In the 1880 Lamine, Cooper County, Missouri, household of Amos and Catherine Gorrell is stepson, May M. Sayre, age 19.[1] He is one of three children Catherine Shotts bore with Lemuel Sayre in the late 1850s.
- Mary Adela, born about 1857, died in 1858
- George, born about 1859, died in the same year.[2]
Only May Mansfield Sayre, born on 19 November 1860, lived to adulthood, dying on 22 February 1927 in Marion County, Ohio.[3] Catherine married Lemuel on 14 January 1857 in Ross County, Ohio.[4]
Private Lemuel J Sayre died on 9 May 1862 in Hamburg, Hardin County, Tennessee, while in Company B of Ohio 63rd Infantry Regiment. He died from inflammation of the lungs.[5]
May’s mother married Amos Gorrell on 6 February 1866 in Chillicothe, Ross County, Ohio.[6] It was not a marriage approved by his parents and he decided to leave for Missouri. However, before doing so, Amos took care of business with the probate court to become the guardian of May’s estate. On 28 February, he took out a $200 bond with Daniel Shotts and James Toops as his sureties.[7] On the same day, Amos took an oath and was appointed guardian of the five-year-old May M. Sayre.[8]
When Lemuel died, Catherine received a widow’s pension and this continued until she married Amos.[9] Then a pension was filed for the minor son, May Sayre by Amos Gorrell, his guardian, which Amos did from Missouri in 1867.[10] Amos continued advocating for May with the pension bureau for each entitled increase in the pension. In April 1925, he wrote to the Pension Bureau asking when his father died, whether his mother received a pension, and whether he, as the son, received a pension.[11] The reply in May 1925 gave the date of death in Hamburg, Tennessee. The widow drew a pension at $8 per month from May 19, 1862 to Feb 6, 1866. May M. Sayre drew a pension until he reached the age of 16 on November 26, 1876.[12]
May continued living in the household of Amos and Catharine. He attended school and worked on the farm in Cooper County, Missouri.[13]
He married Isabel E. Waud on 4 July 1885. This date was given in his obituary but the marriage record has not been found. It doesn’t appear to be in the Missouri database on FamilySearch. In 1885, he would have been 25 years old.
He may have bought 160 acres of land from the federal government in Union County, Oregon on 11 October 1886, paying $400. These were three parcels in three separate sections. However, no patent exists on the General Land Office website.[14] The tract book for the sections shows the purchase and no listing of the patent being issued.[15] Also shown are the letters TS, which was a timber and stone entry, an authority of the Timber and Stone Act of 1878, where the land was valuable for timber and stone resources and unfit for cultivation.[16]
Maybe he bought the land or maybe he forfeited it. There is so much crossing out and the clerk wrote all of the other sections purchased within the one in Section 28.
By 1900, he was living in Portland, Multnomah County, Oregon at 509 Gantenbein Avenue, with his wife, “Belle,” and five children: Arthur, Maggie, Lester, Russell, and Jacqueline. He was working as a fireman on the railroad, renting a home.[17] He worked for the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company.[18] Belle was listed as having six children, with five living. An infant daughter died in 1891, perhaps in The Dalles.[19]
Tragedy happened to the family in 1903, when May’s wife, Belle, died on April 5 at her home in Viento, Oregon. According to the obituary, she was born on 4 October 1863 in Eugene, Oregon, and married May on 4 July 1886. The funeral was held at the United Brethren Church in Hood River.[20]
On 18 October 1905, he married at the Episcopal Church in Portland, Ellen Waud.[21] She was born in London as Ellen Murphy and was not related to May’s first wife. By 1910, they were living in Silverton, Marion County, Oregon. Four children were in the household, Arthur, Lester, Russell, and Evangeline, who was thirteen. May was an engineer at a sawmill and the two oldest boys worked as firemen on a steam railroad, possibly the Southern Pacific.[22] The sawmill was at the Silverton Lumbermill and Russell worked there as a laborer in 1911.[23]
In 1917, they were still living in Silverton. May worked at the Silverton Lumber Company as an engineer. His wife was listed as “Nellie A” and Nellie could be a nickname for Ellen. Two children, Russell E. and Maude E., lived with him. Maude was a student.[24]
Three years later, May had changed occupations. He and his wife Nellie ran a cigar store. Russell and Maud still lived with them. Russell worked at the sawmill and Maud as a waitress at a confectionary.[25] His health began to fail, as in October 1921, he was making plans for a trip to Tuscon, Arizona in search of better health.[26] Earlier in September 1920, he gave up handling the Oregonian and turned over the agency to Lawrence Bowser and retired on account of ill health.[27]
Surviving him was his wife, Nellie. His children who attended the funeral were Arthur of Eugene, Lester T and Maudie of Portland, and two stepsons, Arthur and Fred Waud of Portland. His stepdaughter, Hazel Cobleigh was unable to attend.[29] Also mentioned were his three sisters and one brother of Missouri. These would be the Gorrell half-siblings.
The obituary also listed his work history: working on the O.R.&N. Railway out of La Grande for more than ten years, then as an engineer for the Oregon Lumber Company for the same amount of time. In 1907, he came to Silverton and was an engineer for the Silverton Lumber Company mill, “turning the first wheel and staying with them until stricken with blindness through a fall seven years ago.”
“He was widely known throughout Oregon and loved and respected by all who knew him. Sayre was also an earnest and faithful worker in the fraternities of which he was a member. During the seven years of his affliction, his wife was his constant and unfaltering nurse, counsellor [sic] and companion.”[30]
His son, Arthur M. Sayre, kept up correspondence with the Gorrell family and my father-in-law visited with him on occasion.
#52Ancestors-Week
16: Step
This is my seventh year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow (https://www.amyjohnsoncrow.com/) at Generations Cafe.
I
write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or My Trails into the Past. I have enjoyed
writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.
[1]
1800 U.S. census, Cooper Co, Missouri, Lamine, ED 130, p 6b, fam 45, Amos
Gorrell.
[2] For
George, see Find A Grave, (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/39823898/george-sayre),
memorial 39823898, George Sayre (1859-1859), photo by Penny Cox Brown, Denver
Cemetery, Ross Co, Ohio. For Mary, see ibid, memorial 160959848, Mary A. Sayre
(unk-1958). No photo, only a transcription “1y 5m 13d, d/o L J & C E.”
[3] For
birth, see affidavit of midwife, Ann Powell, May M Sayre, minor’s pension, no.
122488, service of Lemuel J Sayre (private, Co B, 63rd Ohio
Infantry, Civil War); Case files of Approved Pension Applications . . , 1861-1934;
Civil War and Later Pensions Files; Record Group 15: Records of the Department
of Veteran’s Affairs; National Archives, Wash., DC. For death, see Oregon State
Board of Health, Certificate of Death, no. 154, Marion Co, Oregon, May M.
Sayre, 1927.
[4]
Ross Co, Ohio, Marriage Records G-H1 1852-1864, p 237, Lemuel Sayre-Catharine Shotts,
1857, imaged, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:9392-91SD-4X),
citing digial film 004016201, image 195 of 377.
[5]
Civil War pension file
[6] Ross
County, Ohio, Marriage Record I-K 1865-1875, p. 69, Amos Gorrell-Catharine E. Sayre,
1866, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:939K-BJJK-M),
citing digital film 004256209, image 98 of 421.
[7]
Ross County, Ohio, record of guardian bonds, p. 143, Amos Garrell for May M.
Sayre, 1866, imaged, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89QG-R871),
digital film 005873779, image 106 of 571.
[8] Ross
County, Ohio, probate journal, vol. 3, p. 468, letters of guardianship to Amos Garrett,
1866, imaged, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-L9QG-51GQ),
digital film 005873799, image 602 of 663.
[9] Catherine
E Sayre, widow’s pension, no. 5352, 1862, service of Lemuel J Sayre (private,
Co B, 63rd Ohio Infantry, Civil War).
[10] Affidavit
of Amos Gorrell in Morgan County, Missouri court, 16 Dec 1866, May M Sayre,
minor’s pension, no. 122488, 1867, service of Lemuel J Sayre (private, Co B, 63rd
Ohio Infantry, Civil War).
[11]
Letter, May M. Sayre to Pension Bureau, 20 April 1925, May M Sayre, minor’s
pension, no. 122488, 1867, service of Lemuel J Sayre (private, Co B, 63rd
Ohio Infantry, Civil War).
[12] Letter,
Pension Bureau to May M Sayer, 6 May 1925, May M Sayre, minor’s pension, no.
122488, 1867, service of Lemuel J Sayre (private, Co B, 63rd Ohio
Infantry, Civil War).
[13]
1870 U.S. census, Cooper Co, Missouri, Lamine, p 441a, fam 3, Amos Gorrell.
Also 1880 U.S. census, Cooper Co, Missouri, Lamine, ED 130, p 6b, fam 45, Amos
Gorrell.
[14] General
Land Office Records (https://glorecords.blm.gov/),
database entry for May M. Sayre, patent no. 2662, issued 12 Jan 1889, Union Co,
Oregon.
[15] “United
States Bureau of Land Management Tract Books, 1800-c1955,” imaged, FamilySearch
(https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/2074276)
> Oregon > vol 13 > image 23 of 250, p. 22, Sec 28 of Township 2
South, Range 36 East, May M. Sayre.
[16] “Timber
and Stone Entry,” definition in “Common Terms used by the General Land Office,”
History Hub (https://historyhub.history.gov/land-records/b/land-records-blog/posts/common-terms-used-by-the-general-land-office).
[17]
1900 U.S. census, Multnomah Co, Oregon, Portland Prec 47, ED 80, sht 11a,
dwelling 235, May M Sayre.
[18]
Portland City Directory (Portland: RL Polk & Co, 1901), 550 & 630.
[19] Untitled
article, The Dalles Daily Chronicle, 10 Aug 1891, p. 3.
[20] “Mrs.
Isabel Sayre,” The Hood River Glacier, 9 Apr 1903, p. 2.
[21] Multnomah
Co, Oregon, Marriage Certificate, Office of County Clerk, no. 4883, 1905, May M
Sayre & Ellen Waud.
[22]
1910 U.S. census, Marion Co, Oregon, Silverton, ED 230, sht 8a, family 168, May
M Sayre.
[23] Salem
City and Marion County Directory, 1911 (Portland, Ore: R.L. Polk & Co,
1911), p. 375, Mansfield M. Sayre & Russel E Sayre.
[24] Salem
City and Marion County Directory, 1917 (Portland: R.L. Polk & Co,
1917), p. 283, Mansfield M. Sayre.
[25]
1920 U.S. census, Marion Co, Oregon, Silverton, ED 329, sht 15b, fam 103,
Manfield Sayre.
[26] “Silverton
Personals and Briefs,” Statesman Journal (Salem), 8 Oct 1921, p. 5, col.
6.
[27] “Silverton,”
The Capital Journal, 2 Sep 1920, p. 2, col. 4.
[28] “Sayre’s
Funeral is Held Thursday,” The Capital Journal, 25 Feb 1927, p. 2, col. 1.
[29]
Ibid.
[30]
Ibid.
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