STANLEY

Mayme Maxwell married a Lloyd Stanley whose parents were known to be Enos Samson Stanley and Harriet A. Hays. Initially, I searched for an Enos Stanley, but without any success. I found a minister with that name, but neither the location nor family fit. An e-mail message suggested that I look under the name Standley as well as Stanley. This led to the discovery of a Richard Henry Standley who had a son Enos. I also found in the Illinois Archives a marriage record for Enos Standley married 12/24/1873 to a Harriet A Hays. This looked promising. I e-mailed a message to a Blake Standley who had posted numerous messages and genealogy records on the internet and requested his help since he had a Richard Henry Standley in his family. I wondered about the different spellings, and which family name was used first etc. He replied that his information had been gathered by his mother over the years, and that at that time he could not give me a basis for the name switch or say which name was correct. He did state that there were only 2 Richard Henry Standleys on record and the other lived much earlier. Later, he stated that his mother said Standley was the historically correct name for his family.

In the 1860 Illinois census for Rock Island Co. I had found an Enos Stanley as a son of Richard Henry Stanley whose wife was shown as Hanna Mary, age 20. An Ancestral File/IGI in the Mormon FHC indicated RH Standley's birth was 10/31/1825 in Suffield, Portage Co, OH and that he married a Sarah E. Mills 6/14/1846, Portage Co, OH. Were these Richard Henrys the same person? Obviously, I wanted there to be a connection as much of the Standley family information might then relate to me!

Illinois has a done a lot to make information available on the internet. There is an on-line archive database that contains marriage records, and it showed the marriage in Rock Island of my Enos as Enos S. Standley married to a Harriet A. Hays. There is another entry for a Henry Stanley married to a Sarah E. Mills, 6/14/1846. The Enos wife is known to be my family so I accept that information, but the Henry marriage information causes a question - did Sarah marry RH or his brother, i.e., a Henry Standley as identified in an ancestry file data? [The answer to this could impact speculation in the following paragraph.]

The 1855 Illinois State census for Rock Island Co. Twsp 16 North of Range 5, West of 4th PM shows a RH Stanley family with 4 male children under 10 years and one female 20-30 yrs (these ages check with the 1860 census and the IGI/ancestral file birth dates for RH and wife Sarah). Also shown with this family are 2 additional males, one 20-30 and the other 30-40 yrs; I don't have any definitive information, but I initially speculated that they could be RH’s eldest living brother, Alexander, and his youngest brother, Henry. I had observed that Richard Henry's dad had died years earlier and that his mother had died recently in Iowa. Perhaps the 2 brothers, as single people, had remained in Illinois with their married brother(s) or returned to Illinois to be with them after their mother's death. Or they were not those living with the Standley family!

In addition to this entry for RH, the next entry on the census page is a Jacob Stanley family, age 30-40, with 7 children and probable wife age 30-40. The 1850 Federal Census has a Jacob and wife having similar ages with 5 children. I suspect that this Jacob is the remaining brother of Richard Henry.

The same 1855 State census also shows a Daniel Fowler, age 40-50 with 3 males under 20, and 4 females, with "wife?" 30-40, 2 daughters under 10, and another 10-20. This latter daughter's age is consistent with this daughter becoming RH Standley's second wife, age 20 per the 1860 Federal Census Record. The pertinence of the Fowler family comes a couple of paragraphs later in the discussion about the Stanleys.

A Civil War Muster Roll shows both a R H Stanley and a J R Stanley serving together in Company G of the 47 Infantry Regiment of the Illinois Volunteers. They enlisted in March 1865 and were mustered out Jan 1866. I believe they are father and his eldest son.

I also found that there was a web site with an on-line index for Probate Records from Rock Island County. I did a search of the index for both Stanley and Standley. The results showed that there were files available for "the family" and I then requested from the IRAD a copy of the files under Stanley for a Clifton, Hanna, John Henry and a Joseph R and under Standley for Johanna, Joseph and Richard H. As a result, I was sent about 100 pages, which included estate inventories, petitions etc. RH died in 1875, but because Johanna, his wife and executrix, died before she settled the estate, the probate record continued until past 1895. By that time, a number of his children lived in Iowa.

From reading these files, I learned that Richard Henry Standley did have 2 wives. The children by each marriage were identified. Since the 1860 Census showed a Hannah Mary, age 20, from England, she could not have been the mother of RH's eldest children, e.g., Joseph or Enos. The wills disclosed that wife number 2 was Johanna and that his first wife was "Blanche," but without further identification as to when Blanche died or where. (From the birth dates of the children, she could have died not sooner than the birth of her last child in 1859 (John Daniel) and about a year before the birth of his first child with Johanna which was in March 1861.) I learned that after Richard Henry's death, a guardian was established for Johanna's children. The guardian was identified as a Thomas J.(ames?) Fowler, uncle of the children. Another piece of paper, a petition by Daniel Fowler, stated he was her father. Even though there were probate files for several Fowlers, including a Daniel, I did not pursue this further. Conclusion: wife number 2 was Johanna Mary Fowler.

Unfortunately, from the probate information I was not able to make a definite connection between the name Blanche and a Sarah Elizabeth Mills of the IGI Record. Nor was I able to find any other record to confirm the marriage of RH Standley to a Sarah Elizabeth Mills. I have looked at various publications claiming to be marriage records for Portage Co and have not found anything; that may be a negative for the IGI data AKA RH marrying Sarah. Previously, when I was in Ohio on a visit, I identified 2 Mills families in Portage Co. with daughters named Sarah; a Benjamin, who lived in Suffield, the township associated with RH and Sarah, and the other, a Joseph. The IGI may be correct, but the groom and location conflict with the Illinois marriage database and I can not otherwise substantiate the first wife's family as being "Mills."

The 1855 IL State census also showed in the same township, 2 Mills families, one a Joseph age 60-70, with another male, age 10-20, and 3 females, one under 10, one 20-30, and a "wife?" age 60-70. The 1860 census shows the same Joseph as a cooper, wife named Sarah, and children born in Ohio; the eldest was a daughter age 17. An 1840 census index for Ohio shows several Joseph Mills, and 2 were in Ashtabula Co., OH. This is not far from Portage Co.

I also read in the probate file that there was confusion regarding the family name. In one file, it was clear that his name was definitely Standley and it was explicitly recognized that his children started using the name Stanley versus their true name of Standley. This then explains and provides a basis for when/how the name change from Standley to Stanley occurred. Stanley was used in many of the documents for the children. But, from the Enos marriage record, it is apparent that the use of this new name was not done consistently.

While at the DAR library in Washington, DC, I happened upon a history of "Rock Island County 1885" and noticed a biography of Clifton Stanley; Clifton was a son by RH and his first wife. In this biographical sketch, there was a mention of his father -- Richard H. who was probably a native of Ohio and came to Illinois in pioneer days. Richard H. married a Miss Sarah Mills, who was born in Pennsylvania of German descend. She died when Clifton was 8 years old (he was born Sept 8, 1851). Richard H subsequently broke up housekeeping and Clifton then lived with his uncle, a Simon Mills for 4 years, until his father remarried, to Johanna Fowler. This biography removed the uncertainty about Sarah Mills and clarified what happened.

I subsequently encountered a person with Mills genealogy information. These records also showed that a Henry Stanley married a Sarah Mills, and that this Sarah had a brother named Simon. This substantiates the biographical sketch and provides additional information regarding her father; it was Joseph Mills. There was additional information regarding Sarah's ancestors.