#52 Ancestors 2019 Week 3 Unusual Name: My Search for Tangier Edward Hardesty
I came across Tangier Edward Hardesty by accident. I was actually working on Francis Granger Stevens and his wife, Sophia Annette Hardesty, trying to track down Sophia's parents. I found her mother, Mary Mass and her step-brother, Eugene Mass, living with the Stevens family in 1870, so I started looking for Mary in earlier census records. I found her in the 1860 Census over on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in Talbot County. I have not yet figured out why she was there, but there she was along with 13 year-old Eugene and 21-year-old Edward Hardesty. So Sophia seemed to have a brother, with the pretty ordinary name of Edward. Little did I know then how un-ordinary Edward would turn out to be. Not only does Tangier Edward Hardesty have an unusual name (and many variations of it, which made him very difficult to keep track of), he also has a very sad story and a hard life.
In 1863, T. Edward Hardesty married Mary Corner in Baltimore MD. That was my first hint of his unusual name. By the 1870 census, Edward, now going by Tanjone or Tanjour, age 28, was living with his wife and son Willie and daughter Mary in Cumberland, Allegany County MD. He worked as a telegrapher, a skill he may have picked from his military service. (Edward Hardesty invalid pension application in 1892 shows him in the Telegraph Company. I have not been able to get my hands on the file, yet, so I'm not totally sure this is the same person.)
By the 1880 Census, Tanjoan E. Hardesty, now age 38, was still living in Cumberland with his wife Mary and three sons: Wildey (another unusual name), Charles and Clarence. His occupation was telegraph builder.
The birth records at St. Luke's church in Cumberland show five children of Edward Hardisty and Mary Conner:
Wildey Warren 1865
Charles Emmerson 1872
Clarens Newton 1875
William Edwin 1881
Bessie Pearl 1883
In 1884, Tanjour Hardesty is listed in the Cumberland City Directory as a lineman.
In 1890, T. Edward Hardesty is listed in the Baltimore City Directory as a saloon keeper. In 1891, Tangier E. Hardesty is listed in the city directory.
Then, in 1892, Mary J. Hardesty was granted an absolute divorce from Tangier E. Hardesty and custody of their four children.
I caught a break and found the accounts of Mary Hardesty Mass's estate in 1894, which definitely identified T. Edward Hardesty as her son and showed that he inherited property, which he promptly sold to his sister Sophia.
After that, I looked in vain for a trace of Edward, Tangier, Tanjour, Tanjone Hardesty. I scoured the online newspapers. I spent long hours at the State Archives, searching through the indexes of death certificates and probate records, but no sign of Tangier. Where the heck was he? You wouldn't think that unusal names could just disappear from the records, but apparently, it could.
I eventually found Mary, died 1929, buried in Greenmount Cemetery in Baltimore along with her parents and several of her children, a number of whom had died very young. But no trace of Tangier. Obviously, he wasn't welcome in the family burial plot.
I finally found Tangier again when I was actually looking for his son Wildey. I found this newspaper clipping:
At last, I knew where Tangier had gone. So I shifted my search to Chicago. And there he was in the 1900 Census, born in Maryland in May 1842, living in Chicago with a new wife, Etta or Otha and working as a fisherman. What?
Unfortunately, I could not find an account of the train accident in the Chicago papers, but I did see a notice about the settlement of Tanjour Hardesty's estate and this intriguing story about his wife:
I really wanted to know more about this story, so I hired a researcher in Chicago to try to find the court records, which he did. It seems that Tanjour Hardesty and Etta Wright were not officially married, but had a common-law marriage, which ultimately made the judge rule in her favor. The court records also contained the testimony of Mary Corner Hardesty and several of her children, that apparently Etta was the cause of that divorce back in 1892. Apparently, the two of them were scandalously living together in the saloon in Baltimore for a number of years before moving to Chicago. When Tanjour died, his children claimed his estate, but lost the case.
I was unable to find Tanjour's burial place, although my researcher did turn up a death certificate.
The last scrap of information related to Etta. That $1000 settlement didn't help her too much. She continued to live in the dugout by the river and eventually froze to death during a severe snow storm in 1923.
So my search for Tangier Edward Hardesty wound through a long and complicated trail.
I still don't know where that name came from. Perhaps there is a connection to Tangier Island over on the Eastern Shore, where I first found him?
