Posted on 01/27/2015 7:40:15 PM PST by iowamark
RALEIGH, N.C. Luke Martin Jr., whose father was an ex-slave and Civil War Union soldier, has died 179 years after his father was born.
Martin was 97 when he died Sunday at his home in New Bern, North Carolina..
..lived in the house where he was born a house his father built in the 1890s.
Martin had little memory of his father, Luke Martin Sr., who died at age 84 in 1920 when the son was just a few years old, according to Martin-Williams. The elder Martin, who was born in 1836, was married twice, the second time to a much younger woman.
According to multiple historical references, Luke Martin Sr. was enslaved at a plantation near Plymouth, North Carolina, but escaped and became a member of the 1st North Carolina Colored Volunteers, later called the 35th U.S. Colored Troops. The U.S. Colored Troops were established in 1863 and by the end of the Civil War, black soldiers comprised 10 percent of the Union Army.
Martin, a member of Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, also attended the 2013 unveiling of a historical marker at New Bern Academy that honors his father's regiment. The group's website said in announcing his membership last year that he was one of an estimated nine first-generation sons of Civil War veterans. One other man on that list died earlier in January.
All the recognition pleased her father, Martin-Williams said. "He was glad that he lived long enough to be recognized," she said.
In June, the Martin family loaned the elder Martin's Springfield rifle and a German-made Confederate sword to the state for one year. The items were part of a tour that also included North Carolina's original copy of the 13th Amendment.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
I think they showed a picture of him in his casket in the newspaper. He was in uniform and had a white beard.
I saw that recently rerun on Youtube also.
:) Something to aim for. :)
Actually two grandsons of John Tyler are still living.
We came close to moving to Alpharetta, GA 15 years ago. We commented to our realtor that the little downtown area didn’t have much to it. She mentioned that was a result of “the war.”
I paused and wondered what the Vietnam war had to do with them having a small village area. Then I wondered Korean War? Nope. WW II? WW I? Nope.
After a little while, it sunk in tha I was in a different world.
To wit...you got "asked" alot (it really wasn't a question but a statement...) "...you're not from around here, are ya...?"
My Northeasterness still manifests despite the fact that we have not lived north since 1983. Have I mentioned lately that I love living in the South!?
American history is littered with such people. We have a wonderful heritage that is slowly being torn asunder. I don’t understand why so few seem to notice or care.
John Wayne was also the son of a Civil War veteran
Because they are totally ignorant.
What's that?
A solid history series on AHC about the revolution and many of the little known patriots of the American revolution.
http://www.ahctv.com/tv-shows/the-american-revolution/
Keep On Trucking, dalereed!
My Grandmother died at the age of 94, always hoping to get to 100.
Her second husband was born into a plantation in SC, which had slaves. When he was a little tiny thing, he’d go missing and they’d find him in the slaves’ quarters, tucked-up and enjoying chitlins with them. (He loved chitlins all of his life.)
He had wanted to go into the US military, as a young man; but his father was so bitter about ‘The War’, that he forbade it. So, the son became a lawyer; and after his father died, he joined the military. Nobody that I know of in my family, had left Virginia since the 1600s, until this good man married my Granny, and brought her to DC, where he worked for the War Department.
When you know something about your ancestors - little, everyday things about them - and you can touch back through only one or two people over more than a century, History really comes alive for you.
=JT
Indeed. Across the panoply.
May God Bless....
You discover the strangest things when looking around in family history. I knew that I had possible family in VA, told to me by a Prof at UA, who looked remarkably like my Uncle Alma.
I started some research out of boredom and found that a branch of my family settled in Christ Church in 1636. That was a surprise, seems that there at a lot more Little Bills out there than I though.
http://www.alaskacoinexchange.com/Stamps%2010/10c%20Salem%20Poor.jpg
One DOES discover strange things!
There has always been a legend in our family that we had some level of Native American blood. Our heritage, from my paternal Grandmother’s side, has been very well documented by my genealogist Aunt, way back to England, and to the house of Plantagenet.
But we don’t know much at all about that Granny’s own paternal side - her father was an Irish orphan in Virginia.
I don’t know if the native “legend” developed because, at a certain point, some of the FFVs thought it a proud thing to claim Indian blood; or if someone, at some point, KNEW something - and it came down as oral tradition.
But I was shown some pictures of ancestors, and I know what my Granny looked like...and it does make one wonder.
It never really hit me though, until an African American man in my apt. building looked at me curiously, and asked me if I had Native American blood.
I’ll never know; back in the long-ago day, a lot of men ‘went native’, and anything could have happened.
Another story my Grandmother told me: in her mother’s house, there was a chest or “dresser”, with a drawer that was locked, and nobody could find the key.
Something ‘rattled’ in that drawer, when lower drawers were opened; but nobody ever found out what it was, because they never broke into that drawer. (I would have taken some tools to it, to find out what the damn rattle was! but they never did.)
So, we’ll never know what was in that drawer.
(One last thought: Genealogy is very interesting, if it gives you an interest in history; but it is only as accurate as the women were honest! ;-)
- JT (who is absolutely NOT Elizabeth Warren :-)
Where did you find these images? Do you know if they are public Domain?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.