A Tale of Two Properties, Part 1: John and Alice Hilyard of Muncie, Indiana

 Last July, my intrepid partner in crime DD and I decided to look into our more recent ancestry, closer to home. My great-grandparents, John and Alice (Holtzapple) Hilyard, lived for a time in Muncie, Indiana. They are the featured family on my cover page, and I believe that photo was taken shortly before they moved to Muncie. We still have some family there and met up with local cousin CC to investigate. 

Some years ago, I located an address for John and Alice in a 1913 city directory: 1802 E. 12th Street in Muncie. I ran right over to Google Maps and was disappointed to see this area is a commercial zone with some buildings and parking lots there now. I asked cousin CC about it at the time, and she confirmed the house no longer existed. The red balloon on the right shows the address; I'm leaving in Heekin Park for further reference. Note that 12th Street is now called Memorial Drive. Reminder: click on any image to enlarge it.

Google Maps View of 1802 E. 12th Street Today

I was able to find an ad in a 1912 newspaper showing this property, with 7 rooms, was for rent. 

The Star Press 10 Mar 1912

We can assume they took the house for rent, as the 1913 City Directory is based on the prior year's residents. The directories were printed every two years, and the Hilyards were there again in 1915, 1917, and 1919. During this time period, John Hilyard worked as a carpenter for Ball Bros., famous manufacturer of Ball glass jars.

1913 Muncie City Directory

And that's where I left it. With the house gone, what more could I learn?

Until 2022, when I started to prepare for our trip that is. I thought I should revisit the records and see what I might have missed. Since we were going to be in the county seat, I should look up the deed to this property while we were there. Checking online for information before heading out, I found the Delaware county deeds were already digitized and available for free online! Check out the wonderful Muncie Public Library for more. 

Delaware County, Indiana Deed Book 161 p. 80

Rather than a street address, the deed gives a lot number: Lot 10 in block 56 of Goshorn and Lupton's subdivision. I noticed John and Alice bought the property (the one they had lived in for 4 or 5 years as renters) from the owners for $1 and other consideration. The sellers' names are not familiar to me. I don't know why the Hilyards got the house for a dollar, and this is an area I should explore further.

There are many historical maps available online, so I thought I would look up this specific lot number. I found a great high-resolution map from Ball State University's website and was able to locate lot 10 Block 56, outlined in blue here.

If you compare this to the Google Maps screenshot above, there is a big discrepancy. Using Heekin Park as a reference point, the current location of 1802 is east of the park and on the same street. But at the time the Hilyards lived there, it was west of the park, and a block down!

I dug through my photos and found some pictures I believed to be John and Alice's Muncie home, included here.

John and Alice Hilyard

Seated, Alice Hilyard. Daughter Tessie on far right, son Vaughn standing next to Tessie

Armed with this new information, I set out with cousins DD and CC to do some recognizance work. We cruised up and down the street, parking and peering at the current homes, trying to determine which one was "ours". While we were there, we convinced ourselves it was this one, and that it had been added on to considerably:

Oops, wrong house!

However, after we got home and really thought it over, this house was located on lot 11, right next door to lot 10.

Now we are convinced that the house John and Alice Hilyard is still standing, and looks like this:

Would they mind if we cut some bushes back so we could see the place better??

The east side of the house is totally obscured by bushes and trees, and that is the angle the old photos would have been taken from. But if you imagine it without the front porch, it has the abrupt cut-off of the front as in the old photos. We didn't try to take a lot of photos of this house because were focused on the one next door, but I feel certain this is it based on the old city map, and that the photos I have are of this home.

Current location using Beacon website, courtesy of cousin DD

Lesson here: just because you have an address for a location doesn't mean it translates to the current address. Streets get renamed. Dig a little deeper, find some old maps. Check deeds for more information. 

 

My Family in the Civil War, Part Eight: Edward and Susannah Moore and Plotting Land Records

This is the eighth in a series on my Civil War ancestors

Edward Windsor and Susannah Bryant Moore

I will share a few search tips today, along with the family info.

Edward and Susannah were married in Orange County, Indiana September 4, 1823 by John Moore, a Justice of the Peace. This was probably Edward's older brother, who also settled in Orange County.

Orange County, Indiana Marriage Records

I don't know their exact whereabouts before 1838. They were in Orange County up until then except for a brief visit to Illinois where other family had gone. It appears they liked Orange County better and came back.

On September 1, 1838, Edward Windsor Moore (and this is the only time I can recall him spelling out the Windsor) purchased 40 acres of land. 

Edward Moore Land Patent 1838

I found this document on Ancestry, but you can search land records free on the Bureau of Land Management's site, General Land Office Records. I typed in Moore, Edward, Indiana, and Orange County. It gave me a list of properties fitting these criteria. By clicking on the icon next to mine, I could view this exact same document at no charge.

Handwritten into the form is the property description. Happily, Indiana uses the Township and Range system.  It looks like a lot of mumbo jumbo, but if you parse it out, you can go look at this property as it appears today on Google Earth. Want to see it, or some property your ancestors owned?

First, have your property description handy. Then go to this site, Earth Point. This is another free site. Down the menu bar on the left, in the section called Township & Range, click on Search by Description. Fill in all the drop-down menu choices there, then click Fly To On Google Earth. (By the way, Google Earth is also free, and can be lots of fun to mess around with.) I'll show you what I got for Edward's land description. First, a general overview showing his 40 acres in purple. The town of French Lick is nearby to get your bearings.

Edward Moore's 40 acres  at T1N R2W Section 14

Now to zoom in a little.

Edward Moore's 40 acres zoomed in

And finally, I wanted to see where this property was in relation to Moore's Ridge Church and Cemetery. I typed "Moores Ridge Cemetery" into Google Earth and got this picture.

Edward Moore's 40 acres relative to Moore's Ridge Cemetery

The property is outlined in purple. The church is the little yellow symbol near the bottom right. You might see the church, and the cemetery stretches out to the east of it. I am related in some way to nearly every person there. Susannah's grandmother is believed to the first person buried there.

Grave of Sarah Barbara Thrush Alspaugh Crout at Moore's Ridge Cemetery

And how did I get these pictures? When you are satisfied with what you have on the screen in Google Earth, go to the File menu, down to Save, then select Save Image. It will put a little .jpg on your computer for you. Tada!

I've spent a lot of time with using the land records here, so let me briefly describe the Moore family when they got this land. Edward was nearly 36, Susannah 34. They had six children living with them on their farm, including Sarah age 14, Barbara age 10, William Bryant age 8 (my ancestor), Martha age 6, Edward age 4, and Clarissa age 1.  They had already buried their firstborn son, John. He had died in 1832 at age 6. I learned from the pension file that they pretty much lived on what the farm produced with little extra to sell, like many families at that time.

More on the family before the war next time.