One of the sometimes good, often scary things about writing about history–especially local history–is the possibility that a reader will come up with more information than you have regarding what you are writing about! It can be especially traumatic if their information contradicts yours and if you have committed your version to print, in a book, say.
Fortunately for me I am working in blog format, meaning that information committed to “print” can be easily corrected or amended simply by an additional entry, which is what this one is all about. In my previous entry, The Germans are Coming, Part 7, I indicated that I basically had no information about one Daniel Rhoades, the attendee to the sale of Friedrich Richter’s estate who bought his Meerschaum pipe. As soon as he read this, my friend and colleague, Kelly McAllister, shot me off an email to report that Daniel “Tuck” Rhoades was a good friend of Kelly’s great grandfather, George McAllister (also an attendee of the sale), when they were young, and to prove it he provided a photograph of the pair with arms around each other and enjoying a good cigar!
This image, probably made as a tintype in 1879, the year before the estate sale, shows George on the left, Daniel on the right and holding some sort of indistinct document. Insofar as Daniel was the son of Daniel Mounts’ sister, Mary Ann (Mounts) Rhoades, and George, husband-to-be of Christina Mounts, was Mounts’ son-in-law, Kelly is a relative of both, though I don’t think the English language was the appropriate term for his status. Thanks, Kelly.
Though we don’t (yet!) know Daniel Rhoades date of birth, it is likely that he was about the same age as George McAllister, who was born in 1856. Daniel’s father was Francis (Frank) Marion Rhoades, an Ohioan who was Indian agent for the Chehalis River Reservation and served two terms (1878 and 79) in the territorial legislature. As stated, Daniel’s mother was Mary Ann (Mounts) Rhoades, one of Daniel Mounts sisters. She and Frank had a spread in Gate, Washington, for awhile before moving to Santa Cruz where they both passed away in the second decade of the 20th Century.
Daniel’s main claim to fame at this point, other than owning Richter’s pipe, was his association with and marriage to one Maggie Shields. As best I can make out from reports of the trial that appeared in the Seattle P.I. in 1897, Maggie, age 18, had barely given birth to a child just a month or two after marrying Bert Bartow, a young man from Tacoma, when she (or her father; the reports are conflicting) accused Bert’s father, Professor A.H. Bartow, principal of the Emerson School, of seducing her and fathering the child. The senior Bartow was eventually charged with adultery (seeing that he was a married man) and a lengthy trial ensued. Professor Bartow eventually was acquitted, following understandably passionate testimony in his favor by his son, but a divorce soon followed, and the baby was put up for adoption. Daniel Rhoades married Maggie two years later, when she was 21. They had one child together, William C. Rhoades, before she died at age 24, causes currently unknown.
More about Daniel will be reported, if and when it becomes known. Thanks again, Kelly!
Historical Musings by Tim Ransom 