"Killed By a Fall from a Wagon"

Another entry from the Jeremiah Wiggins estate papers. (We are close to the finish line.)


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

My transcription:

State of Indiana    Lake County
Received of Henry Miller a Noat of two Dollars and fifty Cts payable to mr. Sherman

May the 28 — 1838
        Jere'h Wiggins

The notes on the back establish that Mr. Sherman's first name was William:



I'm not sure I understand how this transaction came about — maybe something like this: Jeremiah owed Henry Miller money but didn't have cash on hand, so he undertook Henry's obligation to pay off a note to William Sherman when it came due. Two and a half months later, Jeremiah was dead and the note hadn't been paid off. Of course, William wanted his money.


William Sherman settled in Lake County in 1837.[1] Various family trees on Ancestry.com say he was born in New Hampshire in 1784 (although I haven't yet found one that cites a source for that). According to T.H. Ball, William married Calista (more usually spelled Celista) Smith in 1807 in New York.[2]

The 1840 Census records William and (probably) Celista, with six other people in the household — their children, I would guess. T.H. Ball said that William was the father of 13 children in total,[3] but some may have been out of the house already, and some yet to enter it.

Tragedy struck in 1843. T.H. Ball quotes, from an unnamed diary, an entry for September 16, 1843: "This morning Mr. Sherman was found dead, killed by a fall from a wagon."[4] He was presumed to have died the previous day, according to his grave marker.

Celista never remarried. She died October 1, 1884 at nearly 96 years of age.


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Untitled social column, Crown Point Register, 2 Oct. 1884, p. 3

James Luther was her son-in-law, the widower of her daughter, also named Celista, who had died in 1881:


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Crown Point Register, 8 Dec. 1881.

I believe the "old Sherman farm" may have been the southwest quarter of Section 21 (east of Grant Street, south of 129th), which William Sherman bought (160 acres) per Early Land Sales, Lake County (although the sale was dated December 1843, and there was a William Sherman, Jr.).

The younger Celista's obituary gives the impression (doesn't it?) that her parents, native New Englanders, made a detour through Canada before coming to Lake County.

Writing in 1904, T.H. Ball noted that "the living descendants of these Lake county Shermans numbered, a few years ago, fifty-two."[5] I shall not try to account for that many people.

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The other party to this transaction, Henry Miller, is just a brief blip on the radar. He gets this one mention in T.H. Ball's discussion of the Squatters' Union (quoting I think, from the Union's records):

"1837, March 16. This day an arbitration was held between Denton and Henry Miller and John Reed, who had gone on to Millers' claim and built a cabin, and the Arbitrators decide that Reed shall give up the cabin to Millers, and pay the costs of this arbitration, but that Millers shall pay Reed seventeen dollars for the cabin which he has built."[6]

Then he disappears.

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[1] Lake County 1834-1872 at 56.
[2] Lake County Encyclopedia at 97.
[3] Lake County Encyclopedia at 97).
[4] Lake County 1834-1872 at 89.
[5] Lake County Encyclopedia at 97.
[6] Lake County 1834-1872 at 49.