FRANKLIN CUMMINGS, son of Cyrus Cummings and Elizabeth Curtis
Franklin Cummings was born on 18 September 1823 in West Cumberland, Maine. [1] He died on 12 August 1874, age 51 years and 11 months, and is buried in the Old City Cemetery in Brownsville, Texas. [2] He married Ann Mildred Jones on 2 April 1850 in Montgomery County, Maryland. [1]
Franklin was a graduate of Wesleyan University, receiving an LL.B. degree [3]
Franklin and Ann moved to Brownsville in 1850. It is said that they came because Franklin believed the community had the potential to become a deep-sea port. [4]
An attorney, Franklin became a partner of the prominent Brownsville attorney Stephen Powers. [4] Franklin was appointed postmaster of Brownsville on 4 August 1851 and 24 June 1865. [5]
Franklin was a mayor of Brownsville. He helped construct the first Episcopalian church. [4]
In 1860 Franklin and Ann were living in Brownsville with their children J.F., age nine, E.A., age five, W.E., age two and C.E., age three months, all born in Texas. Their household also included 19-year-old Mary Taylor and a servant. Franklin was a lawyer with real estate worth 10,000 dollars and a personal estate of 6,0000 dollars. [6]
Franklin was a unionist sympathizer. He was compelled to take an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy and felt he had to leave Brownsville because of his opinions. In November 1863 he went to Matamoros for five or six weeks. He returned to Brownsville in December and remained until July 1864. He then departed for New York and Maryland and did not return until 1865. The only office he held under the Confederacy was that of alderman of Brownsville. He was captain of what was called the home guard, but he said his duties were of a police character. [7]
After the war Franklin unsuccessfully petitioned for damages: the U.S. Army had cut down the palmetto trees on a large tract of land that he owned. Some of the land was held in trust for his daughter Mary Margaret. [7]
Franklin was a federal judge in Brownsville in 1866—when he sentenced three cortinistas to hang. [8]
President Andrew Johnson nominated Franklin Cummings to be collector of customs for the district of Brazos de Santiago in Texas on 6 February 1866, but withdrew the nomination on 21 May 1866. Franklin was acting collector in 1867. [9][10]
In 1870 Franklin and Ann were living in Brownsville with their children Joseph, age 19, Lizzie, age 16, Willie, age 12, Charles, age ten, Mary, age eight, and John, age five, and a servant. Franklin was a lawyer with real estate worth 10,000 dollars and a personal estate of 2,000 dollars. [11]
The Texas senate declined to advise and consent to the appointment of Franklin Cummings to the office of the judge of the 32nd judicial district on 17 May 1871. [12]
Franklin, sound of mind but ill in body, dictated his will on 19 June 1872. He bequeathed all of his goods to his wife Ann Mildred Cummings nee Jones to dispose of as she wished. He made the following requests. His son Joseph Franklin was to get nothing as he had already recieved what he was entitled to. His daughter Mary Margaret was to have his gold chronometer watch. His son John Augustus was to get 1,000 dollars. His son Charles Ernest was to have his favorite walking stick and 1,000 acres in the Espiritu Santo grant. His daughter Elizabeth Ellen [!] was to have all of his jewellery. His son William Edward Cummings was to have all of the law books, stationary and furniture in his office, "hoping that he will make better use of it than his father did." His wife was to be the sole executrix and she testified on 8 September 1874. [13]
"Aug. 12, 1874. Judge Franklin Cummings, a prominent citizen and lawyer of this place, died this morning at two o'clock, of consumption. He was formerly a resident of your city." [14]
Ann Mildred's journal of her family's trip home in 1865.
Children of Franklin Cummings and Ann Mildred Jones
1. Joseph Franklin Cummings was born on 16 July 1851 in Brownsville. [1][15] He died on 30 March 1912 in Washington, D.C. and is buried in the Monocacy Cemetery in Beallsville, Maryland. [3][15] He married Catherine ("Katie") Garriga in September 1896. Katie was born on 2 September 1889 and was buried on 23 September 1901 in the Old City Cemetery in Brownsville. [16] She was the sister of Mariano Simon Garriga, the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Corpus Christi. [3]
Photo: Joseph Franklin Cummings
Joseph's father wrote to his mother on the day of Joseph's birth, [17]
I have the happiness of informing you that we have a little boy [Joseph Franklin Cummings]. He was born this morning at precisely six o'clock. Ann says that he ... . She can't tell whether he is pretty or not — but he is a fine boy anyway. Ann is doing very well and has had excellent health all the time. She has kind friends and neighbors with her and is in every respect comfortable. And now as I shall have to tend the baby I shall not have so much time to write to the ... as often as formerly and as I have been so punctual up to this time I know you will excuse me.
On 8 October of that year Ann wrote to her mother [17]
You congratulate me on my fine son and well you may — he is a nice little boy I can tell you, so quiet and pretty too I think. I can't tell who he resembles, but you could if you could see him I expect, you are so surprised at my calling him Frank, but don't you know I have Joseph before it after my dear Father [Lieutenant Joseph James Wilkerson Jones].
Joseph attended Wesleyan University in Connecticut. [4] He entered West Point on 1 July 1871 and graduated on 14 June 1876. [18] He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Tenth Cavalry on 15 June 1876 and was transferred to the Third Cavalry on 28 July 1876. [19] He served on frontier duty in Wyoming, Nebraska, Dakota and Arizona until 1884. [18] He and 61 members of Company C of the Third Cavalry arrived in Deadwood on 20 February 1877. Over the next several weeks, the B, C and L companies of the Third Cavalry skirmished with Indians along False Bottom and Crow Creeks. [18][20] Joseph participated in the capture of the Indians' village on 23 February 1877. [18] Later that year he participated in the capture and death of Chief Crazy Horse. [18] Joseph was interrim commander of Fort Robinson in Nebraska from 12 to 28 January 1880. [18] He was promoted to first lieutenant on 30 January 1881. [19] He was dismissed from the army on 15 February 1884 for financial irregularities. [18][19]
Joseph was in Mexico from 1884 to 1886. [18] He was superintendant of the public schools in Brownsville from 1888 to 1889. [18][21] He was the captain of Company A, First Regiment of the Texas Volunteer Guards in 1888 and resigned in July of that year. [18] He was captain of company C, First Regiment of the Brownsville Rifles, Texas Volunteer Guards until the company was disbanded in 1890. [18]
In 1900 Joseph F. Cummings, age 48, and Katie Cummings, age 20, were living in Brownsville with their two-year-old son Franklin and Katie's 17-year-old sister Elizabeth Garriga. They had been married three years. Joseph was a customs inspector. [22]
Joseph resigned as customs inspector in August 1900. [23] He was proprietor and editor of The Border News in Brownsville until 1902. [23] He was the purser of the steamship Manteo, employed in the gulf trade until November 1902. [23] He was a civil engineer assisting in the building of the Galveston seawall from November 1902 to November 1903. [23] He was principal of a school in Galveston from November 1903 to June 1904. [23] He was employed by the U.S. Engineer Department in Pittsburgh until 1906. [23] He was later principal of public schools in Greenbackville, Virgina and taught school in Tappahannock, Virginia. [18][23] He bought the Plaza Hotel in Washington, DC and managed it until his death, which occurred as a result of an operation for stomach cancer. [18]
Katie's obituary says that she was in bad health for years and died at age 22, leaving her husband J.F. and a three-year-old son. [16]
Children of Joseph Cummings and Katie Garriga:
i. Franklin Cummings was born on 30 June 1897 in Brownsville. He used the pseudonym "Johnnie." He attended the Central High School in Washington, DC and University of California, Berkeley. [24] He was later a school teacher.
Franklin wrote books of humorous verse:
Johnnie's Letters Home: The Record of a College Freshman, Berkeley, CA, Lederer, Street & Zeus Co., 1918.
Johnnie's War Diary: Being the Adventures of a Cavalry Trooper, Berkeley, CA, Lederer, Street & Zeus Co., 1918.
2. Cyrus Cummings was born on 23 July 1853 in Brownsville. [1] He died before 4 December 1853, when Ann Mildred mentioned his death in a letter to her mother. [17]
2. Eliazabeth Ann Cummings was born on 24 September 1854 in Brownsville.[1][25] She died on 13 November 1890 and was buried in the Old City Cemetery in Brownsville. [25] She married Thomas Benjamin Russell. Thomas, the son of William Jarvis Russell and Eleanor Heady, was born on 31 June 1850. He died on 26 September 1929 and was buried in the Old City Cemetery. [26]
Thomas was an insurance agent. [26]
3. William Edwards Cummings was born on 3 March 1858 in Brownsville. [1] He died on 15 July 1882, aged 24 years and four months, in Laredo Texas and is buried in the Old City Cemetery. [27] He married Ada Maria Gomila on 3 July 1880. [28] Ada was the daugher of M.J. Gomilla, president of Morgan Shipping Lines in Brownsville. [29]
Leonard Haynes, the son of Colonel John Haynes, collector of the port of Brownsville, shot William in the heart in revenge for William's alleged seduction of his sister, a girl of about 14. [30]
William was a U.S. District Attorney. [29]
Children of William Edwards Cummings:
i. Joseph G. Cummings, the son of William E. Cummings, was born on 2 January 1882 in Brownsville, Texas. He died at age 51. [29] He married Dorothy Elizabeth Freitag at age 23. Joseph was a radio announcer for Station WOAI. He was a director of the National Association of Broadcasters and an executive of the Southern Equipment Company. [29]
Photograph: William Edwards Cumming
4. Charles Ernest Cummings was born on 30 March 1860 in Brownsville. [1] He died on 13 January 1933 in San Antonio and is buried in the Mission Burial Park South in San Antonio. [31][32] He married Vola Deventa Ruff on 6 March 1890 in the Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church in Mexico City. [31] Vola, the daughter of George and Mary Elizabeth (Taylor) Ruff, was born on 12 July 1874 in Woodberry, Maryland. She was baptised at home on 13 September 1874. She died on 3 May 1967 in Mexico City.
Obituary - San Antonio Express News 15 January 1933
Funeral services for Charles Ernest Cummings, 72, former general manager of International Telegraph and Telephone Corporation in Mexico City, who died in his home in San Antonio Friday, will be held Sunday afternoon in the chapel of the Porter Loring Undertaking Company. Rev. H.R. Watts, Pastor of the Laurel Heights Methodist Church will officiate.
Cummings was born in Brownsville, but went to Mexico when he was 21 years of age and had lived there from that time until his retirement a few years ago.
From the joint office of the Western Union and Mexican Telegraph Companies in Brownsville, he rose to the head of all the American cable interests in Mexico. ...
Cummings is survived by his widow Mrs. Vola Ruff Cummings, three sons: Ernest F. Cummings, who resides in South America; J.E. Cummings of Tampico Mexico; and Charles A. Cummings of Mexico City, and four daughters-Mrs. Consuelo Hope, San Antonio; Mrs. Marjory Moss, Mexico City;, Mrs. Vola Elizabeth Hollis, Biloxi Miss; and Mrs. Alice Loeb, New York City.
Children of Charles Ernest Cummings, all born in Mexico City. Births recorded in [31]
i. Ernest Franklin Cummings was born on 25 March 1891. He died on 15 November 1951 in Plainfield, New Jersey. [31] He married first Helen Anita Moore on 6 March 1913 in Mexico City. [31] They divorced on 11 November 1921 in Mexico City. [31] She married second a man named Petzelt who adopted her children. [31] Ernest married second Fern Brown. [31] They had no children. [31]
ii. Mamie Mildred Cummings was born on 27 October 1892. She died on 25 November 1967 in Mexico City. [31] She married Duval Fletcher Moss on 13 October 1913 in Mexico City. [31] He was born in 1889 and died in 1961. [31]
iii. Joseph Edward Cummings was born on 4 January 1895. He married late in life and quickly divorced. [31]
iv. Vola Elizabeth Cummings was born on 4 April 1897. She married Dr. Daniel Hollis on 12 June 1923 in Mexico City. [31]
v. Charles Alwin Cummings was born on 12 June 1899. He died on 19 December 1961 in Mexico City. [31] He married Julia Avila in 1933 or 1934 in Mexico City. [31]
vi. Consuelo Cummings was born on 7 October 1902. She died on 4 February 1959 in San Antonio. [31] She married Alvin Chapel Hope on 19 February 1925 in Mexico City. [31]
vii. Alice Cummings was born on 26 May 1905. She died on 29 September 1977 in Bradenton, Florida. [31] She married Paul I. Loeb on 9 January 1923 in Mexico City. [31] He married second the widow Dorothy Catlin Peterson on 24 June 1978 in Sun City, Florida.
5. Mary Margaret Cummings was born on 18 August 1862 in in Matamoros, Taulipas, Mexico. She died on 21 May 1915 in San Francisco. She married Major General William Luther Sibert.
6. John Augustus Cummings was born on 15 August 1865 in Montgomery County, Maryland. [1] He died on 9 January 1890, aged 24 years and five months, in Galveston and is buried in the Old City Cemetery. [33] He never married. [1]
References
1. Mrs. Edward M. Feeney, family sheet for Franklin, Cummings, citing the Cummings family bible and family information.
2. "Franklin Cummings," webpage, Findagrave, no. 32477944. Inscription: "In memory of Franklin Cummings a native of Portland Maine, died Aug. 12, 1874 aged 51 yrs & 11 mos."
3. Eleanor Russell Rentfro, "Cummings, Franklin," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fcu10).
4. Carl S. Chilton, "Brownsville Schools Make Progress in the 1800s," Brownsville Herald, 21 July 2013, 30.
5. "U.S., Appointments of U.S. Postmasters, 1832–1971," dataset with images, Ancestry > TX > Anderson–Cass, image 580.
6. "1860 United States Federal Census," database with images, Ancestry > TX > Cameron > Brownsville Ward 1, image 5.
7. "U.S. Southern Claims Commission, Disallowed and Barred Claims, 1871–1880," dataset with images, Ancestry > C, images 11,876–11,906.
8. Jerry Thompson, Defending the Mexican Name in Texas (College Station: Texas A&M, 2007), 172.
9. U.S. Senate, Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States of America, vol. 14, part 2 (n.p.: Johnson Reprint Co., 1969), 726, 827.
10. U.S. House of Representatives, Index to the Executive Documents of the House of Representatives (Washinton, D.C.: Government Printing Office), 178.
11. "1870 United States Federal Census," database with images, Ancestry > TX > Cameron > Brownsville, image 39.
12. Texas State Senate, Senate Journal of the Twelfth Legislature of the State of Texas (Austin: J.G. Tracy, 1871), 1124.
13. "Texas Wills and Probate Records, 1833–1974," database with images, Ancestry > Cameron > Probate Minutes, Vol. C–E, 1859–1880, images 441–2.
14. "From Brownsville," The Galveston Daily News, Houston, TX, Tuesday, August 11, 1874; Issue 186; col I.
15. "Capt. Joseph Franklin Cummings," webpage, Findagrave, no. 64403321. Birth and death dates in inscription on the gravestone. Photograph posted by Glen Wallace. Transcript of letter announcing Joseph's birth.
16. "Catherine Garriga Cummings," webpage, Findagrave, no. 62804558. Birth and death dates in inscription on the gravestone. Obituary from the Brownsville Daily Herald, 24 September 1909.
17. Letters, author's copies.
18. Article: Association of the Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy, Fifteenth Annual Report (Saginaw, MI: Seemann & Peters, 1919), 38.
19. Francis B. Heitman, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army, 1789-1903. Vol. 1, part 2. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1903, 344.
20. Thomas R. Buecker, Fort Robinson and the American West, 1874–1899, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1999, 90–91.
21. Thomas William Herringshaw, Herringshaw's Encyclopedia of American Biography of the Nineteenth Century, Chicago, IL, American Publishers Association, 1902.
22. "1900 United States Federal Census," database with images, Ancestry > TX > Cameron > Brownsville Ward 2 > district 17, image 39.
23. George W. Cullom, Officers and Graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in New York, since its establishment in 1802, Supplement, Vol. 5, Saginaw, MI, Seeman and Peters, 1910, 250.
24. "California Biographical Index Cards, 1781–1900," database with images, Ancestry > Brook–E, image 1709, citing Biographical Card Index (Sacremento: California State Library).
25. "Elizabeth Ann Cummings Russell," webpage, Findagrave, no. 324777932. Birth and death dates in inscription on the gravestone.
26. "Thomas Benjamin Russell," webpage, Findagrave, no. 32477920. Birth and death dates in inscription on the gravestone. Image of death certificate.
27. "William Edward Cummings, webpage, Findagrave, no. 36978507. Inscription on gravestone: "William Edward son of Franklin and Ann M. Cummings died in Laredo, Tex. July 15, 1882 aged 24 yrs & 4 mos." Photo, obtituary.
28. George Mooar, The Cummings Memorial: A Genealogical History of the Descendants of Isaac Cummings, an Early settler of Topsfield, Massachusetts, New York, B.F. Cummings, 1903, 440.
29. "Joseph Cummings Dies in Home," San Antonio Express, author's copy of an undated newspaper clipping.
30. "The District Attorney Shot and Killed — Jury Discharged," Galveston Daily News, July 16, 1882, 1, col F. "Laredo Sequel to the Late Tragedy—the Corner’s Inquest—the Funeral—Retrospective," Galveston Daily News, July 18, 1882, 1, col G.
31. Mrs. Edward M. Feeney, family sheet for Charles Ernest Cummings, citing bible records, family information, obituaries and the records of the Woodberry Methodist church in Woodberry, Maryland.
32. "Charles Ernest Cummings," webpage, Findagrave, no. 52729811. Birth and death years in inscription on the gravestone.
33. "John Augustus Cummings," webpage, Findagrave, no. 36978704. Inscription: "John Augustus son of Franklin & Ann Cummings. Died in Galveston Jan. 9, 1890 aged 24 yrs & 5 mos."
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last revised 25-May-2020