Geiszler Genealogy

In last week's post, I shared how Chad Graham was in the Obetz Cemetery in Franklin County, Ohio. He found the tombstone of Harry A Townsend. This week I'd like to share the photo he took of William James Townsend, Harry's father, and my 2nd great-grandfather. Having a photograph of William's gravestone opens up a WHOLE new world for me. I know that the Obetz Cemetery Office has no further information about this stone. In fact, they couldn't direct me to it when I visited in May 2012. I honestly had no idea it was in the cemetery, which causes me to wonder how Chad found William. It's possible that my reference to the section indicated by the Franklin County Cemetery Index helped Chad. In any case, the inscription reads: William James Townsend PVT Co K 133 Regt Ohio Inf Civil War  1842 - 1889 William is buried beside his son Harry A Townsend. I wish there were other markers for Townsend to help me solve more clues to my puzzle. Where was William...

Nearly two years after the close of the Civil War, Sherman Lewis Brown a was born on 4 Feb 1867 in Lockbourne, Franklin, Ohio. b,c,d He is the seventh child of Samuel Curtis Brown, 45, and Martha Gordon, 39. (Sherman Lewis Brown is the father of Lewis Sherman Brown who I have blogged about.) Lockbourne, B, is south of Columbus, A Lockbourne is a small village in rural Franklin County, almost 12 miles south of the county seat in Columbus (population around 19,000). It was located on the Ohio & Erie Canal. The canal was constructed between 1825 and 1847 and ran between Cleveland and Portsmouth.. e,f The canals were very popular from the 1830s to the early 1860s and helped Ohio become the third most prosperous state in the 1840s. During the Civil War, railroads became the transportation technology of the time which would lead to the decline of the canal usage. When baby Sherman was born in Lockbourne, the canal business was dwindling significantly and would a flood would wipe out...