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From: "Laura Chushcoff" <>
Subject: [ORUMATIL] KING, PORTER, ALEXANDER, DICKSON, TEEL, KIRBY
Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 04:49:19 -0800


A fabulous search of Massachusetts
1650-1850's

Searching TEEL and ALEXANDER FROM Woburn, MA who came on the Oregon Trail.
My ggggrandparents.

Many of these people graduated from Harvard in 1725 for example.

WOBURN, MA

See the homes
http://www.yeoldewoburn.com/

All the headstones, etc.
http://www.yeoldewoburn.com/Burial1.htm

The Civil War in Woburn

The outbreak of hostilities began with the Confederate bombardment of Ft.
Sumter in Charleston Harbor on April 12, 1861, and news of the fort's
shelling and surrender was greeted by Woburnites much as it was across the
North as a whole. The reaction was one of great enthusiasm for the Union
cause, and eagerness to join the fight. A large crowd gathered at Lyceum
Hall on April 18, 1861, where "the war feeling was general, and unbounded
enthusiasm prevailed."


Lyceum Hall, Woburn

Captain William T. Grammer proposed raising a regiment of troops, resulting
in fifty-eight men signing up right away, and others in the crowd pledging
$3,350 toward the cost of the venture. A second meeting was held two days
later, and a third the day after that. By the third meeting, over 100 men
had signed up, and over $8,000 had been raised.

The first men to join the ranks from Woburn left on June 11, 1861, under the
command of Sergeant John P. Crane. More men left a week or so later, under
the command of Captain Timothy Winn (son of Jonathan Bowers Winn). Most of
the June enlistees took the train into Boston and joined the 5th
Massachusetts Regiment.

There was no formal company from Woburn exclusively, however, until a month
or so later, when a group formed the Woburn Union Guard, officially
organized on July 27, 1861, under the command of Captain Samuel Thompson and
now Lieutenant John P. Crane, who had returned to the Town to raise a
company of Woburn men. The company organized and marched to the train
depot, where it departed Woburn amidst a big sendoff, with large crowds
waving and band playing, on August 7, 1861. This group became Company F,
attached to the 22nd Massachusetts Regiment.

Meanwhile, troops of the 5th Massachusetts Regiment had already seen action,
participating in the first major battle of the war at Bull Run, on July 21,
1861. Woburnite Robert Pemberton was wounded in the fighting, and both he
and the North as a whole got their first indication that the war would be
neither as glorious, nor as brief in duration as previously thought.

A few months later reality sunk in further, as the Town received news that
one of its sons would not be returning. Edwin H. Persons, eighteen years
old, died October 31, 1861. He had not gotten far in his quest to fight the
rebels. He had enlisted and had been sent to Camp Brigham in Readville
(which is now part of Boston). He died there of typhoid fever. His death
was indicative of the things to come, as just as many Woburnites and
Northern troops in general would die of sickness and disease as would die on
the fields of battle.

In 1862, Union armies under the command of General George B. McClellan
launched a major effort to take Richmond, by landing near Hampton Tolls,
taking Williamsburg, and moving up a peninsula toward the Confederate
capital. McClellan slowly and deliberately inched his armies to within ten
miles of so of the city, when Confederate forces, led initially by General
Joseph E. Johnston and then by General Robert E. Lee, counterattacked. The
result was a desperate series of pitched battles. The engagements took
place one after another over the course of a week, and became known as the
Seven Days' Battles. The 22nd Massachusetts Regiment and the Woburn Union
Guard were in the thick of the fighting, and by the end of the peninsula
campaign, five more Woburnites were either dead or mortally wounded. Among
them were the commander of the Woburn Union Guard, Captain Samuel I.
Thompson, and his seventeen year old son, Francis W. Thompson. The younger
Thompson died first, at the battle of Gaines Mill, Virginia. Four days
later, his father was seriously wounded at the Battle of Malvern Hill, July
1, 1862, and was taken prisoner. He was held briefly at the infamous Libby
Prison in Richmond, but released on July 18, 1862. He died several weeks
later in a Union hospital in Baltimore, Maryland


HOW TO SEARCH THE PROBATE RECORDS
Middlesex County, Massachusetts
Probate Index 1648 - 1870

A-K

(Pertaining to Woburn, Massachusetts Only)
Index to the Probate Records of the County of Middlesex, Massachusetts.
Cambridge, MA: 1912.

What do I need to do if I find a relative in your index?

Write your request and include the index number as found below to:

Middlesex Probate Court
ATTN: Copy Department
P. O. Box 410480
Cambridge, MA 02141
617-768-5905

Cost: $10.00 and .50 each page - Certified
Cost: $1.50 each page - Plain

I was told by the clerk to write a letter telling them what you want, as
they are too busy to do any checking over the telephone - but if you need
additional information - call them!

The turnaround for getting your information will be a couple of months as
the department is usually swamped with requests for probate records; and
they also have to keep up with the new records as well! I was also told
that if you hire a Title Examiner to do your searching and copying, that the
turnaround would be less. I do not know how much it would be to hire such a
person - I will leave that up to you!

You might also want to look at this site to tell you how to read probate
records -
How to read Probate Records

Also, you can obtain these records at the Massachusetts Archives!

Enjoy
Laura in Seattle
GALLOWAY, FUDGE, KIRBY, TEEL, JOHNSON, FINE, HALES



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