I have been searching for Lucina Adamson for about 24 years now. She was my great-grandfather's sister and I was never able to learn what had become of her. Finally, today, the mystery the mystery is solved!
Lucina Adamson was born to Aaron W. and Martha J. Thompson Adamson in about 1842 in Illinois. She was the fourth of seven children. Lucina
is listed in the 1850 Crittenden County, Kentucky census, living with
her mother, grandmother, and siblings. Lucina is listed as age eight.
(Lucina's father died shortly after 1850. During the 1850 census he was
staying with his uncle's family in Harrison County, Indiana).
Lucina's mother remarried in 1852 in Edwards County, Illinois. In 1860,
Lucina was listed in the Richland County, Illinois census as living with her
mother and new stepfather, Joseph Hedrick, along with her siblings.
Lucina married John M. Dewhirst on 17 October 1861 in Richland County,
Illinois. Sadly, John Dewhirst died of typhoid on 22 March 1862 in Clay
County, Illinois. They had only been married five months. I have not
been able to find any record of John Dewhirst enlisting to serve during
the Civil War, so it is not clear if that might be where he was infected
with typhoid or not.
The mystery begins at this point...what became of Lucina?
I have not
found a listing for Lucina Dewhirst in the 1870 Illinois census. Then
one day I came across a listing for Lucina Dewhurst in the Illinois
State Marriage On-line Index (on the Illinois State Archives website)
that listed her marrying Washington Lewis in Clay County on 16 October
1863. Wow, was I excited!
Well, I was excited until I realized that the Washington Lewis living in
Clay County had married Nancy Wattles in 1862 and they were still
together as a family in the 1870 Clay County, Illinois census.
Apparently, the Washington Lewis who married Lucina Dewhurst was not the
same one who was living there in Clay County in 1870. Even stranger, I
could not find Washington Lewis listed in the 1865 Illinois census in
Clay County, Illinois, or even in Illinois.
I sent for and received a copy of the marriage record. The Index had
the marriage date wrong...the marriage took place on the 13th of
October, not the 16th. Searches for either Washington or Lucina Lewis for 1870 and 1880 turned up nothing. I tried George Lewis, thinking that perhaps his first name was George, but again, nothing has been found.
So, who did Lucina marry? Did both the clerk and the minister get the
groom's name wrong on the records? Or did the Clay County Washington
Lewis have a relative who came through and married Lucina? And if so,
where did they go? What became of Lucina?
The only other thing that I know about her is that she was not living by
1900, according to the census record for her mother, which showed
that her mother had eight of twelve children living. In 1866, Lucina's
brother had a daughter born who was named Ida Lucina "Lulu" Adamson.
Was she named after Lucina? Was Lucina alive in 1866 or had she died?
A couple of days ago, I was researching another family from Clay County, Illinois, and noticed that there was a Washington Gibson listed in the 1865 Illinois State Census. I found that he had been living with his parents in 1850 in Clay County and that the family was listed as next door to the Washington Lewis family. Could this Washington Gibson possibly be who the "Washington Lewis" was in the marriage record? As I began to search records, I found that Washington Gibson was listed as single in the Civil War records taken on 1 July 1863. Well, the marriage to Lucina (Adamson) Dewhirst had been on 13 October 1863 in Clay County. So, yes, possibly it could be the marriage!
I also found that Washington Gibson had married Augusta Montoney in 1867. Could he have been married before that? I went back and looked at the 1865 census listing that I had seen. It showed Washington Gibson with a younger male and with a female 20-30 years old! I also found that one of Washington Gibson's half-sisters had married a brother of John Dewhirst (Lucina's first husband). When I went to bed last night, I was pretty convinced that there was a very good chance that I had finally found who Lucina had married. But since Washington Gibson had also married in 1867, that probably meant that Lucina had died early.
So, I got up this morning and began looking for cemetery records for the Gibson family in Clay County, Illinois. Then it finally occurred to me to just do a search for Lucina Gibson! I went to Find-A-Grave, put in her name, and guess what! There was the listing! Lucina Gibson was born in 1842 and died 25 March 1866. She was buried in Wesley Cemetery.
Lucina was only 24 years old when she died. She had gone through watching her first husband of only 5 months die of typhoid and then she died only about 2 1/2 years after marrying for the second time. It doesn't appear that she ever had any children. Such a sad story.
