Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Francis McGuire - update 5/2/2017

Francis McGuire was born September 11, 1841, in Brandon, Rutland County, Vermont, the son of Connecticut-born Francis G. McGuire (1804-1888) and Melissa D. Avery (1814-1842) and stepson of Vermonter Jerusha Stool (b. 1814).

By 1850 Francis (younger) was attending school with his siblings and living with family in Brandon, Rutland County, Vermont where his father worked as a painter. (In fact, his father and stepmother would live the rest of their lives in Brandon.) Francis (younger) left Vermont and headed westward, eventually settling in Michigan.

He stood 6’1” with hazel eyes, brown hair and a light complexion, and was 21 years old and probably working as a painter in Shiawassee County when he enlisted in Company G on May 13, 1861. By August he was sick with fever in one of the hospitals around Washington, and in fact, according to Frank Siverd of Company G, by the first week of September Francis was in the Union Hotel Hospital in Georgetown suffering from a fever, “but is now about the streets.”

Francis did not, however, return to duty, and the Lansing State Republican reported on September 11 that McGuire was suffering from chronic rheumatism and “will have to be discharged from the service.”

By the end of September, McGuire had left Union Hotel hospital and returned to the Regimental hospital, still suffering from the effects of typhoid fever. In early December Siverd wrote that as a result of his sickness, McGuire was going to be permanently disabled and would soon be honorably discharged. In fact, he was discharged for fever on December 20, 1861, near Fort Lyon, Virginia.

It is not known if Francis returned to Michigan after his discharge from the army.

He married Michigan native Rosella J. Lockwood (b. 1842), and they had at least three children: Ella D. or Dolla (b. 1869), Floy A. (1870-1957, Mrs. McCormick) and Fred A. (b. 1873).

By 1870 he and wife and daughter were living in Macomb’s 3rd Ward, McDonough County, Illinois. but sometime between 1871 and 1873 they settled in Kansas. By 1875 they were living on a farm in Clay, Reno County, Kansas and by 1880 Francis was working as a farmer and living with his wife and three children in Clay, Reno County, Kansas.

Francis married an Ohio native named Bertha Rahm (b. 1861) in about 1888 and they had at least one child: Frank B. (b. 1889).

Francis and his wife and son were still in Clay, Kansas, in 1895 and by 1900 Francis and Bertha and their son Frank were living on farm in Clay, Kansas. In 1910 Francis and Bertha were still living on a farm in Clay, Kansas, and their son Frank was still living with them as was Bertha’s father, H. Rahm (b. 1826 in Germany). Francis was still in clay, Kansas in 1915. By 1920 Francis was probably working as a laborer and living in Hutchinson, Reno County, Kansas.

In 1890 Francis applied for and received a pension (no. 845231. He was a member of GAR Joseph Hooker Post No, 17 in Hutchinson, Kansas.

He died on June 13, 1922, in Hutchinson, Kansas, and was presumably buried there.

No comments: