Insects Impersonating Other Things

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"Thick-headed" fly! Ha ha ha ha ha!

But seriously, I wouldn't call them thick-headed — they are pretty clever. This one knew how to impersonate a wasp well enough to fool me (but not my insect ID app). And they make other insects raise their kids for them.




Here's another clever insect:



The camouflaged looper, the larva of the Wavy-lined Emerald Moth, decorates itself with bits of vegetation so it looks like part of a plant instead of the tasty morsel of protein that it really is.



One of these days, I have to get back to Jeremiah.

Orange-Spotted Pyrausta and Other Excuses

Yes, I've been working on another Jeremiah post, but then I had to do a whole bunch of work outside, which is how I got a crappy phone pic of an Orange-Spotted Pyrausta …


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… also known as the Orange Mint moth, because the larvae feed on plants in the mint family. This tiny moth, maybe 1/3" at its widest, was on some tansy by my garden.

Then I had to clean up some tree limbs knocked down during our latest storm. This dragonfly kept hanging around on the dead limbs:



The insect ID app I was using (PictureInsect) said this was a Ruddy Darter, but when I look those up on the internet, I'm told they live in England, not Indiana. Maybe it's an Autumn Meadowhawk?


Anyway … then the Humane Society of Hobart asked me to take a new foster:



He just had a leg amputated, and he will be recovering from surgery at my house for another 10 days. He's all by himself in the foster room, so I have to spend time with him. And time I spend with Charles is time I can't spend with Jeremiah.

David Fowler, Appraiser

The estate administrator, James H. Cassady, hired David Fowler to appraise the property of the late Jeremiah Wiggins. David spent a day doing so, and earned $2.00 for it (about $70 in today's money).

This document was submitted to the administrator to claim the $2.00, and David also noted above his signature that he received his pay:


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of Alice Flora Smedstad.

My transcription:

James H. Cassady Dr.
To David Fowler

For 1 Day services appraising the property of Jeremiah Wiggins $2.__

October 1st, 1838.
Red [received] pay't
D. Fowler

For some unknown reason, a separate receipt was made out and signed:



Transcription:

Red Nov. 18, 1839
of James H. Cassady, Two dollars [being?] in full for 1 day's services for appraising the Estate of Jeremiah Wiggins deceased

D. Fowler

[illegible]
J.V. Johns

What the elusive J.V. Johns had to do with this, I do not know. It might help if I could read that word above his name.

Here are the two document backs; I'm not entirely sure which goes with which document.






David Fowler was born in 1797, in New York (1850 Census).[1] From information posted by a user on Ancestry.com, I gather that he spent time in Canada and Michigan. In 1836 he came to Lake County (Lake County, 1834-1872 at 38). He was married and had children, but his first wife, Mary, died sometime after 1830.

In mid-January 1840, he bought 80 acres northwest of Merrillville (Early Land Sales, Lake County at 175). Later that month, he married Rebecca Deyo (Indiana Marriage Collection), about whom I haven't been able to find much information.

Around 1850, the Fowler family moved to a farm northeast of Lowell. There David Fowler died in February 1860. According to the 1860 mortality schedule, he died of "gravel" — kidney stones, I suppose, or complications thereof.

He is buried in Lowell Memorial Cemetery. Rebecca Fowler remarried in 1863, to Alvah Brownell.

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[1] Someone has posted to Ancestry.com the image of a petition dated August 1819 in which David Fowler (whose signature resembles the one on our documents) claims to have been born in Canada.

Six Dollars, Twelve and a Half Cents

Here we have Jeremiah Wiggins borrowing a couple hundred dollars (in 2025 terms), about two months before his death:


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of Alice Flora Smedstad.

My transcription:

For Value received I promis to pay A.L. Ball or bearer Six dollars twelve & Half Cents with use on the first day of September next

June 4th 1838

Jere'h Wiggins

That's Jeremiah's signature, but I think the body of the note may have been written by A.L. Ball — note how similarly he writes his name in it, and here on the back of the document where he's signing the receipt for payment from the Wiggins estate:



Transcription:

N 1
Wiggins Estate
Ball's note

Rec'd of the Clerk of the Probate Court the money for the within note. Dec. 2, 1839

A.L. Ball for John Ball


[written upside down]
I assign the with in note to John Ball
October 29th 1838

A.L. Ball

Here is estate's record of the claim for the unpaid note and its payment:



Transcription:

Estate of Jeremiah Wiggins deceased Dr.

To John Ball

For the amount of a note dated June 4th 1838 given to A.L. Ball for Six 12½/100 dollars with interest thereon, assigned by said A.L. Ball to John Ball

Oct. 28th 1838
John Ball

And the back of the document:



A little fast online research tells me that the U.S. minted a half-cent coin from 1793 to 1857.

♦    ♦    ♦
Amzi[1] Lewis Ball (1783-1860) was born and raised in New Jersey. Sometime after his marriage in that state (1806), he moved to New York. It was there that his son, John (1817-1891), was born.

Concerning their time in Lake County, T.H. Ball has this to say:

The name, Amsi L. Ball, occurs quite frequently in the earliest history of Lake county. He was one of the more mature men active and prominent in laying the foundations of civil and social institutions. He came with his son, John Ball, from the State of New York in 1836. To which band of the large family of Balls emigrating from England between 1630 and 1640 he belonged is not known. In March, 1837, an election was held at his house, also at the house of Russell Eddy and at the house of Samuel D. Bryant, at which election, having received seventy-eight votes for county Commissioner, he was elected for three years; but he resigned this office in the summer in order to be a candidate at the August election for Representative to Indianapolis. Lake county voted for him, but Porter county, with which Lake for some years was united in electing a Representative, did not. He gave up a certainty for an uncertainty and so lost both offices. He was rather tall in person, a fluent speaker, a man capable and ambitious. He was, as the political parties of those days were designated, a Democrat, and Solon Robinson, who had been the "Squatter King" of Lake, was a strong Whig. Politically these two, both ambitious men, were not friendly, and each had the credit in those days of defeating to some extent the political aspirations of the other. Amsi L. Ball, while not holding office, continued to be an influential and prominent citizen, but, about 1851 or soon after, he returned to the State of New York after a residence here of about fifteen years. Of his son's sojourn here but little is known. [Lake County Encyclopedia at 107.]

We have already met A.L. Ball as the builder of the first bridge crossing the Deep River at present-day Ainsworth Road.

He may have gone back east a bit earlier than T.H. Ball[2] remembered, as the 1850 Census shows him farming in New Jersey. So does the the 1860 Census, and in September of that year, he died.

John Ball had married Nancy Glover in LaPorte County, Indiana, in 1836 (Indiana Marriage Collection). The 1850 Census shows John, Nancy, and their family farming in Winfield Township. Sometime before about 1855 they moved to Floyd County, Iowa (1860 Census). They remained there through the 1880 Census, then at some time moved to Oregon, where John died in 1891.

_______________
[1] This spelling appears on his grave stone, but his first name is usually spelled "Amsi" in local history books.
[2] I have not discovered any family relation between A.L. and T.H., but I am not a genealogist.