Moses Stewart (22 June 1825 – c1903)

Much of my knowledge of Moses Stewart was obtained by backing up from his 1900 census record, which gives his birth as June 1823 (sic) in Ohio and indicates a 56-year marriage to his wife Mary Jane.  The birth year is incorrect as the 1850-1880 censuses portray it as 1825, as does his father’s family Bible.  He is somewhat unique, in my experience, in that he appears in a different state in each of the five censuses from 1850 through 1900.

Marriage to Mary Jane Anderson in Ohio

The first sighting of Moses Stewart is his marriage to Mary Jane Anderson in Montgomery County, Ohio on 26 October 1845.1  We know this was the correct couple from their daughter Ida’s death certificate.

The marriage register entry states that “his father consents”, as Moses waS under 21, but does not name him.  His father, however, was evidently Moses Stewart Sr. who left the area for Illinois within the next few years.  In 1850, with his parents no longer in Ohio, Moses and Mary Jane were living with her parents.  The 1850 census of Dayton, Montgomery County, enumerated the household of her father John Anderson with his wife and children plus Moses Stewart, his wife Mary Jane and four Stewart children. 2. His occupation was “labourer”.

Migration west to St. Louis, Illinois

Moses Stewart must have remained in Ohio through roughly 1858, judging from the birthplaces of the two youngest children in later censuses.  But by 1860 he had moved about 350 miles west outside St. Louis in St. Clair County, Illinois, where he was listed in the 1860 census with the two oldest children from 1850 and two daughters born after 1850.3  His brother-in-law Thomas Anderson, now married, was listed next door and Mary Jane Stewart was enumerated in his household rather than her husband’s.  They were apparently living in what is now East St. Louis, both Moses and his brother-in-law listed their occupations as laborers.

Moves to Chattanooga and builds a large distillery

By 17 November 1867 Moses Stewart had moved some 450 miles southeast to Chattanooga, Tennessee. On that date he bought three city blocks and five lots near the river in Chattanooga at an auction, paying a total of $4,227 in the form of four notes payable over the next twelve months.4 Taking on partners, he undertook to build a large brick building on one of the lots and brought in machinery from Nashville to erect “a steam distillery for whiskey and other liquors”5. Evidently unable to make good on the notes, he had transferred nearly all the real estate to his partners and others by late 1869.6  It isn’t clear whether the distillery was every completed.

Perhaps to shield his remaining lot from creditors, he sold his last piece of town land In October 1868 to his son John S. Stewart.7

In 1870, when the Stewart family was enumerated in Chattanooga, Moses Stewart was identified as a superintendent of a stone quarry.  He and Mary Jane were listed with the two youngest daughters along with their eldest son John S. Stewart and his wife and child.8

Earlier that year on 25 February 1870 John S. Stewart and Mary Jane Stewart jointly purchased a large lot in town with two houses on it, apparently one for each family.9  Moses Stewart was perhaps putting property in his wife’s name to avoid creditors.  Two years later on 29 June 1872, John S. Stewart and Mary Jane executed reciprocal quitclaims, and the half owned by Mary Jane was sold for $2,200.10. Moses signed the deed as well, and their daughter Emma Stewart witnessed it.  Interestingly, the other half of the lot was not sold by Mary Jane and Moses until 15 June 1880 when they were identified as residents of Arkansas.  ((Hamilton County Deed Book I2, p175. It sold for $1,200.))

Then to Dallas, Texas

The Stewarts then moved to Dallas,Texas, evidently in the latter part of 1872.  His daughter Emma Stewart married George Rolando Baird of Dallas on 23 February 1874 in Corsicana, Navarro County.11. The reason they married some 60 miles from Dallas was reported  in detail by Texas newspapers — the following is from the front page of an Austin newspaper:10

Geo. R. Baird of Dallas, was married to Miss Emma Stewart, also of Dallas, in the McMillan House, Corsicana, on the twenty-third instant. the following is the Corsicana Observer’s  .account of the affair: Mr. Geo. R. Baird and Miss Emma are two truly loving hearts, but th cruel parents of Emma had determined that another should enjoy her charms; and in this determination they were inexorable, and Sunday last was fixed for the celebration of the nuptials at the home of the parents in Dallas, but George and Emma were not to be foiled. Emma stole quietly from her parents house on Saturday, and seating herself in a buggy with George, drove to the house of a friend in the country, where they remained quietly until Sunday night, when they drove back to the depot of Dallas, took the Corsicana train, and arrived at the McMillan House in this city, on Monday morning. The County Clerk was visited and the necessary papers procured. Justice Bright was then called upon to unite these loving hearts. The parties then repaired to the McMillan House, where the ceremony took place. The happy couple returned to Dallas on Monday night. 

Why Moses Stewart went to Dallas is unknown.  Through the 1860s Dallas was quite a small town, but the first riverboat from the coast docked in 1868, the telegraph arrived in 1872 along with the Houston and Central Texas Railroad, and in 1873 the Texas and Pacific Railroad completed a track that made Dallas an important crossroads.  By 1875 Dallas boasted an opera house, several large hotels, a stone courthouse and thousands of new residents and passers-through.  Perhaps Moses was attracted by some new entrepreneurial venture in the growing community..

Invents a shingle machine and opens a factory in Arkansas

On 20 October 1875 Moses Stewart of Dallas applied for a patent for an “Improvement in Shingle-Machines”.12. The patent was issued on 7 March 1876

He left Dallas to utilize his patent in the making of cedar shingles, possibly moving first to Tennessee where his daughter Ida Stewart appears to have married about 1876.13

He must have quickly migrated to Hempstead County Arkansas where sometime before 1878 Moses Stewart (posing on one occasion as “Thomas” Stewart, probably his middle name) had entered into a partnership with two local men to operate a shingle mill near Fulton in the name of “Stewart & Co.”14 Moses and Mary Jane were enumerated in the 1880 census of Bois d’Arc, Hempstead County, Arkansas. 15   He is listed as a “manufacturer” with no children left in the household.

The business apparently did not do well, for it incurred significant debts. His partners sold part of their interest to Moses Stewart in early 1880 and he and his partners mortgaged 400 acres of land, the shingle mill, 17 oxen and two wagons, many acres of timber, and more than a million shingles at the same time.16  It appears they defaulted a year later.

His son John Stewart had returned to St. Louis, where he was enumerated in St. Louis County, Missouri in the 1880 census.17

However, in March 1881 Moses Stewart and John S. Stewart jointly sold his land to satisfy an unpaid debt, abandoned whatever shingle business still remained and left the state.

Return to Dallas

Moses Stewart was back in Dallas two months later. On 18 May 1881 he bought a large 200 by 300 foot lot on Elm Street and Main from John M. and H. B. Parks for $5,000  and two days later designated it as a homestead. 18 He bought an adjoining lot 18 by 200 feet in June for $200. 19  How he planned to use the land is not clear, but at least one later record suggests that there were rental properties on the land.

The 1881 Dallas City Directory lists Moses Stewart operating a feed store at 1504 Elm Street and living at 1557 Main Street.  In 1882 he was listed merely as a clerk.  The 1883 directory listed him as living with his son-in-law George R. Baird. with no occupation identified.

A disturbing accusation

The Ft. Worth Democrat-Advance, under the dateline “Dallas January 18, 1882” reported on page 1 that “Moses Stewart, fifty-six years old, was arrested today on a charge of raping a ten year old girl, a daughter of John Elliott. The accused is a highly respected citizen and has a son connected with a leading banking house. The Elliott family occupy a house of his. Stewart was released on $1,000 bond.”20

When the case came to court, docketed as a case of assault, no witnesses appeared and the judge reduced the bond to $500.21  I found no further mention of the case; it may have been dropped.

The 1884 Dallas City directory listed Moses Stewart living in a hotel at 1563 Main, just a couple of blocks from George and Emma Baird on South Elm St.  Moses and Mary Jane sold their large downtown lot on the corner of Elm and Main Streets to James B. Simpson, their mortgage holder, for $15,000 on 23 May 1885. 22  The Dallas Daily Herald reported on the sale as “Quite a sale of real estate… 208 feet fronting on Elm street and 314 feet fronting on Main Street… a handsome piece of property, worth every dollar paid for it.”23

And a troubled marriage?

On 2 December 1885  the Dallas Morning News reported that “Moses Stewart filed suit yesterday for divorce from Mary Jane Stewart, setting forth incompatibility of temperament as the basis of action. They were married in Dayton, O., thirty-nine years ago.24. The case dragged on for years with no apparent urgency on the part of either Stewart.  The Dallas Herald issue of 7 October 1887 reported, under the heading of non-jury civil cases, a suit by Moses T. Stewart against Mary J. Stewart scheduled for a hearing, but when the case came up it was deferred when neither party appeared.25. A year and a half later, on 15 April 1889 Moses Stewart again failed to appear and the case was finally dismissed “for want of prosecution.”26  The Stewart may have already left Dallas by then.

The Stewart-Baird Scrapbook

In late 1890 or early 1891 Mary Jane Stewart, Moses Stewart’s wife, made a large (14″ x 17″) scrapbook for her grandson George Washington Baird, the son of George Rolando Baird and Emma Stewart.  George W. Baird was only 12 at the time, and living with his parents in Dallas.  The scrapbook was passed on to his daughter Helen Baird Berry, who gave it to my father in 1975, and I inherited it when my father died in 1986.  The scrapbook, which contains no useful information, is a collection of decorative figures cut out from advertising materials from a variety of producers of groceries, patent medicines, and sundries, with numerous collectible cards of the type enclosed in old merchandise, and is inscribed: “To G. W. Baird from Grandma Stewart of Aransas Harbor.”  There are so many visual images that all the original pages were completely filled.  Mary Stewart inserted several additional pages made from the reverse side of maps of Aransas Harbor, Texas that were published in 1890.  A piece of the Houston Daily Post dated 17 December 1890 was also included as a decoration.

There are also seven calling cards from individuals pasted into the book, some of whom I can’t identify.27

The fact that Mary Stewart identifies herself as “of Aransas Harbor” is helpful in validating the scrapbook’s date, as the town’s name was changed to Aransas Pass in 1892.   There were several failed attempts to establish a deep-water harbor just north of Corpus Christi, the last being an 1890 charter to the Aransas Pass Harbor Company to dredge the harbor and a charter to the Aransas Harbor City and Improvement Company to build the city.  The Stewarts probably were among the early settlers attracted to the area by the company’s publicity.  Aransas Pass lies just inside San Patricio County, in the corner where San Patricio, Nueces and Aransas counties meet.

Retirement in Aransas Harbor

Mrs. Mary J. Stewart, as a resident of San Patricio County, bought a lot in Aransas Harbor from the Aransas Harbor City and Improvement Company on 12 September 1890 for $400, and over the next two years bought five more lots for lesser amounts.28  In each case, she was the buyer and the deeds specified that she was using her own separate money.  However, several of these deeds included one-year notes for the balance of the purchase price, signed by both Mary J. Stewart and her husband Moses Stewart (who signed by his mark).  Moses Stewart was probably incapacitated, perhaps by old age or infirmity, censuses indicated that he could read and write and he had consistently signed his name to documents in Tennessee, Texas and Arkansas.

Moses and Mary Jane were listed in the 1900 census of San Patricio County.29   According to this census record, Moses was born in June 1823 in Ohio and Mary J. Stewart was born in December 1825 in Ohio.  They had been married for 56 years (sic) and Mary Jane Stewart is shown as the mother of six children, only two of whom were still living in 1900.  Note that all of this fits the earlier census records, though their ages in 1900 were a year or two older than in prior censuses.  Moses Stewart’s parents were shown as both born in Pennsylvania.  Mary Jane gave her father’s birthplace as Pennsylvania and her mother’s as Ohio.

They were apparently living on one of the six lots purchased several years before.  Moses and Mary J. Stewart had sold two of these lots in 1896 and later would lease out two others in 1906.  There is no deed record that I could find of the disposition of the other two lots or of the two that were leased, and apparently none were ever claimed by an heir.

A mysterious disappearance

Neither Moses nor Mary Jane appear in the 1910 census. Both were probably deceased by then, as there is no Texas death record for either of them.  Texas began keeping record of deaths in 1903.

The five lots in Aransas Pass appear on a list of tax defaults for the year 1910 that was published in 1915.30.  Both were definitely dead by 1914, for the tax rolls show that two of the lots were listed in the name of the ”estate of Moses and Mary J. Stewart” in 1914, and were sold at a sheriff’s auction in 1917.   I’d note that Mary paid as much $400 per lot, but they brought only $20 at auction, a reflection of the failed harbor project.  However, I found no record of either Moses or Mary in the probate index for San Patricio County.  One of the two leased lots, which had been leased for the ten years 1906-1916, appears to have been taxed to Mary J. Stewart through 1916, and afterwards to the former leaseholder.  The other leased lot was carried on the property tax books in Mary J. Stewart’s name until 1954, apparently as an abandoned lot. In an apparent coincidence, a W. L. Stewart of Denver, Colorado paid the tax on this lot for 1948-54.

The properties should have fallen to the descendants of their children, even if all the children were deceased.  However, I could find no record of any probate in San Patricio.  Ida, who was living about 300 miles to the southwest in Beaumont apparently didn’t think inheriting the properties was worthwhile.

Family legends

There are a few tantalizing but ultimately useless family stories from one of their great-grandchildren. Ramona Bevills Molen, a granddaughter of George Rolando Baird and Emma Stewart, was orphaned as a small child and was raised by her aunt Daisy Baird, an unmarried daughter of George R. and Emma Stewart Baird. My father tracked down Ramona in 1971 and she told two stories she had heard from her aunt Daisy:

  • She said that Daisy Baird, who had polio, went to live with her Stewart grandparents sometime after her father’s death in 1895.  According to Ramona, Daisy said that the Stewarts operated a general store in Ganado, Texas at the time.  This obviously does not fit with the Stewarts residence in Aransas Harbor.  Although Daisy may have briefly lived with them at some point, she was enumerated as a 20-year old in the Dallas household of her older sister Effie Baird Pemberton in the 1900 census.  The Pembertons had bought land near Ganado in 1897 but sold it two years later and returned to Dallas, thus it was they, and not the Stewarts, who lived in Ganado.
  • Daisy also told Ramona (she said) that her grandfather Moses Stewart was a telegraph operator for railroads, and that he was a friend of President McKinley and spent time with McKinley in California working on some project.  There may be some shred of truth to this, but it was Moses Stewart’s son John who worked for the railroad.  Whether any Stewart associated with McKinley seems unlikely.  William McKinley’s family were Pennsylvanians who migrated to Ohio.  While President McKinley didn’t live in California, one of his brothers and one of his uncles did.  His uncle John McKinley went to California in 1852 to search for gold.  It isn’t at all clear exactly what connection Daisy was speaking of.

To further confuse matters, only one Moses Stewart appears in Texas death records, which begin in 1903.  That was a 59-year old railroad conductor from Pennsylvania named Moses Stewart who died in Grayson County in early 1911 .  The Dallas Morning News issue of 3 January 1911 reported his death calling him a thirty-year employee of the Texas and Pacific Railroad.  

The Children of Moses Stewart and Mary Jane Anderson

The 1900 census tells us that Moses and Mary Jane had a total of six children, two of whom were still living in 1900. We know that both Ida and Emma were alive in 1900 and living in Jefferson County, Texas.   From the earlier census records, the six children were evidently the following.

  1. John S. Stewart (c1845 – c1893)  He was in his parents’ 1850 and 1860 census households, aged 4 and 14 respectively.  He married Henrietta H. Story on 1 October 1860 in Knox County, Tennessee.  In 1870 he and his wife (then called “Harriett”), age 19, with a one-year old named Nellie P. Stewart, were in his parents’ household in Chattanooga.  He is listed as a bookkeeper, age 25.  He appears as a bookkeeper in the 1876 city directory for Chattanooga but had moved to St. Louis, Missouri by the 1880 census where he was enumerated, as a 34-year old bookkeeper with wife Nettie H., age 28, and 11-year old Nellie.31   They were boarding in St. Louis with Nettie’s sister Jennie L. Kelly and her husband Andrew J. Kelly.  The 1883 and 1889 St. Louis city directories list him as a clerk for the Missouri Pacific Railroad.

    He was back in Chattanooga in time to appear in the 1891 city directory but was dead by 1894 when Mrs. Nettie H. Stewart began appearing in city directories as the widow of John S. Stewart.   She was listed as a widow in several city directories as late as 1913.  In the 1900 census she was enumerated as Henrietta Stewart, born March 1852, with a son Francis R. Stewart, age 17, and daughter Jennie L. Stewart, age 6.   (The daughter’s birthplace is given here and later as Texas, suggesting that they stopped in Texas before resettling in Chattanooga.)  In 1910, she was enumerated as Henrietta H. Stewart, age 58, with daughter Jennie L. still in the household.

    In 1920 the daughter Jennie L. Stewart was living in the household of Andrew J. and her aunt Jennie L. Kelly in Chattanooga, listed as “niece”, with no sign of Henrietta.

  2. Zachariah Stewart (c1847 – 1860s?)  He was aged 2 in 1850 and 13 in 1860.  He does not seem to appear anywhere in 1870 or 1880, and may have died prior to 1870.
  3. Amelia Stewart (c1848 – 1850s)  She is listed as age 1 in 1850, but does not appear in the 1860 or later households and is assumed to have died in childhood.
  4. Mary J. Stewart (ca Jan 1850 – 1850s) She is listed as five months old in 1850, but does not appear in the 1860 or later households.
  5. Emma Stewart (c1855 – )  Married George Rolando Baird.  See BAIRD pages.
  6. Ida May Stewart  (4 July 1858 – 17 May 1942)  Her death certificate identifies her parents as “M. J. Stewart” and “Mary Jane Anderson”.  (It also gives her father’s birthplace as Dayton, Ohio and her mother’s as Chattanooga, Tennessee.)   She is buried in the Magnolia Cemetery in Beaumont, Texas where her gravestone is shared with her husband Robert W. Sanders (29 October 1850 – 13 April 1916).   Ida was in her parent’s household in the 1860 and 1870 censuses, but in 1880 was enumerated in Murphreesboro, Rutherford County, Tennessee as the wife of Robert W. Sanders, who was listed as a mechanic.  He was listed next door to his parents.  A three-month old infant daughter was in the household, later identifiable as Henrietta Sanders.  At some point they moved to Beaumont, Texas in Jefferson County. Robert and Ida were enumerated there in 1900 and 1910, living at 479 Pine Street in Beaumont.  The 1900 and 1910 censuses indicate that they had married about 1876.32 They also show that Ida had borne a total of four children, one of whom apparently died in childhood before 1900.  They used their home as a boarding house, and after her husband died in 1916 Ida continued to take roomers.  She is listed in several Beaumont city directories beginning in 1916 advertising furnished rooms for boarders.  In the 1920 census she had four male roomers and her daughters Henrietta and Pearl in the household.  She was still advertising for boarders in 1925 but by 1930 she was living with her daughter Pearl Bahlman on Broadway.

    Censuses, death certificates, and Magnolia Cemetery records identify three children: Henrietta May Sanders (15 March 1880 – 31 May 1926)  who died unmarried and is buried in the Magnolia Cemetery in Beaumont;   Pearl Sanders (19 June 1882 – 2 November 1966)  who married late in life (the 1930 census suggests at the age of 38) to Zeke J. Bahlman (but had no children) and both are buried in the Magnolia Cemetery; and  Lytle R. Sanders (6 September 1886 – 25 March 1910)  who is also buried in the Magnolia Cemetery.

 

  1. Montgomery County, Ohio, Marriage Register: original record.  This is also abstracted in Montgomery County, Ohio Marriages 1803 – 1851, Lindsay M. Brien (Typewritten manuscript, 1940), p120. []
  2. 1850 census Montgomery County, Ohio page 264, Dayton Ward 6 taken 18 October 1850:  John Anderson (54 PA) Justice of the Peace, Rachel Anderson (50 KY), Jackson Anderson (18 OH), Tobacconist, Moses Stuart (24 OH) Laborer [indexed as “Stout” rather than “Stuart” in some census indices], Mary J. Stuart (23 OH), John Stuart (4 OH), Zachariah Stuart (2 OH), Thos. Anderson (10 OH), Amelia Stewart (1 OH)  [note these children’s surnames spelled differently], Mary J. Stewart (5/12 OH), Lewis Anderson (23 OH), Martin Anderson (14 OH). []
  3. 1860 census St. Clair County, Township 2N Range 10W, page 348, taken 13 June 1860:  Moses Stuart (33 OH),  Laborer, $100 personal property,  John Stuart (14 OH), Zach Stuart (13 OH), Emma Stuart (4 OH), Ida Stuart (2 OH).  [In the adjoining household: Thos. Anderson (20 OH) Laborer, $100 personal property, Harriett Anderson (18 OH), Margaret McFarland (23 Ireland) widow, Mary J. Stuart (28 OH)] []
  4. Hamilton County Deed Book Q, p684 and Deed Book T, p107. []
  5. Hamilton County Deed Book Q, pp684 and Deed Book R, pp93. []
  6. The item at Deed Book T, p107 is a statement by the clerk that by the time he was directed to execute a deed to Moses Stewart as purchaser, the properties had already been transferred and other persons had paid off the notes. []
  7. Hamilton County Deed Book R, p274. []
  8. 1870 census Chattanooga, Hamilton County, Tennessee, page 682 taken 13 September 1870:  Moses Stewart (42 OH) Superintendent stone quarry, $800 real estate, $400 personal property,  Mary J. Stewart (40 OH) Keeping house,  Emma Stewart (15 OH) at home, Ida M. Stewart (11 OH) at home, John S. Stewart (25 OH) Book keeper, Henrietta Stewart (19 TN),  Nellie P. Stewart (1 TN),  Samuel Diggs (19 TN) Carpenter apprentice. []
  9. Hamilton County Deed Book S, p478. []
  10. Hamilton County Deed Book W, p333 and p336. []
  11. Original marriage license and return obtained from the Navarro County clerk []
  12. Patent #174447. []
  13. She is in the 1880 census of Murfreesborough, Rutherford County, married to a local man and living next door to his parents.  Later censuses suggest that they married about 1876, though apparently not in Rutherford County. No marriage appears among the Rutherford County marriage records for the period, so it isn’t clear where they married. []
  14. Hempstead County Deed Book 9, p342, when the firm mortgaged two steam engines used in the mill. Also see Moses Stewart’s timber lease at Deed Book 10, p239. []
  15. 1880 census Bois d’Arc, Hempstead County, Arkansas page 473C, taken 15 June 1880:  Moses Stuart (53) head, manufacturer, OH PA PA  Mary J. Stuart (50) wife, keeps house, OH PA (blank)  [incorrectly indexed as Mary F. but clearly written as Mary J.]  Margaret Dickinson (27) cook, Scotland Scotland Scotland  (widowed, cannot r/w),  Caroline Bernhardt (18) cook, Cook, MO France Switzerland (single). []
  16. Hempstead County Deed Book 11, p371 and p373 and p376 respectively. []
  17. 1880 Census St. Louis, St. Louis County, Missouri page 169D:  John S. Stewart (34) Bookkeeper OH OH OH,  Nettie H. Stewart (28) TN NC NC,  Nellie Stewart (11) TN OH TN [age given as 4 in some abstracts, appears to be 11]. []
  18. Dallas County Deed Book 52, page 144 and Deed Book 51, page 604 respectively. []
  19. Dallas Deed Book 53, page 110. []
  20. Ft. Worth Democrat-Advance, issue of 19 January 1882, p1. []
  21. Dallas Daily Herald issue of 26 January 1882, p5. []
  22. Dallas Deed Book 71, page 198 and Deed Book 73, page 220. The mortgages totaled just over $6,000. []
  23. Dallas Daily Herald issue of 24 May 1885, p3. []
  24. Dallas Morning News, issue of 2 December 1885, p8. []
  25. District Court 14 Minute Book U, p263. []
  26. District Court 14 Minute Book W, p535. []
  27. The seven calling cards were:  Miss Georgia L. Brown (a daughter of Emma Baird Brown, George W. Baird’s aunt), Pearl Stewart (perhaps Nellie P. Stewart, wife of John S. Stewart), Pearl Sanders (Ida Stewart’s daughter) , Mrs. Lina Johnston (unknown), R. B. Bickel (unknown), Robert E. Baird (George Rolando Baird’s brother and George W. Baird’s uncle), and W. D. Friedman (unknown).  The only Pearl Stewart listed in the 1900 census was age 26 and living in Dallas, probably too young to have been the person of the calling card. []
  28. San Patricio County Deed Book K, p227, Book L, pp 589-593 (four deeds) and Book R, p172.  Four of the deeds were also recorded in San Patricio County in Deed Book N, pp 333-339. []
  29. San Patricio County 1900 census, Precinct 6, Volume 95, sheet 9, line 66, dated 13 June 1900:   Moses Stewart born June 1823, 76, married 56 years, OH PA PA, Merchant,  Mary J. Stewart born December 1825, 74, married 56 years, OH PA OH [mother of 6 children, 2 living].  Both could read and write, and owned their home. []
  30. Aransas Pass Progress newspaper issue of 6 August 1915, p9. []
  31. 1880 Census St. Louis, St. Louis County, Missouri page 169D:  Listed as boarders in the household of Andrew J. Kelley:  John S. Stewart (34) Bookkeeper OH OH OH,  Nettie H. Stewart (28) TN NC NC,  Nellie Stewart (4) TN OH TN [her age appears to be 4, but should have been 11.  Perhaps a second daughter?]. []
  32. Both Robert and Ida indicated that they had been married 24 years in the 1900 census and that they had been married 34 years in the 1910 census. []