More Newspapers: GenealogyBank

I’m reading newspapers.com and Chronicling America, if by “reading” you understand that I am lying down poking at the iPhone.

I realize that there are still a lot of papers and time frames that aren’t online. But I’m confused. I’ve seen other folks post things from the Charleston newspaper on a Charleston history FB group. Why can’t I find the same things! It hit me. There must be another online database where I can throw some money.

Let’s ask our friend, Ms. Google. She knows everything.

GenealogyBank.

Friendly reader and historian Lynda  provided the first search terms for John Stoney who died on Hilton Head Island in 1821. His obit is on genealogybank in the Charleston Courier. Plus 5k more search returns.

Let’s try Agnes Mann. I have an obit for her already from the Beaufort paper from 1906.

From the State newspaper in Columbia, SC, July 17, 1906:

DEATH OF MRS. AGNES MANN.

 

Native of Germany Dies at Her Beaufort Home.

Special to The State.

Beaufort, July 16 — Mrs. Agnes Mann died on Saturday in her 78th year after an illness of three months.

The funeral services were held at St. Helena church on Sunday afternoon and were conducted by Rev. J. W. Campbell. The pallbearers were Messrs W. F. Mancher, W. R. Bristol, H. M. Stuart, Jr., W. J. Thomas, R. R. Legare and J. M. Lengnick.

Mrs. Mann, whose maiden name was Agnes Reese, was born in 1828 at Meintz, a German town situated on the banks of the Rhine. There she married Daniel Mann and with him came to Beaufort in 1848. Here she has lived ever since, taking an active part in charitable and church work. For 56 years she has been a member of St. Helena church. Until recently she took part in the beneficent work of the Ladies’ Charitable Aid society. Her cheerful, sweet, benignant personality and influence will be missed by a wide circle of friends.

Mrs. Mann is survived by two daughters, Mrs. L. C. Scheper and Miss Emily Mann, and by one son, Mr. Daniel Mann, and by 23 grandchildren and six great grandchildren. Mr. Daniel Mann, her husband, was a Confederate soldier and fought through the war in the B. V. A. He died March 17, 1872.

I knew that she was from Eltville, Germany, from the records at the Laurel Grove Cemetery. Now I have another place to search in Meintz where she married her husband Daniel.

I might have to call out of work.

Daniel & Agnes Mann’s House on Bay, Part Two

Do you remember how we went all around Daniel & Agnes Mann’s house in Beaufort, and even into the art gallery on the first floor? The person working in the art gallery said there was an artist who rented the second floor, and if we ever saw the side outside door open, then we could just go on up the staircase and ask for a tour.

Just go on up the staircase? (said in a hushed tone)

We’re the people that don’t want to bother anyone. We don’t want to make anyone go out of their way for us. This might even include flagging down a waiter and asking for a refill of sweet tea, even though that’s their job. We don’t want to get in the way.

We’ve been by the house several times, looking wistfully at the side door as if we could make it open by magical powers.

Today, it’s open.  We peep around the corner and see the staircase leading to the magical second floor.

 

Are we really going to just walk up a stairway just because a clerk in an art gallery told us we could?

Ohyesweare.

We took a few steps, Sugar called out Hello?, we heard voices, we took a few more steps, and as if by magic, found ourselves at the top of the stairs.

There was a man and a woman, he the artist, and she perhaps a client discussing a commission.  We asked permission to look around.  He didn’t even hesitate to say it was fine.

The artist in residence told us that we could walk through the space, but we couldn’t go up the elliptical stairs because the stairs are unstable. Doesn’t seem like too much to ask, since we don’t really feel like going to the hospital today.

The staircase is famous because it is elliptical, not circular. I managed several shots by holding the camera out as far as I could into the stairwell. Here’s the first shot of several.  See what you think.

The upstairs space is basically two large rooms with the elliptical stairway in between. So we entered into one large room, then into the stairwell, then through into the next large room.  The windows front northerly onto Bay Street, and also on the east side (which you have seen from the outside in previous posts).

 

Here’s a fun shot.  It’s the Verdier house directly across the street. We went on the tour recently, and the tour guide allowed me to take a shot of Agnes’s house from the upstairs window directly to the right of the porch. The shutters over there are closed now.

It occurred to me that you can’t tell how wide these boards are without a frame of reference. Here’s a ladies size 7 frame of reference.

See?  Really an artist’s gallery.  There’s one of Agne’s fireplaces, redone.

The house I grew up in had this same type of window hardware for lifting the window. It’s a pretty fair guess that my 1950’s house was not using hardware from the late 1700’s. Regardless, these walls are thick.

Another thick wall, this one an interior, separates a room on the left from the stairwell.

 

 

Y’all, that’s Agnes’s fireplace. The stairway leads to an upstairs 3rd floor that we will most likely never see.

But dream?  Oh, we can dream.

Yet Another View of Agnes Mann’s House

Sugar had a plan.

He wanted to go back to Beaufort and take a tour of the John Mark Verdier House, get some lunch, and run some errands.  

It was also a bittersweet time of celebration and panic, for Sugar had just had a birthday, and also.  He. Retired.

Not quit.  Retired.

He practiced saying, “But I’m on a fixed income.”  To which I counter, “Oh, not me, I’m loaded.”  Yes, yes, retired people, you are not the only people whose income is stagnated.

Back to Beaufort.

We went back to the Post Office turned Restaurant, the Lowcountry Produce place on Carteret.

Sugar got a fried shrimp Po Boy, ’cause he is feeling Po-ish.

That’s a Caesar salad with anchovies, which is the standard, and a slice of tomato pie, which is like a layered dish, like lasagna, except with tomatoes and cheeses, in a pie crust.  It is some kind of crazy goodness.

Then we put more money in the meter, even though we suspected that the parking might be free since it was Labor Day, and we headed over to the John Mark Verdier House.

The entry fee for the tour was $10 each, and lasted about 45 minutes.  It was a pleasant piece of history. We were not allowed to touch anything or take any photographs.

After the tour, I asked our guide if I could take a photo of the Saltus/Habersham/MANN house out the window, if I placed the camera against the glass.  She agreed that I could.

 

 

 

And that right there was worth ten dollars.

On the way home, I turned onto the road which leads to my road, and I saw a piece of tire rubber near the center of the road.  As I went past it, I realized that it was NOT a piece of tire rubber, but a snake.  I turned around, and took a photo.

You can guess that I am bravely holding the camera out the window.  From a very distant distance.

 

My scientist cousin Diane says this is a timber rattler, and not to piss it off.  That should be no problem at all for me.  

Hello, I am a timber rattler.

Do timber rattlesnakes eat cats?  I think not.

Daniel & Agnes Mann’s House on Bay

We found the house!  

I have personally walked by this house more times than I could count.  When I read that the house was three stories and was downtown, I couldn’t even imagine which house it could be.  There surely was not a house that tall in downtown Beaufort.

It just goes to show that I’m not cognizant of my surroundings, and perhaps, because I’m walking along talking to Sugar, I’ve never looked up, and the street scene doesn’t allow for a long range view.  Yes, that’s it.  Exactly.

So we parked at the library on Scott Street, paid for parking, and headed over to Bay.  (Sadly, the yarn store was not open.)

We’re at the intersection of Scott and Bay on the northeast corner.

To the left is another building that seems important, but I don’t know why at this point.  It’s been remodeled into several shops.  Ah, more research.

 

The house is divided into two sections. The left side is an art gallery, and the right side an antiques shop. Yes, through the window.

 

 

 

The Verdier House is directly across the street.

The Saltus/Habersham/MANN house has some sort of high wall blocking the space between it and the Bay Street Traders.  There was a bookstore in the Bay Street Traders building (perhaps that was the name of the bookstore – Bay Street Traders – I’ll have to look it up), and we went in there many times.  Sugar and the owner determined that they were distant cousins.  It’s a children’s toy shop now.

 

This is the alleyway from Bay to the Riverfront Park. The Bay Street Traders’s building is to our left.

Across the street is the Verdier House, which is a museum now.  I never wanted to go to the Verdier House before, but now, it’s personal.

Agnes and Daniel’s house was purchased by the Belk Stores, and was remodeled, and the enormous, warehouse-like wing was added to the back of the house.  We walk along the alleyway by the Bay Street Traders which is to the right of the streetside of the Mann house.   Now we’re behind the Bay Street Traders and you can see the rooftop of the Mann house. Hiding in plain sight.

 

 

 

 

We went into the art gallery, and the lady there said that there is an artist living above the shop space, so of course, I had to take a photo of the outside.  Wow, do I want to see the upstairs and the elliptical staircase.

So I wondered if Agnes was a hotel keeper in her own house, but since she was a hotel keeper in 1880 and they didn’t get the house back from the tax collector after 1865, that’s pretty conclusive.  Still, she was a hotel keeper on Bay Street, and there was the Beaufort Hotel, and there are more little rabbit holes to explore…

Daniel Mann & the Beaufort Volunteer Artillery

You might remember that Daniel Mann was a member of the Beaufort Volunteer Artillery, and that Sugar and I went to see the Arsenal.

As it looks today.

 

I found a photo in a book, “Beaufort, A History” by Alexia Jones Helsley, in the Beaufort District Collection at the Beaufort Library.  It’s a marvelous book, rich is detail and research with numerous photos from historical repositories.

 

This photo would have been taken during the time that the Mann family lived in Beaufort. However, during the Civil War when Beaufort was occupied by Union forces, all white people evacuated.  I’m going to assume, until I get definitive proof, that the Mann family sojourned to Savannah, Georgia, which is how Martha Mann met Thomas Bateson, perhaps at Christ Church Episcopal, and so the Manns were known to the community.

The Mann family returned to Beaufort after the war, because they tried to reclaim the house from the tax collector, but were unsuccessful.  House?  What house?

Why, the Saltus/Habersham house.

Oh, people, just look at this resource.  Let me know if the link doesn’t work: http://lcweb2.loc.gov/pnp/habshaer/sc/sc0500/sc0502/data/sc0502data.pdf .

And off we go to Beaufort.

Daniel Mann, Jr., 1907-1908, Beaufort, South Carolina

 

Mr and Mrs Daniel Mann have the

heartfelt sympathy of their many

friends in the loss of their little son,

Daniel, Jr., who died Monday night,

after an illness of some time, at the

age of one year.  Though very deli-

cate since his birth, the parents of

this lovely little baby were hopeful

of his life and his death was a sad

shock to them.  The funeral services

were held at the home Tuesday after-

noon and were conducted by Rev. A.

B. Watson, pastor of the Methodist

church, and the remains were laid to

rest in the family lot at St Helena

Episcopal Church.  The pall bearers

were:  Messrs Allen Paul, Theodore

Heyward, Charlie Danner and Harold

Scheper.

(From the Beaufort Gazette, September 3, 1908)

Isabelle Mann, Born & Died in 1908, Beaufort, South Carolina

 

Death of An Infant.

Isabelle Mann, the bright little

daughter of Mr and Mrs Daniel Mann,

died on Friday night Oct. 2nd age

three months and two days.  The in-

terment took place on the afternoon

of the 3rd at the family lot at St Hel-

ena Episcopal church, the ceremony

being conducted by the Rev. A. B.

Watson.  The pallbearers were Dr.

M. G. Elliott and Mr W. J. Thomas.

(From the Beaufort Gazette, October 22, 1908)

Henry G. Mann, 1849-1898

 

 

After an illness extending over some

months from Bright’s disease, Mr. Henry

G. Mann, long and favorably known and

having many friends, died at the residence

of his mother, in Beaufort, Tuesday.  The

funeral services were conducted by Rev. W.

L. Githens, in St. Helena Church, yester-

day morning, in the presence of a large

number of sympathizing friends, and the

remains were interred in the family lot.

The pall bearers were Messrs. H. T. Danner,

M. O’D. White, J. M. Baker, M. D. Boin-

eau, J. N. Wallace and D. W. Crocker.

Besides a most affectionate and aged moth-

er, deceased left two brothers and several

sisters to mourn his loss.  Mr. Mann was

about 49 years of age and had been engaged

in mercantile business all his life.

 

Meisher C. Mann, 1866-1898

 

 

Death of Meisher C. Mann

For a long time the condition of health

in which Mr. Mann was precluded any hope

of his ultimate recovery, and death came to

the relief of his suffering.  Mr. Mann was

32 years of age, and was very popular with

the young people of Beaufort, his native

town.  The funeral services were held at

St. Helena Church, Thursday last, Rev. Mr.

Githens, the rector, officiating, and the re-

mains were interred in the family lot.  Mr.

Mann was a member of the order of the

Knights of Pythias, and Beaufort Lodge

had been very attentive to him during his

illness.  The following Knights acted as

pall bearers:  Messrs. W. R. Bristol, M.

Cohen, A. W. F. Alaina, J. H. Jones, J. M.

Lengnick, and S. H. Rodgers, Jr.  His

mother, brother and sisters have the sym-

pathy of the entire community.

(From the Palmetto Post, October 20, 1889)

*****

His parents were Daniel Mann and Agnes Reis Mann.  His brother is Daniel Mann who married Caroline Sanders.  His sisters are Emily Mann, unmarried, and Louisa Mann who married E. A. Scheper.

The name “Lengnick”?  Remember that name.  There’s a post coming up soon mentioning an article about Beaufort memories written by a Lengnick.  The pallbearer J. M. Lengnick was also a pallbearer from Meisher’s mother Agnes Mann.

Daniel Mann, 1862-1930, Son of Daniel & Agnes Mann

 

 

Obituary of Daniel Mann, Beaufort Gazette, May 1, 1930

Mr. Daniel Mann, one of Beau-

fort’s oldest citizens, died here Fri-

day morning, April 25, after a short

illness.  The funeral service was held

at Carteret Street Methodist church,

Dr. W. C. Kirkland officiating, inter-

ment following at Evergreen ceme-

tery.

Mr. Mann was born in Beaufort in

1862, having reached the age of 69

years at the time of his death.  He

had devoted 50 years of his life to

public service in the city and county

of Beaufort and State of South

Carolina, holding the office of Inspec-

tor in the South Carolina State Board

of Fisheries, chief of police at Beau-

fort, deputy sheriff and sheriff of

Beaufort county.

Conservative and conscientious in

all of his dealings, he was loved

throughout this section, and has num-

erous friends and business acquaint-

ances throughout the state.

He is survived by his widow, Mrs.

Carrie Sanders Mann, formerly of

Charleston, three children, Mr. M. E.

Mann, of New York; Mrs. Robert M.

Neighbors, Naval Hospital, Charles-

ton; Mr. F. S. Mann, of Beaufort; one

granddaughter, Miss Roberta Neigh-

bors, Charleston, and two sisters,

Mrs. L. C. Scheper and Miss Emily

Mann, of Beaufort.

The active all bearers, all of whom

were associated with him in the

court house, were:  Messrs. J. G.

Black, J. E. McGill. E. B. Rodgers, J. E.

McTeer, R. L. Varn and Gerald Mc-

Teer.  The honorary pallbearers, old

boyfriend friends, were Messrs. H. T.

Danner, Sr., W. F. Marscher, M. L.

Rowell, Frank P. Colcock, G. Sanders,

Dr. Hal Stuart, Dr. William Stein-

meyer, W. J. Thomas, W. R. Bristol

and Dr. Van Smith.

The floral offerings were very beau-

tiful, the entire grave being covered

with wreaths and pot plants.

The death of Mr. Mann removes

one of Beaufort’s oldest and most be-

loved citizens and the sympathy of

the people of the entire community

are extended to the bereaved family.