Part One - Beginnings

Part Two - A Cousin Finds Us

Part Three - The Buck Family Tree or The Buckley Family Bush?

Part Four - Jerusalem Revisited

Part Five - Welcome To Buckfield!

Return To The Buck Family Page

Part One - Beginnings

I began by reviewing every one still living who might know anything about the family.

From my parents:
1. They recalled a story told to them by Cleo Tolson White years ago. Cleo said that Daniel was a LT in the Civil War. (She was supposed to have had a picture of him in uniform on his horse.) : Daniel had known General Grant before the War having done business with him. So, on one occasion he asked to speak to the General but was told to get back in the ranks because the General had no time for a "shaved-tail Lieutenant". (This story has proven to be almost totally false.)
2. An old photo which identified Logan, Eugene, Dorothy, and Edna Buckley sitting in the front yard of their house in Clinton, IA ca. 1898.
3. They did not recall either Daniel or Elizabeth's names, Dad said he only knew them as Grandpa and Grandma.
4. Dad remembered things about his Aunts and Uncles that would be of help in other ways but not in finding out who his grandparents were.

From Gertrude L. Lacy my Grandfather Eugene's second wife:
Gene told her that his father was one of five brothers who came West from New England.

So armed with the above I set out for the local LDS-Family History Library Center in New Port Richey, FL. A lady there advised me to order the Soundex Index for Iowa which covered the 1900 Census. About a week later I was dutifully cranking away, squinting at card after card until my eyeballs were hanging on springs. Just when I thought it wasn't going to produce anything I spotted a card with Logan, Eugene, Dorothy, Edward, Etc. Bingo! There they were! Grandpa's name was Daniel same as Dad and I and Elizabeth was Grandma's name and Wow! there was Elizabeth's father's name. My Dad was thrilled to death when I told him what I had found. Remembering what I had read in a Genealogy "how to" book I continued cranking and copying other Buckley and Buckly cards if it looked as if they might be related. I then ordered copies of the actual Census pages for all the cards that looked promising. The copies arrived in about a week and I got even more facts about the family and the families that I thought might be related.

This had been so productive that I decided to continue by ordering the 1910 Soundex. Whoops! The WPA workers back in the 30's never got around to Iowa, so I had to order the whole census for Clinton County. This proved to be a break because I not only got additional info on John, Daniel, and Warren but on George Carr, (who my Dad and I are named for) and on Benjamin Tolson husband of Daniel's daughter Edna, (Ben and George were next door neighbors).


Based on the census data that I had accumulated from 1870, 1880, 1900 and 1910, I made some hypotheses to guide me in further research:

Fact 1 - John, Daniel And Warren E. Buckley Were All Born In Maine
Fact 2 - They All Stated Their Father And Mother Were Born In Maine
Fact 3 - They All Lived Within A Few Blocks Of Each Other In April 1900 Clinton, Ia.
Fact 3 - John Was Born May 1836, Daniel Feb 1838 And Warren E. Apr 1844
Fact 4 - Daniel And Warren E. Are Living Close To Each Other In Clinton County In 1870
(In the 1870 census Daniel's age (28) doesn't match 1900 or 1910, his spouse Addie is different, BUT--He states he was born in Maine and in 1900 he is shown as having been married twice [M2])
Fact 5 - John Is Living In Fulton, Il In 1880. He Indicates Born Maine And Parents Born Maine.

ASSUMPTION: There is a very high probability that John, Daniel, and Warren E. Are three of the five brothers mentioned by my grandfather.

CONCLUSION: Look in the census for a Buckley family whose head of household was born in Maine, whose spouse was born in Maine and whose children include: John, Daniel, and Warren E. Look in the 1850 and later censuses because 1850 was the first one that listed every person living at one address.

At the same time that I was looking in Maine for the Father and Mother of Daniel Buckley, I decided to try looking at the area in an around Galena, IL. My reasoning was this: if Daniel knew Grant before the war then he had to be somewhere near where Grant was. Grant was in Galena immediately before the war broke out so I began collecting census data. This was no help. So decided to write to the States of Iowa and Illinois and request service records. Iowa sent me a promising answer there was a Daniel who gave his residence as Dunleith, IL who signed up with the 3rd Iowa Inf. My Dad got all excited: "that's got to be him" etc.,etc. Even though the copy of the roster said born Pennsylvania. I went ahead and ordered his pension file from the National Archives. I got back a prodigious pile of documents but unfortunately they only proved without a shadow of a doubt that this Daniel was NOT our Ancestor. (At least I learned how to request records from the States and the Archives.)

Part Two - A Cousin Finds Us

To sum up: after years of checking indexes and census data it seemed as if I was getting
nowhere in determining our Great Great Grandparents names.

Then Dad received a post card from a cousin in Omaha who was searching for lost relatives. Dad immediately wrote her back and so did I, sending her some of our information so that she would know who we were. Months went by, but we finally got a reply saying she had received our information and that she would be sending some of hers to us.This really got my hopes up, but after nearly a year of waiting with no furthur contact, I had just about given up getting any of her info.

Then, I decided to get on the internet. One of the first things I did was go searching for our long lost cousin. Eventually I found a posting she had done on a service that family Tree Maker provides to owners of their program called a "User Home Page". We began a back and forth process over a period of several months. As it turned out she has added a great deal to our file:

1. Her database of 1500 names, dates, etc.
2. Death Certificate for Aunt Edna which gave us Daniel's middle initial "J", his birthplace Bangor, ME and his exact date of birth.
3. Part of his Obituary

The really big break through however came after I started working the net. After posting messages in several places, I began corresponding with others who were also searching for Buckley kin, thanks to three people who I met there; I learned that Daniel, Warren, and John all joined the Army at Fulton, Whiteside Co., Illinois during the civil war. In addition we apparently learned of two additional family members: Elisha and Merrill. To summarize:

BUCKLEY, DANIEL I 75 INF FULTON

BUCKLEY, MERRILL E 46 INF FULTON

As a result of the above information I ordered the pension file for Daniel Buckley Co. I 75th Infantry Illinois from the National Archives. The file took almost a year to obtain. For some reason it had never been stored in the Archives but rather at the Veterans Administration.

While I was waiting I got a copy of Daniel's death certificate and copies of the actual Muster Rolls for Co. I 75^th IL and Co. E 46^th IL. These three documents greatly expanded our family knowledge.

Meanwhile, Cousin Nikki went to Clinton and obtained still more information on the family from public records there.

Part Three - The Buck Family Tree or The Buckley Family Bush?

On August 7-8, 1862 three men enlisted in the 75^th IL Volunteers at Fulton, Whiteside County, Illinois:

Three actual locations in Maine to search for our family! Up until now all we knew was, they were born in Maine.

After carefully going over all of the documentation we have accumulated over the past 10 years, I concluded:

There can be no doubt that Elisha and Diana are Daniel's parents. This is proven by specific references to them in a) Daniel's Civil War pension file, b) His death certificate, c) Warren's death record in the Clinton Co. public records. (They are listed as Warren's parents), and d) The fact that Warren's wife refers to Daniel as her brother-in-law in Daniel's pension file. By the same reasoning Warren is proven.

Over a period of 5 years, I made a diligent effort to find a BUCKLEY family whose father and mother were born in Maine and which contained John, Warren, and Daniel as children. My search included the IGI for Maine, Illinois, and Iowa; the census indexes (AIS) for these same states as well the individual family census records for all of 1850 Maine, and all of N. Illinois for 1850. In addition, after we determined that Elisha and Diana were the parent's names, I rechecked all of these sources. There is NO Elisha Buckley listed in any of the three states during the time frame we are interested in. Not only that, but we find the federal government was also unable to locate any record of them in 1850 or 1860 Illinois census records! (See Daniel's pension file.)

So where, then, were they? Quite by accident, as I was rechecking all of my indexes, census extracts, and other data, I just happened to notice an Elisha BUCK on the 1860 Iowa index (AIS). I obtained a transcript of this family and found that it included Elisha, Diana, Merrill, and last but not least Daniel. All of the family members are from Maine and, most important, one of the children, Johanah, is shown to be 8 years of age. The odds of finding another family that fits the facts this well are a million to one. There are four name matches and Johanah's age indicates they were still in Maine in 1850. No wonder we were unable to locate them for all those years!

There are only two Elisha Bucks listed in the Maine census indexes for the period 1790 thru 1850. One of these was born about 1792 and lived in Buckfield all his life dying there just before the Civil War. The only other Elisha is listed twice. First he is at Freeman Township in Franklin County in 1840 and second he is listed at Parkman Township, Piscataquis County, in 1850. Since the 1850 census is the first one that listed every person living in each household I ordered a photocopy of the page.

The 1850 census forms the basis for linking not only to our past documents but also to some crucial information found in the IGI. It lists four name matches with previous documents: Elisha, Daniel, Warren, and Merrill. It lists three name matches with IGI documents: Elisha, Warren, and Eunice. There can be little doubt that it is the correct census for our ancestor Elisha Buck.

Henry Mower, Sr., a relative of the family, states in the IGI that "Elisha Buck of Parkeman was born about 1811". In the above census Elisha lists his age in 1850 as 40.

Henry states further that Diana Mower was married to Elisha Buck in Kingfield, Maine on April 6, 1837. He also states that they had a child named Warren and another child named Eunice. These match the names in the 1850 census.

Henry's name appears on a lot of other entries in the IGI linking us to several family lines that I am busy adding to the BUCK family tree.

Based on the above, I am accepting the four items listed at the beginning of this letter as true. The table, which follows, summarizes the information from the above sources.

 IGI

1850

AGE

1860

AGE

MUSTER ROLLS

PENSION FILE

ELISHA

ELISHA

40

ELISHA

48

ELISHA

ELISHA

DIANA

URAND

40

DIANA

42

DIANA

DORCUS

13

DANIEL

11

DANIEL

19

DANIEL

DANIEL

WARREN

WARREN

10

WARREN

WARREN

EUNICE

EUNICE

9

UNIS

14

MERRILL

2

MERRILL

12

MERRILL

DAVIS

JOHANAH

8

JOHN

Part Four - Jerusalem Revisited

In September of 1904 Daniel Buckley made this statement in connection with obtaining an increase in his Civil War pension:

"I was born in Jerusalem Maine but there is no record of my birth recorded in said city or county and I have no Bible record of my birth, the same having been destroyed by fire a great many years ago....." (Pension File XC-2-690-199)

Jerusalem? that was strange, I wondered: "where it is located?". So I checked all of the different sources I have on Maine. No Jerusalem! Could it be that Daniel not only didn't know when he was born, but also, didn't know where, since, he had stated previously, in 1862, that he was born in Foxcroft. Later, I discovered the following census at: http://www.rootsweb.com/~meandrhs/census/maine/carrabasset/1837.html.

This is a Special Maine State Census or enumeration of the inhabitants on the 1st Mar 1837 taken pursuant to an Act of the Legislature of Maine passed 8 Mar 1837.

The law directed:

1. All inhabitants would be counted excepting, foreigners not naturalized, who have not had their residence in any city, town or plantation in the State of Maine, four years previous to enumeration (which would be 1833) and also excepting Indians not taxed. (N.B. The incorporated towns & cities where done on the local level. We have located the 1837 Special Census for Bangor, Portland, Dennysville and Roxbury, Maine. The townships of Maine were enumerated by the State of Maine.)

1837 Census of Carrabasset Valley, (formerly Jerusalem, 3R2 BKP WSKR), Franklin Co., Maine

Thirty miles north of Farmington, Franklin Co., Maine, Carrabassett Valley was incorporated on 26 Oct 1971. Originally was the unorganized townships of Sugarloaf (Crockertown, formerly Number 4, R2) and Jerusalem (Number 3, R2, BKP) In 1855 Jerusalem was organized into a plantation. Jerusalem, Franklin Co., Maine was a wild land township bounded by Dead River, Highland, Kingfield, and Crockertown. Previous designation of Jerusalem was: 3R2 BKP WKR & Treadwell.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"AHA", said I, there was a Jerusalem, Maine after all. So was there any evidence of Buck activity there? Yes. The census listed these households:

First Name

Head of Household

Persons under 4

Persons 4 to 21

Persons over 21

Total

Elisar

Buck

0

0

2

2

Joel

Dresser

2

3

2

7

Alva

Lovel

1

4

3

8

Andrew

Lovel

1

4

2

7

John

Moody

0

1

1

2

Phebe

Moody

0

6

1

7

Lewis

Moore

1

4

2

6

John

Read

2

3

3

7

Robert

Tailor

1

0

2

3

Abijah

Tuft

1

2

2

5

So there is an Elisar Buck in 1837 residing in Jerusalem, maybe Daniel was telling the truth after all.

In 1862 John Buckley stated he was born in Kingfield, Franklin Co., Maine. (75th Illinois Muster Roll) Kingfield is, most likely, the nearest town to Jerusalem and would be the natural place to refer to if trying to explain where you were from.

In the IGI (Batch number: M503662) Elisha Buck and Diana Mower were said to have been married in Kingfield, Franklin Co., Maine on 6 Apr 1837. Looking at the above table we find that the household of Elisar Buck contained two persons over the age of 21 and no children.

In the IGI (Batch number: M503662) John Moody and Polly Mower were said to have been married in Kingfield, Franklin Co., Maine on 6 Apr 1837. Looking at the above table we find that the household of John Moody contained one persons over the age of 21 and one between 4 and 21 years of age.

In the IGI (Batch number: M503662) Joanna Mower and Jennerson D. Moody were married in Kingfield, Franklin Co., Maine on 23 May 1843.

(Both John and Polly and Joanna and Jennerson were first cousin marriages. Also note Elisha and Dianna were married at the same time as John and Polly, probably a double wedding.)

In the IGI, in various entries, Lewis Mower and Abigail Drake are shown to have the following children born in Kingfield: Diana, Loraine, Polly, Albert, Joanna, Elias, and Nelson J.. In the above table Lewis Moore is credited with 5 children under the age of 21. This agrees with the ages of the children in the IGI.

I noticed in the table above that Phebe Moody is listed as the head of household at line 6. Since we know that we are related to two of her sons, decided to find out more.

A search for John Moody (line 5) at LDS-FamilySearch yielded this:

John D. MOODY Sex: M Birth:6 Feb 1817 Kingfield, Franklin, Maine

Father: Davis MOODY Mother: Phebe DRAKE

Film Number: 458895

Mother: Phebe Drake, now this is interesting! I have up to now not been able to locate anything about Diana Mower/Moore's Mother Abigail Drake. Wonder if they might be sisters? I tried a search for the parents of Phebe Drake. On this we really lucked out because there is a whole Ancestral File on the Drakes!!!:

Husband's Name

Oliver DRAKE (AFN:JQ3K-0P) Born: 15 May 1758 Place: Taunton, Bristol, Ma Died: 3 Mar 1828 Place: Leeds, Androscoggin, Maine Married: Place: Taunton, Bristol, Ma Father: John DRAKE (AFN:JQ3J-MT) Mother: Abigail DRAKE (AFN:JQ3J-N1)

Wife's Name

Phebe CODDING (AFN:JQ3K-1V) Born: Abt 1760 Place: Of Taunton, Bristol, Ma Died: 13 Feb 1832 Place: Leeds, Androscoggin, Maine Married: Place: Taunton, Bristol, Ma Father: Mother:

Children :

1. M Friend DRAKE (AFN:JQ3X-8L) Born: 3 Jul 1780 Place: Taunton, Bristol, Ma Died: 28 Dec 1858 Place: Dixmont, Penobscot, Me.

2. M John DRAKE (AFN:JQ3K-QH) Born: 31 Oct 1782 Place: Of Leeds, Androscoggin, Me Died: 8 Nov 1823 Place: Of Leeds, Androscoggin, Maine

3. M Warren DRAKE (AFN:JQ3K-V6) Born: 1 Aug 1784 Place: Of Leeds, Androscoggin, Me Died: 18 Aug 1864 Place: Albion, Kennebec, Maine

4. M Codding DRAKE (AFN:JQ3M-L3) Born: 15 Apr 1786 Place: Of Leeds, Androscoggin, Me Died: 30 Jun 1863 Place: Albion, Kennebec, Maine

5. M Lemuel DRAKE (AFN:JQ3L-9D) Born: 4 Aug 1788 Place: Of Leeds, Androscoggin, Me

6. M Elisha DRAKE (AFN:JQ3L-KR) Born: 12 Apr 1790 Place: Of Leeds, Androscoggin, Me Died: 5 Dec 1868 Place: Parkman, Piscataquis, Maine

7. M Washington DRAKE (AFN:JQ3M-00) Born: 5 Dec 1792 Place: Of Leeds, Androscoggin, Me Died: 6 Dec 1853 Place:

8. F Abby Or Nabby DRAKE (AFN:JQ3K-98) Born: 23 Sep 1794 Place: Of Leeds, Androscoggin, Me Died: 5 Apr 1872 Place:

9. F Phebe DRAKE (AFN:JQ3K-BF) Born: 6 Dec 1795 Place: Of Leeds, Androscoggin, Me Died: 27 Feb 1880 Place: Fayette, Kennebec, Maine

10. M Silas DRAKE (AFN:JQ3M-Z0) Born: 14 Mar 1797 Place: Of Leeds, Androscoggin, Me Died: 26 Jul 1867 Place:

11. M Columbus DRAKE (AFN:JQ3N-9N) Born: 1 Oct 1798 Place: Of Leeds, Androscoggin, Me Died: 26 Jul 1882 Place:

12. F Adeline DRAKE (AFN:JQ3K-FX) Born: 16 Jul 1800 Place: Of Leeds, Androscoggin, Me Died: 3 Apr 1855 Place: Lagrange, Penobscot, Maine

 Looking at Child number 8 we find: Abby or Nabby Drake. A search on this name came up with:

A search on these two yielded the following children:

So these are same children as we have from other sources plus a new one, and a name spelling of Moore instead of Mower.  

This latest finding of Lewis Moore and Abby Drake brings me to the point where some decisions must be made regarding this family. I have, over the past few months, been finding a large amount of information at the IGI concerning the Mowers. After studying it carefully it looks as if it can be summarized into three groups.

The following table summarizes my findings for the children of Lewis and Abigail (Abby) Mower:

KINGFIELD GROUP

KINGFIELD GROUP

KINGSBURY GROUP

KINGSBURY GROUP

LEEDS GROUP

LEEDS GROUP

NAME

DATE OF BIRTH

NAME

DATE OF BIRTH

NAME

DATE OF BIRTH

Dianna

Abt 1813

Diana

Abt 1813

Diana

1 Oct 1813

Joanna

Abt 1820

Joanna

ABT 1820

Johanna

8 Apr 1821

Loraine D.

8 Apr 1811

Loraine D.

8 Apr 1811

Loriana

8 Apr 1811

Polly

Abt 1815

Polly

ABT 1815

Polly

1815

?

?

Darius

1826

Albert L.

30 Nov 1818

Albert L.

30 Nov 1818

Albert

30 Nov 1819

Elias H.

23 Jun 1829

?

Elisas

23 Jun 1829

?

Nelson J.

22 Aug 1831

Nelson

22 Aug 1831

So it is obvious that these are all the same people, the question is which location is correct: Kingfield, Kingsbury, or Leeds? It is possible that checking the census will provide the answers.

We checked the census indexes and found no Lewis Moore listed prior to 1837, however we did find him listed in:

Year

Surname

Given Name (s)

County

State

Page

Township or Other Info

1840

MOORE

LEWIS

Franklin County

ME

073

3rd Township 2nd Range

1850

MOORE

LEWIS

Piscataquis County

ME

191

Parkeman

1860

MOORE

LEWIS

Piscataquis County

ME

877

Parkman

Probably they were married and lived for a time in Androscoggin Co. with either their Mower or Drake parents. We will show children as born in Franklin Co. because this agrees with other sources that were found later.

Summing up Jerusalem research made it possible for us to trace the ancestry of Dianna Mower extensively. For the results of this see our Mower/Moore Family Page. But what about Elisha Buck? True we now had enough information to prove his realtionship with Dianna Mower and true he changed his name from Buck to Buckley but we still had nothing to prove his ancestry. Which of the Bucks of Buckfield were his parents? We had, it seems, run out of leads. So I decided to try a shotgun approach. The following query was sent to every County GenWeb site where we knew Elisha had lived and to two mailing lists for Buck and Buckley surnames:

Our query paid off big. On June 10, 2000 we received this reply:

"From: Ruth Ford Blood To: Dan Buckley Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2000 4:06 PM

Subject: Re: Buck/Mower

Hi Dan,

First let me explain that I am not a Mower/Buck descendant, but I had helped a distant cousin by tracking down this Mower genealogy a few years back. I often check the ME queries to see if I have information to share, thus your query caught my eye since most Mowers here in ME are descended from this line.
I've just been on your website, and perhaps I can be of help with the Buck line. I have forebears out of Buckfield, ME and the town has an excellent written history, which I'll check the next time I go to the ME
State Library and also check for a Parkman town history. Also I'll check the Registry of Deeds in Dover-Foxcroft to see if there is a transaction for your Elisha. (I assume you haven't checked those sources; I didn't
see them as I scanned your material.) As a matter of fact, I drove through Parkman en route to the Registry this week. "

This was followed by:

"Have you discounted the Elisha Buck born/chr 16 May 1812 in Buckfield, son of Daniel and Rebecca (Sawyer) Buck (Daniel is the son of Nathaniel and brother of the Elisha b abt 1792)? [LDS]"

This was it!! I had not checked the new Pedigree Resource Files at LDS. Here is how the file read:

Elisha BUCK, Birth: 16 May 1812 Place: Buckfield, ME; Father: Daniel BUCK, Mother: Rebecca Sawyer ; Submitter: Mark F. Quinn, 6762 Calle Altamira, Pleasanton, CA 94566; Submission Search: 214038-053099225957 ; URL: http://www.parsonstech.com/genealogy/trees/mquinn/mfquinn.htm

I immediately contacted Mr. Quinn and received a reply that his information was based on a book "Old Foxcroft" and notes from a Buck descendant in Florida.

Mrs Blood meanwhile went to Foxcroft and obtained the following from the Vital Records there:

Town Clerk, Foxcroft Maine Vital records 1813-1891 (Transcribed by Ruth Ford Blood - Jun 2000), Page 8. "Daniel Buck and his wife Rebecca: Elisha Buck, born in Buckfield, May 16th 1812."

We now had clear evidence that Elisha was born in Buckfield and which of the Buckfield Bucks were his parents.

In the next several months a virtual mountain of documentation has been received including a copy of the book "A History Of Buckfield". You will find these quoted in our sources throughout our files.

Most recently documentation has been received that proves with 100% certainty that all the Bucks that we found listed in the 1860 Clinton Co., Iowa census did change thier names from Buck to Buckley.

This new information is all included in "The Descendants of William Buck" on the Buck family page.