Family Trivia and the Death of Stilwell Trueax

In the prior posting, I reported on the information about Stilwell and his household in the 1880 U.S. Census. Interestingly, this is the source of a peice of Carson family trivia. If you look at the original census sheet that includes Stilwell's household, you would find that the enumerator of that portion of the census was Stilwell's son-in-law, John K Carson. John was the grandfather of Chester Carson.

I once thought that this fact might help us to track down the parents of John K Carson. Surely the U.S. Government would keep employment records on their enumerators, I naively thought. After sending off a series of letters, the final conclusion was that no, they do not hold those records. So, for now, John's parents remain a mystery. Not so for Stilwell.

But, before we begin a discussion of Stilwell's parents, we need to close our chapter on Stilwell himself. He passed away on December 26, 1885 in Pigeon Cove, Bedford County, Pennsylvania. He was buried in the Bethel Cemetery, near Warfordsburg, Fulton County, Pennsylvania. As alluded to in the posting on the death of Stilwell's wife, Rachel, the Bethel Cemetery is sometimes called the Bethel Mennonite Cemetery, depending on the demonination controlling the church at the time of the writing.