Metcalf’s chapel at 2:00 p.m. on Tuesday, November 29, and he was buried in Oak Hill cemetery: section G lot no. 4.