CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
ENOS FAMILY
Pearl Anna Enos’ ancestry can be traced back
to a French Protestant Huguenot Jacques Hennot. Jacques Hennot was baptized on
21 August 1625 at the Threadneedle Street French Huguenot Church at London,
England, the son of Jean Hennot and his wife Catelaine (Catherine) Jone.
JACQUES HENNOT aka JAMES ENO
Jacques Hennot emigrated to America in 1648
from England where his family had fled after the capture of his town in France
by the Spaniards. He settled in Windsor, Connecticut and changed his name to
James Eno. On 18 August 1648 at Windsor, Connecticut Colony, James Eno married
Anna, the widow of Richard Bidwell. Anna's maiden name remains unknown
including the date and place of her birth. She died by 1657 and James Eno
married two more times, Elizabeth, the widow of Thomas Holcom, and Esther
Kelsey, the widow of James Eggleston and dau. of William Kelsey of Windsor.
According to the land records of Windsor,
James Eno was a barber. In 1664 he signed a petition requesting permission to
establish the first Anglican (Episcopal) church society in Conn., but the
petition was rejected by the Conn. Court. This did not indicate that James
favored the Episcopal Church particularly since he was baptized as a French
Protestant. Rather, it was in opposition to the rights and rituals of baptism
following the Congregational church's establishment of the "half-way"
covenant, which prevented, for reasons too lengthy to summarize here, the
children of his own children from being baptized and the children's parents
from becoming communion members of the church at Windsor.
There is no individual gravestone for James
Eno. He is memorialized in the large table-top memorial at the Palisado
Cemetery at Windsor, Conn. for his grandson Capt. Samuel Eno, Esqr. and wife
Eunice Marshall. However, the date of James' death thereon is misstated as July
11th when it is recorded in the Windsor town record as June 11th, 1682; his
estate inventory was taken of record on June 19, 1682, eight days after his
death.
JOHN ENO
When John Eno was born on 2 December 1654, in
Windsor, Connecticut, his father, James [Jacque Hennot] Eno was 29 years old
his mother the widow Mrs. Anna Bidwell was 30. He married 16 year old Mary
Dibble on May 10, 1681, in his hometown. She was the daughter Puritans Ebenezer
Dibble and Mary Wakefield. Her father was killed by Indians in the King
Phillips War in 1676 when Mary was 11 years old. He died in 1692 at the age of
38 in Jersey, Gloucester, New Jersey Colony. Mary Dibble Eno was pregnant at
the time of John’s death and his only son was born posthumously. She died 15
SEP 1697 Jersey, Gloucester, New Jersey, leaving four orphans.
RICHARD ENOS
When Richard Enos was born in 1693, his
father, John, was dead and his mother, Mary, was 29. When he was four years old
he was orphaned after his mother died. His eldest sister Mary was nearly 15.
She returned to Connecticut while Richard was apprenticed out and remained in
New Jersey. When his apprenticeship was up he made his way down to the port
town of Wilmington in Delaware where he met and married Susannah Clinton in
1713 in Wilmington, Delaware. She was the daughter of Francis Fiennes Clinton
and Susannah Penniston natives of Parva, Lincolnshire, England who immigrated
to Wilmington, Delaware. Richard Eno was a prosperous farmer who died 1748 in
Wilmington, Delaware, at the age of 55. He made out his will 30 April 1748
which was probated 3 December 1748. His wife survived him and he named the
following children, Abraham, Mary, Stephen, Joseph, and Samuel. The Executors
of the estate were his son in law Robert Mitchell and son Samuel “Enos”.
JOSEPH ENOS
When Joseph Enos was born on January 11, 1714,
in Wilmington, Delaware, his father, Richard, was 21 and his mother, Susannah,
was 22. Joseph Enos married Jane Storie in New Castle, Delaware, on November
29, 1749, when he was 35 years old. The parents of Jane Storie are unknown. He
died in 1782 in New Castle, Delaware, at the age of 68 after the United States
won its independence from Great Britain..
STEPHEN ENOS
Stephen Enos was born on January 11, 1763, in
New Castle County, Delaware. His father, Joseph, was 49 and his mother, Jane,
was 34. He married Hanna Vandergrift on December 18, 1781, in his hometown. Her
parents are unknown. He died on April 9, 1808, in Delaware at the age of 45.
Stephen served in the Revolutionary War. Stephen and Hannah had six children,
the oldest being a son, Stephen Enos.
STEPHEN ENOS
Stephen Enos was born April 1787 and married
Sarah Butler May 13, 1815. Stephen fought in the War of 1812 having enlisted on
February 6, 1813, when he was 25 years old. He was given 160 acres of land in
Hancock County, Illinois for his services. They moved to Butler County, Ohio in
1822. They had 12 children. He died on June 7, 1858, at the age of 71.
WILLIAM VANDERGRIFF ENOS
William Vandergriff Enos was born circa 1818
in New Castle County, Delaware and as a young child was brought to Butler
County, Ohio and later to Indiana. His family settled in Decatur County where
at the age of 23 on 29 July 1841 he married 18 year old Sarah Young. Her
parents have not be proven but the 1840 Census for Decatur County, Indiana
lists a John L Young enumerated in the Washington and Marion and Sandcreek and
Clay and Adams townships of Decatur, Indiana who had a Females aged 15 thru 19
within his household. He and his wife were ages 60 through 69 which meant they
were born between 1780 and 1771.
William V. Enos is listed on the United States
Census as living as of 18 September 1850 in the Community of St Omer in Adam
Township, Decatur County, Indiana. He’s a wagon maker by trade and owns no real
estate. He was 32 years old a native of Delaware and married with four children.
His wife Sarah Young says she is 27 and born in Indiana. Their four children
were William T Enos age 8, Sarah E age 6, Stephen H C Enos age 3 and Mary A
Enos age 7 months.
The United States Census ten years later still
showed the family living in the community of St Omer, Decatur, Indiana as of 31
July 1860. William Enos gave his age as 43 this time and his birthplace is
still given as Delaware. He’s still a wagon maker however he owned a piece of
property worth $100 mostly likely 40 acres. Sarah stated she was 34 and their
children now included an additional son. The children were 18 year old William
Thomas Enos, 16 year old Sarah Elizabeth, 13 year old Stephen Enos, 10 year old
Mary Enos, and 6 year old John W Enos.
During the next decade, the Civil War occurred
and William V and his son William Thomas Enos joined the Union Army. William V
Enos enlisted 10 Sep 1861 as private in Company I of Indiana 16th Infantry
Regiment. He was mustered out on 23 May 1862 at Washington, DC. He then served
as a Corporal in Company B in the 76th Indiana Infantry on 17 July 1862. This
Unit was organized at Indianapolis, Indiana, for 30 days State service July 20,
1862. They had duty at Evansville, Indiana, and at Henderson, Kentucky,
operating against guerrillas and protecting steamboats on the Ohio River till
August 20. They mustered out August 20, 1862. William V. Enos enlisted again in
the 16th Regiment Indiana Infantry for 1 year as a private on 6 October 1862.
He was mustered out on 15 Oct 1863. When his term was up he enlisted again and
served in Company I of the 2nd Regiment, Indiana Cavalry as a private. The 2nd
Regiment Indiana Cavalry was the first complete cavalry regiment raised in the
U.S. state of Indiana to fight in the American Civil War. He also served in the
15th Infantry Regiment U.S. Veteran Reserve Corps that was organized 10 October
1863 through 25 November 1865. The Veteran Reserve Corps (originally the
Invalid Corps) was a military reserve organization created within the Union
Army during the American Civil War to allow partially disabled or otherwise
infirmed soldiers (or former soldiers) to perform light duty, freeing
able-bodied soldiers to serve on the front lines.
By 1870 the United States Census showed that
William and Sarah had separated or at least were living in separate households.
William V Enos was enumerated on 24 August 1870 living within the household of
the family of 61 year old Simeon Garrett. William was 52 years old and still
listed as a wagon maker born in Delaware. He was listed as the 336 household
visited by the Census Taker and living in the community of Adams.
Sarah Enos however is enumerated on 29 August
1870 in the 417 household visited and is living in the community of St. Omer
with her married son Stephen and her two younger children. Sarah Enos gave her
age in 1870 as 44. Her son Stephen Enos was 23 years and his wife Harriet
Holmes was 20. They had been married a little more than a year as they were
married 22 August 1869 in Decatur County, Indiana. Mary Enos age 20 and John
Enos age 16 were also included in this household.
William V Enos’ daughter Sarah Elizabeth Enos
married on 13 Jul 1862 Enoch James Hewitt and by 1870 had moved to Clay County.
She divorced him and later married James Elsberry on 5 June 1885. His son William
Thomas Enos was listed in the 1870 Census as married and living in Washington
Township, Decatur County with his wife and daughter.
There are no further information on William
and Sarah Young Enos in the 1880 Census as living in any of their own households
or in their children’s households. However a widow pension was filed 12
December 1891 in Indiana for William V Enos who had served in Company I of the
2nd Regiment, Indiana Cavalry as a private. The widow was not Sarah Young but
Mrs. Harriet E Enos. This would suggest that William V remarried and lived
until at least 1891. Sarah Young Enos may have remarried or died. There’s no
further record.
WILLIAM THOMAS ENOS
William Thomas Enos was born April 1842 in St.
Omer, Decatur, Indiana where his father William V Enos was a poor working man
building wagons. When William Thomas Enis was born his father, William, was 24
and his mother, Sarah, was 19 and he was their first born. He would later
change the spelling of his surname to Enis and Ennis which was probably the
pronunciation of the name. He is enumerated in both the 1850 and 1860 census as
living within the household of his parents and younger siblings.
William Thomas Enis enlisted in the military
on April 18, 1861, in Richmond, Indiana, when he was 19 years old. He served in
companies C and F in the 8th Regiment, Indiana Infantry for three months as a
private. He was mustered June 8, 1861 while in Company F. The following year he
went with his father and joined the 76th Indiana Infantry on 17 July 1862. His
father was a corporal in Company B and he was a private in Company C. This Unit
was organized at Indianapolis, Indiana, for 30 days State service from July 20,
to August 20 1862. They had duty at Evansville, Indiana, and at Henderson,
Kentucky, operating against guerrillas and protecting steamboats on the Ohio
River. He left the 76th and enlisted immediately on 17 August 1862 as a
corporal in Company H, Indiana 5th Cavalry Regiment in which he served until he
was mustered out 15 June 1865 at Pulaski, Tennessee.
After the war William Thomas “Enis” returned
to Decatur County where he married Nancy “Ellen” Ross on August 21, 1866, in
Decatur, Indiana. They had only one child Pearl Anna Enos born in 1867 in
Decatur County.
Nancy Ellen Ross was the daughter of John Ross
and Rachel Ellen Deweese according to her death certificate. In the 1860 United
States Census of Indiana she is listed as a 12 year domestic servant to a
wealthy Dr. John W Moody of Greensburg, Washington Township, Decatur County.
She stated she was born in Indiana and in a later 1880 census she said her
father was born in Delaware.
The 1870 Census of Indiana listed William
Thomas Enos as “Wm Ennis” age 28 living in Washington Township Post Office
Greensburg with his wife “Ellen Ennis” age 22 and “Pealie Ennis” age 3. His
occupation was given as “finisher in shop”. William Thomas Enos was living in
Greensburg the county seat of Decatur County. His family was enumerated next to
Orville Thomson a 47 year old printer who also had enumerated in his home two
young women who were “music teachers” and JJ Hazelrigg a 30 year old editor,
presumably for a newspaper. It seems likely that William Thomas worked in the
printing shop. Also it is interesting that his daughter Pearl as a divorced
woman supported her sons as a music teacher perhaps from lessons by these young
women. Three families down from William Thomas Enos was 18 year old Mary Ross a
domestic servant to a 39 year old Cabinet maker. She was probably a younger
sister of Ellen Ross Enos.
By the 1880 Census William Thomas Enos’
occupation was listed as a painter. He was still living in Greensburg and was
prosperous enough to afford a domestic servant to help his wife even though
they still just had the one child. In an age before effective birth control
this was very unusual. Either Ellen had a difficulty carrying a pregnancy to
term or they practiced abstinence. The 1880 Census was taken on 18 June and
William was listed as 38 years old, Ellen as 32 years old and Pearl as 12 years
old. The Census taker enumerated the families in his district by their first
initials only so the family is located as W.T., N.E. and P.E. The only
genealogical information in the census is that Ellen stated that her father was
born in Delaware and mother in Indiana. Living next to William Thomas Enos was
the family of H.F. Rozzell who was 32 and also a painter. Perhaps they were in
business together.
For the next 20 years it is hard to locate the
family of William T Enos as they had left Indiana and were found in Oklahoma
Territory in 1900. They were probably still in Indiana when their only daughter
Pearl Anna Enos married 21 year old Alfred M Newhouse on 6 May 1885 in
neighboring Rush County, Indiana. Almost immediately afterwards the young
couple traveled by train to Butler County, Kansas and settled in the community
of El Dorado where William T Enos only grandchildren were born. Richard Enos
Newhouse was born on 12 September 1886. And Louis Oak Newhouse was born also in
El Dorado on 8 January 1890.
The 1890 Census was destroyed but a census for
Union Soldiers was saved. In that census there was a William T. Enos located in
Union Township in Faulk County South Dakota some 600 miles north of El Dorado,
Kansas. Both the 1895 state censuses of South Dakota and Kansas however do not
show William Enos or Enis living in either state. He probably was in Oklahoma
Territory at that time.
Between 1889 and 1895, Oklahoma Territory had
several land runs where at certain dates in 1889, 1891, 1892, 1893 and 1895
settlers could race to claim free land. It would not have been out of the
question that William Thomas Enos participated in one of these runs as to why
he ended up in Oklahoma Territory. There is absolutely no reason for William
Thomas Enos to be in Oklahoma Territory except for the chance of free land.
Canadian County was settled by non-Indian
settlers through three land openings, which occurred in 1889, 1892, and 1901.
After the Land Run of 1889, El Reno bloomed overnight on the southern bank of
the North Canadian River, and Reno City rose on the north shore. The Organic
Act of 1890, creating Oklahoma Territory, designated the county as County Four,
which consisted of the eastern half of present Canadian County.
In 1892 the surplus Cheyenne-Arapaho lands
were opened to non-Indian settlement, and the western half of Canadian County
was appended at that time. In local elections the first residents chose El Reno
as the county seat, over Reno City, Frisco, and Canadian City, and Canadian,
after the Canadian River, was selected for the county's name. A one-story,
frame livery stable served as the seat of county government until a new
structure was built in 1901 a few years before William T Enis died.
The largest and most famous Land Run was the
1893 The Land Run. It began at noon on September 16, 1893, with an estimated
100,000 participants hoping to stake claim to part of the 6 million acres on
what had formerly been Cherokee grazing land. It would be Oklahoma's fourth and
largest land run.
The Land Run of 1895 was the smallest and last
land run in Oklahoma Territory. It came about with an agreement between the
Kickapoo Indians and the federal government that gave Kickapoos 22,640 acres.
William T “Enis” was enumerated in El Reno
Township in Canadian County, Oklahoma Territory on 21 June 1900. He gave his
age as age as 58 born in April 1842 a native of Indiana. Ellen Enis was 52
years old born in March 1848 also a native of Indiana. They stated they were
married 34 years, however Ellen stated she had no children. William gave his occupation
as farmer and he owned his farm free of a mortgage. This would also indicate
that he participated in one of the land runs as that if he lived on the land
for 5 years it would be free and clear. Since the last run was in 1895 it
certainly indicates that he participated in one of the Oklahoma land rushes. At
the time of his death he owned a quarter section farm located at the East ½ of
the Northwest quarter of Section 21 [80 acres] in Township 12 and West ½ of the
Northeast quarter of Section 21 [80 acres] also in Township 12
William Thomas Enis died on December 16, 1903,
probably on his farm in El Reno Township, Oklahoma, at the age of 61, of
“sickness due to an abscess and nervous prostration.” Nervous Prostration is a
19th Century term for the act of lying flat which figuratively, can cause a
great depression and an Abscess was the term for “circumscribed collection of
pus, in any part of the body, formed by the disintegration and stretching of
the tissues, usually due to injury, toxication or infection from bacteria.”
William T Enis was buried in the El Reno Cemetery with a military issued
tombstone with no dates on it, simply just the words “Corpl William T. Enis Co.
H 5 Indiana Cav.”
After his death his wife and daughter placed
an advertisement in the El Reno Weekly Globe on 1 January 1904 stating “Cards
of Thanks- We desire to express our heartfelt thanks to our many friends and
neighbors and especially to the GAR [Grand Army of the Republic] and Women
Relief Corps for their kindness during the sickness and death of our beloved
husband and father. Mrs. W.T. Enis and Mrs. Pearl Newhouse.” At the time of
William Thommas Enis’ death, his daughter Pearl Newhouse was living in
Winfield, Kansas.
William Thomas Enis died intestate that is
without a will and his wife applied in probate court to be the administratrix
of his estate. She was granted that and she had to sell the farm for $2000 to
pay off debts. On 29 March 1904 Ellen Enis applied for a widow pension for her
husband’s service in the Union Army during the Civil War.
William T Enis widow Nancy Ellen Ross Enos
remained a widow for the rest of her life. She cannot be located in the 1910
United States Census of Oklahoma but she is found in the directory for El Reno
in 1909 and in the 1920 Census. In 1909 she is living in town listed as Ellen
Enis widow of William T renting a home at 806 South Bickford. She is still
living at this address 11 years later when she is enumerated on 26 January
1920. She is living alone as a 71 year old widow. She must have been living on
a pension as she had no occupation or relatives to help her. Bickford was a
block away from where Route 66 runs through El Reno and a few blocks from the
El Reno Cemetery where her husband is buried.
Ellen Enis in the 1920’s left Oklahoma and
returned to Greensburg, Indiana where she still had relatives and a sister Mary
Elizabeth Eubanks. Her death certificate stated she died 1 Jan 1929 in
Greensburg at the age of 80 years, 9 months and 13 days having been born on 18
March 1848 in Decatur County. She was listed as Nancy Ellen Enis a widow of
William T. Enis. Cliff Kirkpatrick was the informant on her death certificate.
He was the son of Ellen’s niece Ellen Eubanks who was married to William
Kirkpatrick. Cliff stated her parents were John Ross and Rachel E Deweese both
natives of Indiana. Ellen Enis had been attended by a physician from 1 December
1928 to 1 January 1929 when she died of arteriosclerosis and hemorrhaging. She
was buried in the Union Baptist Cemetery.
Ellen Enis’ sister Mary Elizabeth Ross Eubanks
died 30 December 1933 and is also buried in the Union Baptist Cemetery. Her
death certificate also listed her parents as John Ross and Rachel Deweese
however the informant who was her daughter Mrs. William Kirkpatrick stated that
John Ross was born in Delaware and Rachel Deweese in Indiana.
