Nicholas Galles and the 1885 “Geronimo Campaign”

Mark B. Thompson, III

Almost ten years before his death, the Santa Fe New Mexican ran a front page article about Nicholas Galles on June 21, 1902, with the banner “Men of the Hour in New Mexico.”  The article contained a long paragraph detailing his “five years” as a captain in the New Mexico Territorial Militia, the predecessor of the New Mexico National Guard, during the “Indian Troubles.” Surprisingly, the article did not mention his work in the 1885 campaign, probably the best documented of any of the Galles military experiences. Perhaps not surprisingly, this neglect of the 1885 events, not to mention the several other “errors and omissions,” were carried over into numerous obituaries after his death on December 5, 1911. Had Galles decided that “1885” was “no big deal?”  

N. Galles obit, 1911

On June 5, 1885, Galles wrote a letter* to New Mexico Territorial Governor, Edmund G. Ross, a former U.S. Senator from Kansas, later included in John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage for his part in the trial of Andrew Johnson for impeachment. This letter, accompanied by a petition signed by 36 willing volunteers, sought creation of a militia cavalry company for the Hillsboro area.  They did not get a cavalry appointment, but on June 10, 1885, Galles took the oath of office as a captain of Company G of the 1^st Infantry.  (I wonder if they nevertheless rode horses?) The muster roll for Company G shows that 40 men in addition to Galles were enrolled, including the once and future Chief Justice of the New Mexico Supreme Court, Frank W. Parker, as well as the soon to be convicted felon, Julian L. (“Junee”?) Fuller. The four documents referred to can be found in the New Mexico Territorial Archives, together with a report from Galles which accompanied the eventual request for payment.  

What prompted the June letter and what was the role of Company G in the 1885 campaign? Fortunately the original of the report was later read and “relied upon” in Washington, but the microfilm version is almost illegible. I believe we must turn to the historians, something we needed to do any way, to get the basic “facts.”  The writers on the Chiricahua Apache “wars” are legion, and I have relied primarily on one recent publication: Edwin R. Sweeney, From Cochise to Geronimo: The Chiricahua Apaches, 1874-1886 (Norman: U. of Okla. Press, 2010).  Sweeney does cite his sources in detail and each paragraph of his 580-page book is so crammed with facts that you almost have to outline each paragraph in order to have some confidence that you know what you just read. If not the last word on the subject, it certainly seemed like a good place to start.

Sweeney tells the 1885 story partly through the eyes of General George Crook of the U.S. Army. Sweeney, (p. 430), describes how on May 28, 1885, Crook left Prescott, Arizona to establish his field headquarters at Ft. Bayard, southeast of Silver City and west of Hillsboro, not knowing that Geronimo (and Chief Mangas) had left New Mexico for Mexico. Although the Galles letter to Gov. Ross is vague and general about the looming threat, it seems reasonable to assume that the prospective volunteers in Hillsboro were probably aware of Crook’s concerns and that Hillsboro might need to be defended. In fact, as described in detail by Sweeney, the focus of the story shifts to Mexico during the summer of 1885, but about September 5, 1885, it was determined that Geronimo was headed back into New Mexico (Sweeney p. 460).

At that point it was assumed that the Chiricahuas were probably headed to Ojo Caliente, north of Hillsboro, and the home of the Chihenne band before they were removed to the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona. The first sighting was apparently in the Cooke’s range, the southern part of the Mimbres Mountains, about September 9, 1885. At that point neither U.S. troops nor militia were following Geronimo (Sweeney p. 462).  On September 11, 1885, Geronimo’s men showed they were in fact traveling north when they attacked in several places, killing Brady Pollock near today's Pollock Canyon west of Lake Valley, then heading down Gavilan Canyon into the Mimbres drainage killing Martin McKinn and kidnapping his brother Santiago "Jimmy" McKinn. Geronimo then attacked further north in Gallinas Canyon, southeast of San Lorenzo.  (Today you can roughly follow this path, and the Mimbres River, by traveling north on State Highway 61.)  Finally, at least by September 12, 1885, the U.S. Cavalry from Ft. Bayard, militia from Hillsboro, and a small party of ranchers were in pursuit (Sweeney p. 464). Sweeney does not identify anyone in the militia from Hillsboro.

Sweeney says that Geronimo and his men spent the night of September 12, 1885, “near the confluence of Sapillo Creek and the Mimbres” (p. 464).  Given the route Geronimo was taking toward the northwest, Sweeney could have meant either the confluence of Sapillo Creek and the Gila, or another creek on the Mimbres. Sapillo Creek is on the Pacific side of the Continental Divide and drains to the Gila. In any event, Geronimo now realized that he needed to put some distance between himself  and the pursuers and by the evening of September 13, 1885, he had arrived at the Black Canyon, about eight miles southeast of the Gila Hot Springs. On Monday, September 14, 1885, the Apaches had reached the junction of Little Creek and the West Fork of the Gila.  According to Sweeney, the army and militia at that point gave up the chase (p. 464).

Geronimo and his men made it to Arizona by September 19, 1885, but by September 27 they were back in New Mexico, killing a merchant, A.L. Sabourne, at Cactus Flat, about five miles northwest of Buckhorn. (Today U.S. 180 runs through Buckhorn.) Apparently they camped in that area for about a week and Sweeney relates that “Geronimo’s party left for Mexico about October 6, 1885” (p. 471).  As we shall see, the period between the September 27 and October 6 is important for the Galles story, but Sweeney does not give any indication that Geronimo had moved east toward Hillsboro from Buckhorn during this period.   

Perhaps because Congress passed another pension provision for veterans (and widows) of the “Indian Wars” on March 4, 1917, the widow of Nicholas Galles, Harriett Stocker Galles, filed an application for a widow’s pension on January 12, 1918.  The application said that Galles had served in the territorial militia “in 1885 and perhaps 1886.”  This application was rejected on March 5, 1919, on the grounds that the “muster rolls in the State Archives fails to show the period of service.”  The records in Santa Fe were eventually found and apparently a request for “reconsideration” was filed with the federal authorities. A preliminary decision was made on August 29, 1923, indicating that the service was “pensionable if period of 30 days is shown.”  By November 13, 1923, it was determined that the period of service was only eight days, from September 30, 1885, through October 7, 1885, and a final decision rejecting the application was issued on  August 26, 1924. Harriett Galles filed yet another application in June of 1927, but it does not recite any additional facts.

Harriet Stocker Galles

The dates of September 30 through October 7 are consistent with a return of  Geronimo to New Mexico on September 27 and his leaving for Mexico on October 6. It would make sense that the militia was “activated” on the September 30 because of the possibility of Geronimo moving toward Hillsboro, but, as we know (or believe), he stayed to the southwest of Hillsboro and then soon moved on to Mexico. What about the period of September 12, 1885 and September 14, 1885, when the militia had joined in pursuit of Geronimo up the Mimbres, etc?  Was the militia, referred to by Sweeney, in fact Company G headed by Galles? As a matter of law, adding three or four days to the eight used for the pension application would have made no difference on the pension decision—it was still short of the required 30 days of service.

Even if the record had shown two-plus weeks of “active duty” during the 1885 campaign, Galles may have concluded that it was nothing to “brag about.” Sitting around and a few days chase on horseback obviously resulted in no encounter with Geronimo. Given the inclination of politicians to trumpet their “Indian Fighter” status, the absence of any mention of 1885 in the 1902 Santa Fe New Mexican article should give us pause.  I have not confirmed that Galles served five full years as a captain in the militia during the period 1877-1882, as alleged in the 1902 article. There is, however, evidence of his participation in encounters with the Chiricahuas in 1879 and 1881, both of which, with mistakes, etc., are recited in the 1902 article and the subsequent obituaries. Geronimo was, and still is, the big name in this genre, but Galles may have decided it was better not to embellish his limited involvement in the 1885 encounters.

*You can read the referenced 1885 letter to Ross is the book, Around Hillsboro.

So, what did Abner Tibbetts do for Hillsboro -- and New Mexico?

By Mark B. Thompson III

Even if you are a dedicated Hillsboro “history buff” you are probably saying to yourself, “never heard of him.”  But there they are, Abner Tibbetts and his wife Marian, in the 1880 census living in “Hillsborough” with Abner described as a “general merchant.”   

Still rings no bells?  The census taker, the lawyer Edward E. Furman, includes them in what looks like a boarding house given the number of persons, 29, including Furman himself, listed under one address. On the other hand, 29 people would require a pretty big house and none are listed as boarders or with some “relationship” to the first name at the address, George Perrault.  One other clue—also listed is Nicholas Galles, a partner of Perrault, and, like Tibbetts, a onetime resident of Minnesota.  Were they all living under one roof, and what was Abner Tibbetts doing in Hillsboro in June of 1880?

Abner Tibbetts, front-center, had an influence on Hillsboro history. El Paso Public Library Otis A. Aultman Collection

As befitting someone who just shows up in the 1880 census in Hillsboro, little appears to be known about the early life of Abner Tibbetts. I believe that he was born about 1823 in Penobscot County Maine, the son of Joseph and Sarah (Crane) Tibbetts and that he is found in their household in the 1850 census. He married Marian Lewis in Racine Wisconsin on March 31, 1852, and then moves further west to Wabasha County Minnesota in 1855. The 1857 Minnesota census does not list his occupation but the 1860 federal census for Wabasha County describes him as a “farmer.” During this time he apparently participates in the founding of Lake City in Wabasha County and The History of Wabasha County contains a rather vague description of his “political activities.”(1) In one way or another, it is through his political connections and activities that we can construct a biography of Tibbetts, revealing his relevance to Hillsboro history.

Coincidently with Tibbetts locating in Wabasha County, two Republican politicians settle in adjoining counties, Goodhue to the north and Winona to the south. In 1855, lawyers Warren Bristol and William Windom moved to Red Wing, Goodhue County and Winona, Winona County, respectively. Bristol had moved from Hennepin County (Minneapolis) and Windom from Ohio, and both had practiced law before moving to southeastern Minnesota. Bristol had served as a district attorney in Hennepin County and had been prominent in the founding of the Republican Party in Minnesota in 1854.(2) Red Wing is just up the road from Lake City and, if Tibbetts was inclined to Republican Party politics, he undoubtedly met Bristol “early on.” It is an association with Windom, however, which probably explains how Tibbetts obtained his first presidential judiciary appointment.(3) Windom, at age 31, was elected a member of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1858, a position he would hold for ten years. Undoubtedly at Windom’s suggestion, President Abraham Lincoln nominated Tibbetts to be the Register of Public Lands for the General Land Office at St. Peter, Minnesota and he was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on March 27, 1861.

Nicholas Galles and George Perrault kept shop on Hillsboro's Main Street. Black Range Museum.

Tibbetts resigned his position in St. Peter on April 15, 1865, and was back in Lake City in time for the Minnesota census in June of that year.  Other than “farming,” we know little of his activity back in Wabasha County but on April 5, 1869, his nomination by President U.S. Grant to be Register of Public Lands, again at St. Peter, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate. During this tenure, the office was moved slightly further west to New Ulm in Brown County Minnesota. 

In the 1870 census, Abner and Marian, with daughter Jennie May, can be found just six houses from the William Galles family, including twelve year old Nicholas Galles. Therein lies a significant link to Hillsboro history. As we know, Abner and Marian will be even closer to Nick Galles in 1880 in Hillsboro, but first we need to consider some relevant connections of Tibbetts to New Mexico before 1880.

Perrault (l) and Galles inside their Hillsboro mercantile. Black Range Museum

A Register of Public Lands was appointed to a four-year term and served at the pleasure of the President. Tibbetts' second term would have ended in April of 1873.(4) In August of 1874, his daughter, Jennie May, married William Gregory Walz in Wabasha County, the Tibbetts home before the move to New Ulm. Walz was from Mankato, Minnesota, a town roughly half-way between Lake City and New Ulm. In the 1875 Minnesota census, Jennie and William, together with their son Harry born in April, are living with William’s parents in Mankato. Also listed at that address are Jennie’s parents, Abner and Marian Tibbetts. This may have given them a “base of operations,” but at least Abner appears to be “on the road.” His travels, in addition to his daughter’s marriage into the Walz family, are what may interest New Mexicans.

The April 4, 1875 edition of the Mesilla News related that the “Hon. A. Tibbetts and N. Galles from Lake City, Minnesota arrived in Mesilla in good health and spirits, and have decided to make their future home with us.”(5) In a letter from Mesilla dated March 23, 1875, Tibbetts wrote his son-in-law about his impressions of New Mexico. He did not mention Galles, but he did have some good news about Warren Bristol who had been in New Mexico as a territorial judge for three years.(6) We know that Nicholas Galles did stay in New Mexico, living first in Socorro, then Mesilla and eventually taking part in the founding of Hillsboro in northern Doña Ana County, but it is not clear that Tibbetts stayed at that time. We may surmise, however, that his mostly positive reports about New Mexico influenced the Walz family of Mankato, Minnesota, especially William’s younger siblings, Julia A. and Edgar A. Walz..

It is probably not surprising that most of what we know about Julia Walz is from a chapter devoted to her in a biography of her husband, Thomas B. Catron, perhaps the most powerful man in New Mexico from about 1870 to 1915. Supposedly Tom Catron met the then 18-year-old Julia Walz in Mesilla, New Mexico where she was teaching school in 1875.(7)

Mesilla in 1875? What a coincidence! Catron, originally from Missouri, had lived in Mesilla until 1869 when he was appointed Attorney General by the governor and had moved to Santa Fe. He was serving as the U.S. Attorney in 1875 and undoubtedly had business in Mesilla. According to the story, Julia returned to the Midwest to attend college but on April 28, 1877, she and Tom Catron were married in Mankato, Minnesota.

Edgar A. Walz, often referred to as “E.A.,” had just turned 18 on March 3, 1877, but, according to his memoir, he had left home in 1873 and worked for the Chicago & North West Ry. in St. Paul, Minnesota. Unfortunately, he does not describe how either he or sister Julia became interested in New Mexico.(8) He played a minor, if well-documented, role in the Lincoln County War, 1878-79, as the representative of his brother-in-law Tom Catron, who was a financial backer of the Dolan/Riley/Murphy faction.(9) After their marriage in 1880 in Mankato, Edgar brought his new bride, Louella, to New Mexico and their two children were born there, but Edgar mostly lived out his life in California. He clearly was a “jack of all trades,” and is credited with creating a company to help innkeepers deal with “deadbeats.” His company, originally the National Debtor Record Company, exists today as the Gelco Expense Management Company with headquarters in Minnesota.

Unfortunately, the end of the 1870s also came with significant disruption for the older brother, William Walz. He and Jennie May (Tibbetts) had their second child, also named Jennie, on February 27, 1877,  but then, on December 13, 1879, Jennie May (Tibbetts) Walz died in Mankato. Although I failed to determine whether his mother and father divorced or if his father had died, I found William’s children, Harry and Jennie, living with William’s mother in New Haven, Connecticut in 1880. Madeline Walz is listed in the 1880 census as “single,” not widowed or divorced. I have been unable to determine the location of William in 1880; he was not with his in-laws in Hillsboro, but that will change shortly.

In March of 1869, William Windom was appointed to fill an unexpired term in the U.S. Senate and he then was chosen by the Minnesota legislature to a full term in 1871. He was re-elected in 1877 and then, with the inauguration of President Garfield in March of 1881, he resigned his Senate seat and was confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury. The Treasury Department was responsible for the collection of customs at the U.S. borders and, of course, Windom’s good friend Abner Tibbetts was immediately nominated by President Garfield to be a Collector of Customs at El Paso, Texas. Tibbetts' nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on May 19, 1881, and thus ended his sojourn in Hillsboro, New Mexico. At some point during his time in El Paso, he followed what appears to be a fairly common practice in the West and gave himself a military title.(11) Tibbetts became “Colonel Tibbetts” and, as the circa 1883 photo of Tibbetts with several lawmen in El Paso shows, he looked like he had been “cast” for the part.

Having hitched his wagon to the Windom star, it was not surprising that Tibbetts would be affected by that star’s changing orbit. Windom only served as Treasury Secretary until November of 1881,(12) leaving to once again represent Minnesota in the U.S. Senate. Windom shortly lost favor with the Minnesota politicians and was out of the Senate in 1883. He moved to New York City to practice law but also became involved in the railroad business.  Receiving an offer from Windom he could not refuse, Tibbetts, on February 21, 1884, submitted his resignation as Collector of Customs to take a position with the El Paso, St. Louis & Chicago R.R.Co.(13) The railroad company was involved in a major project which would link central Mexico to Topolavampo on the Pacific coast. On April 25, 1886, Tibbetts, now president of the railroad company, died of a heart attack while traveling with Senator Windom on a train near Fresnillo, Mexico.(14)

End of story? Of course not, at least not if you are interested in the legacy of Abner Tibbetts. His son-in-law, William Gregory Walz, followed Tibbetts to El Paso and worked for him in the customs office. William lived out his life in El Paso, remarrying and having several more children, who were joined at some point by their half-brother Harry Walz. William Walz died on July 5, 1913, and is buried in the Evergreen Alameda Cemetery in El Paso. Harry Walz, perhaps influenced by his uncle, Edgar A. Walz, ended up in California where he died on January 8, 1947, and is buried in the Los Angeles National Cemetery. Harry’s sister, Jennie, was in effect “adopted” by her aunt, Julia (Walz) Catron, and lived much of her early life in Santa Fe. Julia Catron died on November 8, 1909, in Santa Fe and Jennie (Walz) Turner died in San Bernadino, California on July 18, 1969.

So what is the answer to the question posed in the title? Perhaps the reader might say the answer is “nothing.” On some level it is hard to quibble with that answer, but a more nuanced answer might be justified. We know that Tibbetts brought Nicholas Galles to New Mexico in 1875 and Nicholas Galles made a decent contribution to the territory, including Hillsboro, before his death in 1911. It may not even rise to the level of a good hypothesis, but I strongly suspect that Tibbetts played a role in introducing Julia Walz to New Mexico and Thomas B. Catron. Catron served the prosecution in the infamous trial of Oliver Lee and Jim Gilliland in Hillsboro in 1899. As her page one obituary in The Santa Fe New Mexican, November 8, 1909, suggests, Julia Walz Catron made a significant contribution during her 32 years in that city. Julia is buried in the Catron mausoleum in the Fairview Cemetery on Cerrillos Road in Santa Fe.  

Sources

¹ History of Wabasha County (1884), p. 1291.
² See my essay on Warren Bristol on the website of the Minnesota Legislative Reference Library,

http://www.leg.state.mn.us/legdb/fulldetail.aspx?ID=11430

³ After Tibbetts’ death, it was widely reported that Windom had been a “student” of Tibbetts in Minnesota.  I question that story for two reasons.  First, they lived in different counties.  Secondly, Windom, according to his Congressional biography, had been admitted to the bar and commenced his legal career in Mount Vernon, Ohio in 1850.  It seems unlikely that he would have attended secondary school upon his move to Minnesota five years later. 
⁴ We do know that Tibbetts was still in New Ulm in 1872 because he wrote at least one letter calling attention to the difficulties arising from the natural disasters occurring in southwestern Minnesota.  See Gilbert C. Fite, ed., “Some Farmers’ Accounts of Hardship on the Frontier,” Minnesota History (Vol. 37, March 1961), p. 207.
⁵ This quote is from a “secondary source” but the essence of the story was “corroborated” by an article in a Minnesota newspaper six years later.  “Mr. Nicholas Galles went to New Mexico several years ago with Hon. Abner Tibbetts . . . .” (untitled) The New Ulm Review (Wed. Sept. 7, 1861), p. 3. I suppose Tibbetts might have become a Justice of the Peace or it is possible that he began referring to himself as a judge because of his duties at the land office.     
⁶ William Walz apparently made the letter available to a Mankato, Minnesota newspaper and it was then reprinted by a Lake City newspaper.  “New Mexico  As Seen By A Minnesotlan” (sic), The Lake City Leader (Thursday, May 13, 1875), p. 5.
⁷ Victor Westphall, Thomas Benton Catron and his era (Tucson: U. of Ariz. Press, 1973), p. 135.
⁸ Walz’s typewritten “Retrospection,” written in 1931, is in a “vertical file” at the Fray Angelico Chavez Library in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
⁹ See e.g., Robert M. Utley, High Noon In Lincoln: Violence of the Western Frontier (Albuquerque: U. of New Mexico Press, 1987), pp.28, 72, 131-136.
¹⁰ “New Ulm and Vicinity,” The New Ulm Review (Wed. Dec. 24, 1879), p. 3. 
¹¹ I have written about two other New Mexico politicians who gave themselves a military title, William Henry  Harrison Llewellyn and Lafayette Head.  I never found any evidence that either was commissioned a “major” as they claimed.  Llewellyn long after introducing himself as “Major Llewellyn” to the residents of Doña Ana County, was commissioned a Captain of a “Rough Rider” company in the Spanish-American War of 1898. He also at one time held the position of Judge Advocate General of the New Mexico Militia (National Guard) which carried the rank of Colonel.  Head, a private in the Missouri Volunteers when he mustered out in Santa Fe in 1847, was elected to the territorial senate (council) from Conejos in Taos County.  That part of Taos County became part of Colorado in 1861 and Head was elected as the first Lt. Governor of the State of Colorado in 1876.
¹² Windom would, however, return to the Treasury under President Benjamin Harrison in 1889.
¹³ “El Paso. Resignation of Col. Tibbetts—Washout and Delay of Trains,” The Fort Worth Gazette (Friday, Feb. 22, 1884), p. 2.
¹⁴ “A Noted Minnesotan,”  The St. Paul Daily Globe  (Monday, May 3, 1886), p. 4;  (untitled) The New Ulm Weekly Review (Wed. May 5, 1886), p. 5.

April 1880 - A claim for Indian Depredations

Romolo Montoya of Monticello, New Mexico, documented in April 1880 that he lost cows, calves, oxen, and one mule, all told worth $775. Montoya lamented that he could have lost his life when Victorio and his followers were at "the height of their atrocities."

Warm Spring Apaches led by Victorio in 1879 - 80 and Nana in 1881, had area residents on edge and the U.S. Army on the move. The threat of loss of life or property was such that it prostrated the mining industry around Hillsboro in 1880, so said mining engineer, Frank Robinson, in a letter to his wife.

An Unmarked Grave in Hillsboro, New Mexico: A lesser know Kimball Story

By Mark B. Thompson III

Richard Kimball is one of those early “immigrants” beloved by genealogists—not such an early arrival so as to make the “elite” but early enough to be interesting; not famous but with enough history and descendants to make it worth the effort to chronicle the Kimball family. For example, the 1287 page “History of the Kimball Family In America” was first published in Boston in 1897. With the recent genealogy boom and the growth of the internet, you will find one online genealogy tracing the family back to a Thomas Kimball, spelling of the surname disputed, born in Suffolk in 1370. Moving forward, one of his descendants, Heber C. Kimball, was Brigham Young’s “right hand man.” Heber Kimball is buried under an attractive monument in a downtown Salt Lake City cemetery. The resting place in Hillsboro, New Mexico for Heber’s second cousin once removed is not so impressive. 

Kimball cousins: Ninette Stocker Miller (l) with a lady believed to be her mother, Tamezin Kimball Stocker Dodge, on the east porch of the Miller home in Hillsboro, NM ca. 1905. George Miller Collection, Black Range Museum.

When Richard Kimball and his family sailed from Ipswich in Suffolk on The Elizabeth in April of 1634, England was already feeling the tension which would lead to civil war and regicide.  By requiring adults leaving England to sign an Oath of Allegiance to the crown and acknowledgment of the Supremacy of the Church of England, today’s genealogists were provided with a public record documenting the departure.  The 1897 history does get to the generation of Heber Kimball, and his second cousin, Russell Freeman Kimball, both born early in the 19^th Century. They were a part of that generation which grew up feeling the tug of the American West, and while that makes for interesting stories, it also makes more detective work. Heber Kimball first went from his home in Vermont to New York.  Russell Kimball left his New Hampshire home for Illinois. Heber’s journey to Salt Lake City is well documented; Russell’s story, and that of his daughter, Tamezin, has not, for obvious reasons, received much attention.

Heber Kimball's final resting place, Salt Lake City, UT.

The Kimball family history only followed Russell Freeman Kimball through his marriage to Eliza Ann Austin in Elgin, Illinois in 1839. Land records show he owned property in rural Kane County, west of Elgin, in 1843. (Just in case you were wondering, the Illinois town where Joseph Smith met his death is a few counties to the southwest of Kane County and we have no evidence that Russell knew his second cousin, Heber.) I will try not to belabor the “detective story” but, again, genealogist will recognize the effort to “corroborate” a family story. Following the peripatetic Russell Kimball, both geographically and in the public record, raised as many questions as answers. 

The 1850 federal census for Brooklyn, McHenry County, Illinois, north of Kane County, includes a “Russel Kimble,” birthplace New Hampshire and occupation “Gold Seeker,” married to Eliza, with a child born in Illinois about 1842, the presumed birth year of daughter Tamezin. But the census did not have a full name for that child, only a “T” and, even worse, it indicated the child was a male. (Name experts believe that the name Tamezin, with several possible spellings, was a female version of Thomas.) It turns out that Eliza gave him his occupation title, perhaps with no lack of sarcasm, and a Russell F. Kimball, birthplace New Hampshire, occupation “carpenter,” is also enumerated in 1850 in a “boarding house” in Coloma, El Dorado County, California. Gold Seeker indeed! By the time of the 1860 census, Russell and Eliza had moved on to Goodhue County, Minnesota, southeast of St. Paul. They are listed with four children, but no “T” or Tamezin. Eliza died before the 1865 Minnesota census, and Russell would eventually move with son Artemus to Denver in Rock County, Minnesota, in the southwest part of the state.

This dapper fellow is believed to by H.D. Stocker, lawyer, mine owner, and father of Ninette Stocker and Harriett Galles. This photo was taken on the Miller porch ca. 1895. George Miller Collection, Black Range Museum.

According to her application for a Veterans Widow’s pension, Tamezin had married Henry D. Stocker of McHenry County, Illinois in November of 1859 in Lake City, Minnesota, which probably indicates that she had moved with her parents to Minnesota in the late 1850s. We find Henry and Tamezin enumerated in June of 1860 in the federal census for McHenry, McHenry County, Illinois. She is indexed online as 18 year old “Tenason Sticker” born in Illinois but fortunately she and Henry “Sticker” were joined by a Sarah Kimball, probably a cousin, to give us confidence in concluding that it  was “our” Stockers. Their first child, Harriett (“Hattie”), was born in May of 1861 in McHenry. Henry joined the Illinois volunteers and was commissioned a First Lt. with the 16^th Cavalry in May of 1863. He was wounded and then captured at the battle of Jonesville, Virginia in January of 1864. He eventually escaped and was mustered out in October of 1864.

Although Henry Stocker had started practicing law in McHenry before the war, the Stockers are found in the June 1865 Minnesota census in Lake City, Minnesota, again as “Sticker,” something like “Thomas” for Tamizen, but also with “Hattie.”  Their second daughter, Ninette (“Nettie”), who would become a fixture in Hillsboro, New Mexico, was born in Minnesota in 1866,  but, shortly thereafter, things apparently got “interesting” because Henry eventually left Tamezin, Harriett and Ninette and married the widow, Hepzibah “Heppie” (Jackson) Grant. The 1870 federal census shows Tamezin and Henry with separate households in Lake City, Minnesota.  Henry and Heppie’s household included both Hattie and a five year old Franklin Grant. The “Tamison” Stocker household also included a Hattie Stocker as well as Nettie Stocker and a Nellie Kimball. Tamezin had no evidence of a divorce from Henry, which turned out to be both bad news and good news. It meant she may have been a bigamist by virtue of a second marriage, but, as we shall see, she was still potentially eligible for a Civil War widow’s pension.  

Cupid's cavorting, 1891: The Miller's would come to Hillsboro two years later.

In about 1875, Tamezin married Wesley O. Dodge and in the 1880 census she is found with Wesley and 14 year old “Nettie” in Red Wing, Minnesota, which is just up the road from Lake City in Goodhue County. (By 1880, her father Russell Kimball and her brother Artemus had moved from Goodhue County to Rock County in southwestern Minnesota. I believe Russell Kimball died in the 1880s.) We know little about Wesley Dodge, but the census of 1880 lists his occupation as “bookkeeper.” The Dodges are enumerated in the June 1885 Minnesota census in Red Wing, along with 19 year old “Nettie.” On Friday, June 28, 1891, The St. Paul Daily Globe reported that the wedding of Ninette Stocker and George T. Miller had taken place on Wednesday at the home of W.O. Dodge and wife on Clinton Avenue in Minneapolis. Henry Stocker and (second) family had also moved to Minneapolis, probably about 1887, and they lived on Nicollet Ave. At least by the 1895 Minnesota census, “Hattie” along with husband Nicholas Galles, had a home on Harriet Ave. in Minneapolis.  All of these homes were in close proximity to each other in an area east of Lake Harriet in the south part of Minneapolis.

Geroge T. and Ninette Stocker Miller on the back porch of the Hillsboro home ca 1905. George Miller Collection, Black Range Museum.

Once again things get “interesting” for Tamezin (Kimball) (Stocker) Dodge. In the federal census of 1900 she is found in the Nicholas Galles household on Harriet Street in Minneapolis.  She indicates that she is married, and has been for 25 years, whereas Wesley is enumerated at a separate address in Minneapolis and indicates that he is “single.” Just before the June 1900 enumeration of the federal census, Henry Stocker has been laid to rest in the Hillside Cemetery in Minneapolis, having died on May 23, 1900, in Prescott, Arizona. Although the Minneapolis newspapers said he had spent the “past two winters” in Prescott, we know that in fact he was practicing law in Prescott, having apparently left his second wife, “Heppie,” in Minneapolis. Although obituaries for Stocker mention his son Henry Jr. and his son-in-law, Nicholas Galles, there is no mention of either of his wives, both of whom were then living in Minneapolis.  

In 1902, Nicholas and Harriett Galles moved to Las Cruces, New Mexico, leaving Minneapolis and ending whatever presence they still had in Hillsboro, New Mexico. Ninette and George T. Miller had followed the Galles to Hillsboro in the early 1890s, having built the “Miller House” now featured in Linda Harris’s “Houses in Time: A Tour Through New Mexico History.” Although we know she spent some time with daughter Harriett in Las Cruces, for example, having been confirmed in the Episcopal Church of St. James, Mesilla Park in 1916, apparently Tamezin would live out her life with daughter Ninette in Hillsboro. Those twenty something years in Hillsboro appear to be the most stable of her eighty plus years on this earth.

Death Certificate: Tamezin Kimball Stocker Dodge.

Tamezin would, however, suffer one more indignity resulting from her “checkered” marital experiences. In 1910 she began the process of an application for a pension as the widow of Civil War veteran, Henry D. Stocker. You can imagine the twists and turns this application process took over approximately 15 years. She had no documentary evidence of her marriage to Henry, having to rely on an affidavit of a friend in McHenry, Illinois that the friend “knew them as husband and wife.” As it turned out, there was no evidence of a divorce, so, but for her second marriage, she could claim that she was Stocker’s widow at his death in 1900. What about the marriage to Wesley Dodge? She indicated in one statement that he had walked out on her in 1891, even before Ninette’s marriage in Minneapolis. The government’s response:  but are you not still married to Dodge? She then was able to prove by the affidavit of the attending physician that Wesley Dodge had died in Minneapolis on June 24, 1923.  Hmm.  The government kept asking for more information, undoubtedly because these things did not tie together neatly. 

Final resting place: Tamezin Kimball Stocker Dodge lies in the Hillsboro Community Cemetery in an unmarked grave. Photo Patti Nunn

In 1926 she abandoned the quest for a pension.  Tamezin died on January 8, 1927, in Hillsboro.  The official death certificate indicates a burial in Hillsboro, but there is no physical evidence of such at the Hillsboro Community Cemetery.