Nicholson-O'Hagan Update

This post is a follow-up to my November post on the discovery that my great-grandfather, Richard Thomas O'Hagan (1882-1956), was born Richard Thomas Nicholson, changing his name upon enlistment into the Army in 1906. I encourage you to read that post here if you want to refresh yourself on the details. I want to go person by person in Richard's nuclear family and summarize what we know about each of them beyond what I wrote previously.

Since November, the Nicholson-O'Hagan connection has been further corroborated with DNA evidence from two individuals. One, Julia Coelho (née Van Trees) had already participated in 23andMe at the time I last wrote -- I simply did not realize that she is the daughter of Diane Van Trees (née Enright), my father Wade's second cousin (see previous post). The other is Patricia Kirkland (née May, born 1922), whose son-in-law I was able to contact through Ancestry.com. Pattie is the daughter of Cora Nicholson (1888-1942), Richard's full sister, and thus a first cousin to my grandfather Ralph. Her son-in-law was kind enough to facilitate a 23andMe test and, unsurprisingly, her results in January returned an even stronger match with my father than Diane, which is to be expected since she is one generation higher. The percentages of DNA that Wade shares with both Pattie and Diane fall exactly within the range appropriate for first cousins once removed and second cousins, respectively.

Richard's father was Thomas Clarence Nicholson, who went by Clarence (or T.C. in some records). There is some confusion over his birth and parentage. His death certificate -- indicated to be filled out based on records of the Springfield State Hospital in Sykesville, MD -- states that he was born in 1855, exactly 69 years of age. (Note that these two facts conflict,given a date of death of February 17, 1925.) The "exact" age at death could be due either to the fact that an age specifying months and years was not calculable based on hospital records, or that Clarence died on his birthday. That is a possibility, since we know from the 1900 Census that he was born in February. If that is the case, then Clarence was born February 17, 1856. One can imagine that Clarence was required to provide information regarding his date of birth upon entry to Springfield. We can deduce that he must have indicated something more specific than 1855, otherwise the hospital would not have a way of knowing that he was 69 (and not 70) with a February 1925 death date. Then again, the death certificate explicitly lists "unknown" in the fields for month and date of birth -- so things remain somewhat of a mystery. A strict reading of it would lead one to conclude that Clarence was born between February 18, 1855 and February 16, 1856.

Death Certificate of Thomas Clarence Nicholson
(Maryland State Archives)

Clarence does not appear in the 1860 Census. His death certificate indicates that his father was Mahlon Nicholson; a mother's name is not given. This makes one think that Clarence provided the name of a father, but not a mother, upon entry to the hospital in May 1923. That is interesting, since in the 1870 Census there is a Thomas C. Nicholson, aged 12, in the household of Cordelia Nicholson, who is listed as single, not widowed or (rarely for the time) divorced. (And that is confirmed by robust documentation linking Cordelia as the daughter of Asa Nicholson and Cordelia Basford.) There is another child, Sarah A. Nicholson, aged 6. There are no Mahlon Nicholsons in Montgomery County, MD ever. In short, and assuming that the Thomas C. Nicholson in 1870 is my great-great-grandfather, this has led me to believe one of two things: either Cordelia was Clarence's mother and she had him out of wedlock; or Cordelia was not Clarence's mother and he was orphaned and raised by her. The fact, however, that there is a second child in 1870 counts against the latter, I think; these look like two illegitimate children, or -- a third possibility -- other collateral relatives of some kind (e.g., nephews and nieces). Clarence's granddaughter, Pattie, who otherwise knows little about him, has said that she was told that Clarence was not raised by his parents, but by "relatives". That could leave the possibility that he was Cordelia's nephew (or some other relation) open.

As far as Clarence's father goes, the name Mahlon is intriguing -- it is uncommon even for the 19th century. The only Mahlon living in Montgomery Co. during this period is one Mahlon Browning (born c1829), who married Sarah Frances Smith there on May 25, 1858. Unfortunately it has not been possible to determine Mahlon's own parentage, but this family was Catholic, unlike the Methodist Nicholsons, and they had at least 9 children between 1859 and 1880. And in fact, Mahlon Browning's granddaughter, Frances Broadhurst (née Browning, born 1923), is a third to fourth cousin match with my father Wade in AncestryDNA. There are two plausible scenarios for this close of a relation. The first is that Mahlon Browning had a child with Cordelia Nicholson -- this would make Richard O'Hagan and Frances Broadhurst half-first cousins (i.e., sharing less DNA than full first cousins); it would make Frances and Wade half-first cousins twice removed, likely to show up as something like a third to fourth cousin match. The second is that Mahlon Browning was the son of Lewis Browning and Ann Nicholson, who married on August 11, 1818 in neighboring Frederick Co., MD. Ann was Cordelia's paternal aunt, which would have made Mahlon and Cordelia full first cousins. If we assume this parentage, and that Clarence's mother was Cordelia (and that Mahlon was *not* his father), this would still make Frances Broadhurst and Wade third cousins twice removed, which would also likely show up as a third to fourth cousin match. Of course there is a third possibility that Mahlon and Cordelia were first cousins and that they were both Clarence's parents. One can imagine that Clarence was told that his father was a Mahlon Nicholson in order to avoid any scandal, but it seems unlikely that he would have been raised in the household of his mother without knowing it. That casts doubt on Cordelia being his mother, which would be corroborated by the information that he appears to have provided to the Springfield Hospital. Yet another possibility is that Mahlon Browning was Cordelia's first cousin, that he simply had a child with an unknown woman in the mid-1850s, and that the child was given to Cordelia, a single, childless woman, to be raised. Three sorts of information will shed more light here: the determination of Mahlon Browning's parents; the determination of Clarence's birth year (candidates so far are 1855, 1856, 1857, 1858, or 1861, the latter from the 1900 Census); and DNA testing of individuals who descend only from Clarence and not his wife Margaret Nicholson. (That is because connections to a Browning family through Nicholsons like Ann Nicholson above could also be due to descent from Margaret, who was herself a Nicholson.) These are the children of his second marriage to Minnie Saffell: if they show a relatively strong match with Frances Broadhurst, then we know that there must be a Broadhurst (or possibly a Nicholson like Ann Nicholson) fairly recently in Clarence's ancestry.

There is less new to report on my great-great-grandmother, Clarence's wife, Margaret Nicholson, except that I have learned from her great-granddaughter Diane Van Trees (via Christopher Taylor) that her middle initial of "Z", evident in the 1900 Census, stood for Zeadore. I also need to correct the record: in my previous post I stated that Cordelia Nicholson was Margaret's paternal aunt, i.e., that Cordelia was a sister of Lloyd Hamilton Nicholson. That is false. They were almost certainly cousins -- probably second cousins -- but the exact relation remains unknown. Following her 1911 divorce from Clarence, Margaret remarried to Jefferson Jones (born c1864) on April 1, 1914 in Rockville, MD. Nothing else is known of him except that he was still resident in Washington, DC in 1916 (per city directories).

Marriage Announcement
The Washington Herald, April 2, 1914 (p. 6)
(Newspapers.com)

I can now confirm that Clarence and Margaret's son Richard was married on October 13, 1902 in Rockville, MD to a woman whose name appears as Decotie Salaria Hepler (Baltimore Sun 10/15/1902). (Both the first and middle names are exceedingly uncommon.) In fact, Richard and Margaret's marriages were officiated by the same Baptist minister, Reverend Samuel R. White, in 1902 and 1914! (By this time the family had left the Methodist church.) In this record Richard indicates that he was 21 years and 7 months old, which coincides with a birth month of March but would suggest a birth year of 1881. He could either have lied so as to marry legally (at the time men needed to be 21 in order to avoid requiring parental consent), or his later self-reported birth year of 1882 is a fabrication. (Recall also that the 1900 Census provides 1883 as a birth year -- though always March.) He indicates that he was a resident of Washington, DC. Decotie lists her age as 21, and herself as a resident of Harrisburg, PA. Despite my best attempts, I have located no record whatsoever of this woman outside of this marriage record. And Richard does not list this marriage as a previous one in his 1910 marriage license in Seattle.

Marriage Record
Richard Thomas Nicholson to Decotie Salaria Hepler
October 13, 1902
(Maryland State Archives)

I have also gained some insight into the chronology of Richard's early military service, which also comes with its own twist. He left Washington, DC for St. Louis, filing a Declaration of Recruit there on March 22, 1906, officially enlisting in the Army on March 26. A Descriptive and Assignment Card of Recruit states that he was stationed at Jefferson Barracks there on April 3, but by April 9 he was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas as part of Troop G, 2nd Cavalry. At that time, the head of Richard's unit was George Edward Wallace (born 1876). George was discharged on April 19; he reenlisted on June 19, 1907 (Jefferson Barracks) and was discharged on February 21, 1910 in Alexandria, Virginia. Not even a month later, on March 7, 1910, he married Richard's sister Cora in the same city!

Cora had been married on December 13, 1906 in Washington, DC to Henry Eugene Brown (born 1887). However, by April 1910 Henry was living at St. Elizabeths Hospital (then known as the "Government Hospital for the Insane"), coincidentally the same hospital where Cora's mother Margaret would die in 1922. It is likely that Henry and Cora were divorced, but I have yet to locate the record. Here the timeline becomes crucial. Cora's eldest child, Gwendolyne, was born September 9, 1907 in Washington, DC -- she would have been conceived in early December 1906. (Bear in mind that no birth certificate has yet been located, but that is not unusual for the period.) This is right at the time of Cora's marriage to Henry Brown, and it is reasonable to infer that Brown was Gwendolyne's father, except that Gwendolyne used Wallace (see above) as her surname throughout her life. That is not without its own reason: George Wallace of course became Gwendolyne's stepfather when she was 3 years old. Another possibility, however, is that George Wallace met Cora Nicholson following his April 1906 discharge and fathered Gwendolyne later that year. (DNA matches for Diane Van Trees should easily clear this up, and I hope to follow up on that later this year.) Regardless, the most striking thing is that the head of Richard's military unit married his sister four years after it appears that Ricahrd otherwise ran away from home without a trace. That suggests that Richard maintained some connection with his family in Washington, DC during a portion of his military service that began in March 1906.

Richard went on to marry Maria Corona on June 6, 1910 in Seattle, possibly when she was as young as 14. Maria's story is a sad one. The youngest of at least 7 children, she was born in Ventura County, CA around 1896, the daughter of Atanasio Corona and Celedonia [?]. Atanasio appears to have abandoned the family very shortly after her birth, moving to nearby Ojai, and Celedonia progressively sent three of her daughters (Adela, Candida, and Guadalupe) to the Los Angeles Orphans Asylum in August 1896, August 1897, and September 1896, respectively. Daughters Antonia and Maria do not appear to have been included, but they have not been located in the 1900 Census (nor has Celedonia). Maria's father Atanasio was incarcerated in Folsom State Prison for manslaughter on January 25, 1907 (through October 25, 1911), and it is unclear if any of these events led Maria to end up in Seattle, where she appeared to be living without any family at the time she married Richard in 1910.

Atanasio Corona (b. c1837), Richard O'Hagan's second father-in-law
Mug shot, Folsom State Prison, 1907
(California, Prison and Correctional Records, 1851-1950, Ancestry.com)

Richard and she must have returned to the Ventura area together, but they were probably separated by 1914, when it seems (based on a 1927 letter) that Richard came to be with his third wife, my great-grandmother, Aurora (although no marriage license for them has been found). Maria seems to have become an infamous alcoholic within short time, and her story only becomes more tragic. A December 29, 1916  issue of the Oxnard Courier indicates that she ("Mary O'Hagan") was arrested along with Vincent Silva and Albert Grady, operators of a speakeasy (then known as "blind pigs"), "on a charge of conducting a disorderly house, [and had] been 'floated' out of the county" (p. 6). A December 21, 1917 issue of the same publication states that "Marie Corona [sic] was arrested last evening as she was running about the street in a frenzy from the effects of the Mexican drug, marihuana [sic]. At the city jail she found some bichloride of mercury tablets and swallowed them in an attempt to commit suicide. A physician was called who administered an emetic. She was taken to the county hospital in Ventura and will probably survive" (p. 5). On June 20, 1918, the paper again reported that "Mrs. Mary O'Hagen [sic] was given 30 days in jail yesterday by Judge Knox on a charge of driving an automobile while in an intoxicated condition" (p. 4). On January 25, 1919, however, Maria remarried to Adolfo Fidel Martínez (1895-1977), and in January 1920 they were living in Los Angeles city. According to a later divorce filing, however, they separated on October 16, 1927. A September 20, 1928 issue of the Press-Courier in Oxnard reported that Maria broke down the door of Adolfo's home with an axe while intoxicated, presumably in an attempt to murder him. By April 1930 she was living in Decoto, CA (in Alameda County) -- where her sister Guadalupe also lived -- and on May 22, 1930 they were legally divorced. Nothing is known of her after this date.

Continuing with Cora's life, she and her new husband George Wallace were living in DC in April 1910, but they do not appear to have had any of their own children. They divorced on February 25, 1921 in Arlington, VA -- the cause apparently George's abandonment of her --, and the same year Cora remarried to Harry Fisk May. Their only child, Patricia Ann May, was born March 4, 1922 in Maryland. They lived in DC in April 1930, Bethesda, MD in 1935, and had relocated to Coral Gables, Florida by April 1940. Cora died back in Arlington on July 28, 1942 of a cerebral hemorrhage, only 54. I hope to speak with Pattie more about this period and the family's movements during it.

Divorce Record 1921
George Wallace & Cora Nicholson
(Virginia Divorce Records, 1918-2014, Ancestry.com)

Gertrude May Boyd Nicholson, the second child between Richard and Cora, was born in September of etiher 1885 or 1886. She married John Franklin Carmody either in late 1909 or early 1910, and by April 1910 they lived in Washington, DC. In February 1906 Gertrude was described as an "invalid daughter", and it is unclear what she may have suffered from. She and her husband had no children and lived their entire marriage in DC. In January 1920 they lived adjacent to Gertrude's mother Margaret. She died in DC, of a gastric hemorrhage, on March 29, 1929, aged either 42 or 43.

Grace Elizabeth Nicholson, the fourth and youngest child, was born in April 1894. On May 8, 1908, just one month past her fourteenth birthday, she gave birth to a son, Paul Decator, who later in life used the surname McMullan. This is the surname of Grace's only known husband, Haywood Cleveland McMullan (1885-1958), whom she married in Washington, DC on November 28, 1912. He was originally of Greene Co., Virginia, enlisting in the Army in Columbus, Ohio on December 10, 1908 (discharge: December 9, 1911 in Baltimore). There is no reason to believe that Haywood was Paul's father -- it seems he may have taken the surname of his stepfather. Haywood and Grace were divorced on January 31, 1917 in Washington, DC. After this juncture nothing is known of Grace's life. Her son Paul was living with his aunt Gertrude in January 1920, and by 1933 had wended his way to California, where he married on January 13 in Maywood to Florence Odell Queen. He was a Navy man, and they resided in Long Beach as early as 1935. He died young, in Guam, on December 6, 1946.

Paul McMullan (1908-1946) with wife and son, c1938
(photo courtesy of Lori Bailey)