The Amazing Power of Newspapers: Part 3

My grandpa, Walter Elliot Tubbs,
and me c. 1983

Last week, I participated in the Genealogical Society of Washtenaw County’s monthly meeting which hosted a speaker from the Library of Michigan. As part of his overview of their services he reminded me that they maintain a newsbank of newspapers, which includes The Ann Arbor News back to 1923. I thought that I would do a search for mentions of my grandfather, Walter Elliot Tubbs, who was born in 1911 in Washtenaw County and lived in Ann Arbor into the 1940s.

His Name in Youth

As it turned out, I spent hours combing through the mentions of my grandfather in a myriad of activities in his teenage and early 20’s. What was interesting is that in most of these newspaper mentions he was named as Elliot Tubbs. When I was growing up, most people called him Tubby, a nickname he picked up while in the Army, except for my second cousins who always called him Uncle Elliot. I thought it was odd because I knew his first name was Walter. Then it dawned on me, his father was Charles Walter Tubbs, but he went by C. Walter or Walter. Since it might be confusing to have two Walter’s in the house, my grandfather must have been called Elliot as a child and my Aunt Helen, his older sister, would have surely had her children call my grandfather by his childhood name. The newspaper articles later shifted to using Walter Elliot in the 1940s, but the name must have stuck for my cousins!

Ann Arbor High School Yearbook, c. 1931

The Ann Arbor Times News
March 20, 1926

The Ann Arbor News
October 13, 1925

The Ann Arbor Times News
November 18, 1925

Activities of his Youth

I was a competitive swimmer in my youth and my grandfather was always so proud of me and on rare occasions he would mention he was also a swimmer and would share how much strokes, starts, and turns had changed and even the length of the pool (he swam in a 20 yd pool) since he was a kid. I found numerous articles during his teenage years participating in the Ann Arbor YMCA and Ann Arbor High School swim team. For example, on October 13th, he placed 5th in the “Athletics” division at the YMCA Carnival and 4th in the “Swimming” and 3rd in the “All-round” category. Most times he was a swimmer but I did find one time that he made it to the semi-finals for “Fancsy Diving”! And was on the Ann Arbor YMCA Team (Junior division) planning to defend their state title and he was a “low board diver”. 

Ann Arbor High School Yearbook
c. 1930

The YMCA also sponsored treasure hunts and at the first treasure hunt in the summer of 1925, Elliot Tubbs won the event. And he even played in ping pong tournaments!

Ann Arbor High School
c. 1929

My grandfather also prided himself on his singing voice, although I don’t ever remember hearing his tenor singing voice, he was a member of the Glee Club at Jones Junior High and Ann Arbor High School.

The Ann Arbor Times News
Aug 15, 1924

He was also a Boy Scout in Ann Arbor’s Troop 1 and went to Camp Medawewin on Patterson Lake in Pinckney, Michigan and learned about water safety, lifesaving, and techniques for swimming and diving.

Surprising Find

The most surprising find was in 1933, when Elliot Tubbs was identified as an Old Age Pension Bureau census enumerator. This took me down a giant rabbit hole where I learned an interesting lesson in Michigan History!!

The Ann Arbor Daily News
November 6, 1933

Most people know that Social Security as a federal program began in August 1935. What I didn’t know until reading this article was that Michigan began a program that could be considered a precursor to social security! Michigan was struggling with one of the highest unemployment rates (36% vs. 24% nationally) and had many poor houses filled with elderly persons. It became a very controversial law (I found a New York Times article from December 1933), but in 1933, Michigan was one of 10 states who began a program to support indigent persons over the age of 70. They levied a tax of $2 per person (over the age of 21) per year to fund the program. In order to know who to levy this tax against, census takers were hired to scour townships. My grandfather was apparently named the census taker for Scio Township in Washtenaw County, a township he would have been familiar with because his parents were both born there and he was too!

I have reached out to the Michigan Archives and the Genealogical Society of Washtenaw County, but haven’t tracked down the census papers he took…yet!

I am again reminded of the power of newspapers and how they can bring a person's life alive! There was so much more to my grandfather than his military career and it's nice to learn a little more about him as a young man.

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Extra Reading about the Old Age Pension in Michigan

-Old age assistance in Michigan, 1933-1937. State welfare department. Bureau of old age assistance

America250-Revolutionary War Patriots--Capt. Nathan Stoddard

Capt. Nathan Stoddard is my 5th great-grandfather and my DAR Patriot (the Revolutionary War soldier through whose lineage I am a member). Nathan was born 8th August 1742 to Gideon and Olive Stoddard. He lived in Woodbury, Connecticut, married Eunice Sanford around 1767 and had seven children.

Certificate for Pension for
Captain Nathan Stoddard

The following is an excerpt about Capt. Nathan Stoddard from the book, “Ancestors of Rodman Stoddard, of Woodbury, CT and Detroit, MI” written in 1893.

My copy of Ancestors of Rodman Stoddard
that includes the birth of my
great grandmother, Florence Mary Stoddard

“In 1775 the air was full of rumours of war, the martial spirit of his father was inherited by the son, and as if preparing for the coming fray, Nathan, who had undoubtedly served ere now in the ranks, was in April of this year commissioned Ensign of the first Company or trainband of Woodbury which was known as the 13th Regiment of the Colony.

What service, if any, he saw in this capacity does not appear, but hostilities soon afterwards breaking out, a few months later he entered the army as a private in the 4th Regiment which was ordered by General Washington to join the troops opposed to the British near Lake Champlain and to garrison Fort Ticonderoga. In a skirmish with the enemy he was taken prisoner and carried to Quebec. Before he was ordered to jail he was concealed through the kindness of a French landlady, and was fed by her for a considerable time, and aided to escape, which it is said he did by swimming the St. Lawrence.

He finally returned to Woodbury and there and in the adjacent towns raised another Company of which he became Captain and was in all of the engagements near Danbury, Conn. and Horse Neck, NY in April and May 1777.

Revolutionary War Rolls, compiled 1894 - 1913,
documenting the period 1775 - 1783
Record Group 93, page 137

After the success of the northern Army under Gates and the surrender of Burgoyne in October, Captain Stoddard prepared to join the army of Washington on the Delaware. Early in November Captain Nathan Stoddard and Lieutenant John Strong who had been sent to Woodbury on Military service, sent forward blankets and military stores to the amount of (pound sign) 46. 13 s. 5d. And then joined their command, which was stationed opposite Fort Mifflin on Mud Island. Here they were opposed to Lord Howe who proposed to force the passage of the Delaware which was commanded by Fort Mercer at Red Bank on the Jersey side, and Fort Mifflin on Mud Island. By the 10th they had completed their batteries within 500 years of the American fort and began an incessant fire from heavy artillery.

Map of the Delaware River, Fort Mifflin,
Philadelphia and vicinity, 1777

Lieut. Colonel Samuel Smith of Maryland, who was in command, was wounded the next day and went to the mainland, and on the 13th the brave garrison of 286 men and 20 artillerists was confided to Major Simeon Thayer of Rhode Island, who now volunteered to take the desperate command. On the 15th surrounded by 6 large British ships of war and a large Indiaman armed with 24 pounders with the land batteries, now five in number, playing from thirty pieces at short distances, the ramparts and block-house on Mud Island were honeycombed and their cannon silenced. In this desperate attack Captain Stoddard was instantly killed by a cannon shot which severed his head from his body as he was sighting a piece to fire on the enemy. In the evening the garrison evacuated, and when the British entered the fort they found nearly every cannon stained with blood.

A 1777 British Map of Fort Mifflin

  

Captain Stoddard left one son, Nathan Ashbel, aged 9 years and six young daughters. He died intestate and his death is recorded in the Register of Woodbury. He was aged 35 years.

Connecticut Casualties

From the Record of Service of Connecticut Men published by authority of the General Assembly, under direction of the Adjutant General. Hartford, 1889”

Other Accounts

There are other accounts that have been published elsewhere. The earliest was written in 1830 by an old man who was a young private in 1777, Private Joseph Plumb Martin. The book was called, A Narrative of a Revolutionary Soldier: Some Adventures, Dangers, and Sufferings of Joseph Plumb Martin

In it, he provides a very descriptive account of the battle at Fort Mifflin and on page 69, is an account of a man killed which has been proffered (although unnamed in the memoir) to be Capt. Nathan Stoddard.

Another account of the battle was written by Major Amos Stoddard in an 1812 account prior to his death named The Autobiography Manuscript of Major Amos Stoddard. Both accounts were used to provide the memorial of Capt. Nathan Stoddard's Find-a-grave Memorial.

An account published in the 1896 Yearbook of the Illinois Society of the Sons of the American Revolution on p. 120 describes Nathan Stoddard's military service drawn on the Connecticut Men in the Revolution and Heitman's Historical Register.

A more recent wonderful writing in 2017 by blogger Curtis Meckemson provides contemporary photos of Fort Mifflin and an account which draws on many of these resource. And in 2010 a blog by Daniel Segelquist. And finally, my mother's 2nd cousin, Peter Stoddard (1957-2024) had devoted much of his life to investigating the Stoddard family line and contributed a speech he had written as part of his SAR induction in 2016, which can be found in the comments of both of the blogs above.

This is the first of over 20 Revolutionary War Veterans I plan to highlight this year, who were ancestors of either me or my husband.