George and Melissa (Freeman) Richardson

Headstone

I haven’t done much genealogical research lately, though I have been getting a lot of exercise walking cemeteries. This morning I decided to catch up on some accumulated Ancestry.com “hints.” In doing so I think I solved – at least partially – one of the great mysteries in my ancestry: how George Watson Freeman, a 2nd great-grandfather who was born in Ohio, met and married Melissa Jane Freeman, born in Missouri. They married, probably in Kansas but possibly in Colorado, in 1865 and settled in Wisconsin in 1873. They are buried together in the East Pine River Cemetery in Yuba, Wisconsin. I found and photographed their headstone in 2017.

See the mystery? Ohio, Missouri, Colorado, Kansas, Wisconsin. How the heck did that all come about? That is a lot of travel at a time when railroads were just being established in the middle of America.

Today I dug into some records – both old and newly-discovered – and can now provide some details of these movements.

First, George’s father and mother, Zacheus and Sarah Ann “Sally” (Francisco) Richardson, 3rd great-grandparents, were pioneers in their own right. Both were born in the Northeast – he in Springfield VT (in the Connecticut River valley) and she in German NY, near Binghamton. Sometime before 1827 they both moved west, to Ohio, which was the “wild west” at that time. They married in 1827 in Mayfield OH, a town which he helped found. George was born there in 1840.

Apparently Ohio in 1845 wasn’t wild enough because Zacheus and Sally picked up their family then and moved even further west, to Illinois when George was just 5. They purchased 80.2 acres in McHenry County IL, just west of Chicago, on June 1, 1845. The farm grew to over 120 acres before Zacheus’ death in 1865.

George inherited his parents’ pioneering spirit and as a young man of 19 became a miner, first in Utah and then in Colorado. In 1862 he enlisted in the US Army, serving during the Civil War in Company G, Second Regiment of the Colorado Volunteer Infantry. He served there 3 years, after which he reenlisted in Company E, Second Colorado Cavalry. It was between those enlistments that he married Melissa Freeman. She must have been with him, based at a frontier fort in the west, until he mustered out, probably after 2 or 3 years. They lived for a while in Lawrence, Kansas, before moving to LaFarge, Wisconsin, in 1873.

I found a note that described the Second Regiment as “being raised by ‘Buckskin Joe.’”  This apparently refers to Joe Higgenbottom, a miner who discovered gold in Colorado in 1860, leading to a gold rush.  It is pretty likely that this gold discovery is what brought George to Colorado from Utah and why he later joined Buckskin Joe’s regiment.

I found the following account of his time in the infantry:

He served principally in the west and southwest, having first proceeded with his command to New Mexico, and later having been at St. Louis, Fort Scott, Kansas and Fort Smith, Arkansas, hunting for bushwhackers.  He finally returned with his command to Colorado and at Fort Riley he received his honorable discharge May 12, 1865.

Fort Riley is actually in Kansas.  He married Melissa Freeman in April 1865, just prior to his discharge, probably at Fort Riley.  She was probably living in or near Fort Riley at that time.

I don’t have any description of his time in the cavalry, but I can imagine that he was involved in protecting the pioneer settlements in the west from Indian attacks.  If he spent any time at Fort Riley then he probably met Major General George Custer who was in command of Fort Riley for a time starting in 1866.

So this answers the basic question of how a woman born in Missouri got into my family tree – she met a gold miner and soldier in the wild west.  This is one of the more colorful leaves on my tree and Melissa Freeman is a critical link to our Virginia ancestors; all other branches came through New England or New York.