Person Page 7

(Findagrave.com):

Son of Confederate Congressman Watkins Crockett. He was a noted poet and journalist. His works included "A Brother of Christ" a novel about Kentucky Christadelphians(1905); "Beneath Blue Skies And Grey" (1900); A Year Book of Kentucky Woods and Fields" (1901); "The Magic Of The Woods and Other Poems" (1908) and "The Greeting and Goodbye of The Birds" (1912).

In 1794, William Starling removed to Kentucky and settled on a farm near Harrodsburgh, in Mercer County. He had purchased lands before coming there, but lost them through the conflicting and uncertain titles that were characteristic of those days, and which, for many years thereafter, were the source of much trouble and litigation, until the Legislature, by a few general and sweeping acts, quieted the titles and confirmed the possession to the fortunate holders. Mr. Starling, in addition to his large landed interest, was the owner of a great many slaves, and engaged in mercantile pursuits at Harrodsburgh on an extensive scale, having branches of his house in Henderson and Frankfort. He died December 25th, 1826; his wife, Susanna Lyne, died Septemt 7th, 1802. Colonel Starling, as he was called, derived his title from the fact that he was selected Colonel of a temporary regiment, called out when Virginia was threatened with invasion by Benedict Arnold and his command, after his treason, and when he had joined the British army. He represented Mercer County in the Kentucky Legislature, and, according to the document under the seal of the State, was appointed Assistant Judge for his district December 18th, 1806.

At a court 14 March 1782, precincts were designated and it was "ordered that the following gentlemen be appointed to take a list of all males above the age of 21 years and all slaves except those exempt, all cattle, horses and mules, riding carriages, Billiard tables and a list of the ordinary licenses issued by this court, to-wit: James Anderson, Lewis Burwell, Samuel Dedman, Jesse Saunders, Reuben Vaughan, Bennett Goode, William Davis and William STARLING.

ORPHANS OR WARDS LISTED IN THE GUARDIAN BOOK - 1765-1800:

NAME GUARDIAN DATE

WATSON, SUSANNA WILLIAM STARLING 9/8/1794

" , CHARLOTTE " 9/8/1794

" , REBECCA " 9/8/1794.

Presume this was the William Starling "of Stopplesy Hall", based on elimination of the Lord Mayor, Sir Samuel Starling, who had no surviving children according to the diary of Samuel Pepys.

The Stopplesy Hall reference is from "A Genealogy and Family Memorial".

From "History Of Bedfordshire" by Joyce Godber.

"Samuel Starling came from the Luton hamlet of Stopsley. He became a wealthy London brewer and was master of the Brewer's Company in 1661. Perhaps his early years were a struggle, for Pepys thought him ungenerous. After the great fire, when his house was saved, he did give two shillings and six pence among thirty of them, and did quarrel with some that would remove rubbish out of the way of the fire, saying that they came to steal. In 1669 he became Lord Mayor of London, but in the gloomy conditions of the time there was little pagentry for his show."

Obituary -- The Humboldt Republican, Humboldt, Iowa; Friday, 31 OCT 1930, p.1 (Newspapers.com):

SHIRER SERVICES HERE TUESDAY; MT. VERNON WEDNESD'Y

Funeral services for W. W. Shirer, the father of Mrs. T. G. Ferreby, Humboldt, were held at the Duncan funeral home in Humboldt Tuesday afternon at 3 o'clock. The body was shipped over the Northwestern railway Tuesday evening for services in Mt. Vernon Wednesday. Mt. Vernon is the former home of Mr. Shirer.

W. W. Shirer, 84, passed away at the home of his daughter, Mr. T. G. Ferreby, in Humboldt, Monday afternoon after an illness of several weeks. He was born in Herkimer county, New York, March 16, 1846 shortly after his parents arrived in America from south Germany. From New York the family moved to Wisconsin near Milwaukee. Later the family moved to La Porte, where Mr. Shirer was engaged in farming and stock raising. In 1868 he married Caroline Triem.

In 1889 Mr. Shirer moved to Mt. Vernon in order to give his children an opportunity of a college education. Most of the following years were spent there until eight years ago, when he retired from business. Since then Mr. Shirer has made his home in Humboldt most of the time. Mr. Shirer is survived by three children; Lillian, Mrs. T. G. Ferreby, Humboldt; Mabel, Mrs. J. W. (sic) Boyd, Eldora; William G. Glenn Ellyn, Illinois.

Obituary -- (Findagrave.com):

Newspaper Correspondent, Historian and Author. He is best remembered for his books on the rise of Nazi Germany and on World War II in Europe. He spoke French, German, Italian and Spanish fluently. Born in Chicago, Illinois, his father was US Attorney there and a populist in philosophy, which had great influence on young Shirer. When Shirer was nine, his father suddenly died, and the family moved to his maternal grandmother's house in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Lacking much money, he attended Coe College, a small school in Cedar Rapids, graduating in 1925. Shirer then worked his way to Europe on a cattle boat, intending to stay for only the summer, but remained for the next 15 years. In 1925, he found work with the "Chicago Tribune," covering assignments all over Europe, the Near East and India, including his forming a deep friendship with Mohandas Gandhi. Starting in 1933, he covered the growth of the Nazi Party in Germany, including Hitler's peaceful triumphs of the return of the Saarland to Germany and the remilitarization of the Rhineland. In 1937, Edward R. Murrow recruited him to work for CBS Radio, reporting from Vienna. In March 1938, Shirer was first to report on the Austrian Anschluss, scooping all of the rival radio correspondents at the time, and beating Hitler's own announcement of the Anschluss. Shortly afterwards, CBS Radio set up a "European Roundup," a 30 minute broadcast from five European capitals: Berlin, Vienna, Paris, Rome and London, with Shirer anchoring the Berlin position. Shirer reported on the Munich Agreement, Germany's march into Czechoslovakia, the German invasion of Poland, and the start of World War II. In May 1940, he traveled with German troops in the invasion of France, and from Paris, reported the French capitulation on 22 June 1940 to the American public before the Germans or French announced the news. As German press censorship became increasingly more intense, he learned the Gestapo was about to arrest him, and so he escaped from Germany in December 1940. Using his notes that he smuggled out, he wrote "Berlin Diary" (1941), a chilling account of the Nazi rise to power and the start of the war. In 1945, Shirer returned to Germany to report on the Nuremberg War Crimes trials. This assignment resulted in his follow-on book, "End of a Berlin Diary" (1947). In 1947, he left CBS, over disagreement with Murrow on the role of journalism in broadcasting. During the McCarthy years, Shirer found himself blacklisted as "pro-communist" and was unable to find work; he used these years to write "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," (1960), perhaps his best work ever. Shirer's second of three memoirs, "The Nightmare Years, 1930-1940" (1984) gives his first hand account of a correspondent observing the coming World War. Of special note to historians was his excellent account of the fall of France in "The Collapse of the Third Republic" (1969). Near the end of his life, Shirer donated his diaries and notes to his alma mater, Coe College. He had just finished proofreading his last book, "A Native's Return" (1990), about the life of Leo Tolstoy, when he passed away. In his obituary, the "Times of London" perhaps best summed up his life in the statement, "William Shirer belongs to that select group of journalists who successfully made the transition from recording the news to the writing of history."

Bio by: Kit and Morgan Benson.

Author of numerous books, including Berlin Diary and Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

Unlike his counterpart, Ed Murrow, Bill Shirer was born in a large city, Chicago, and was raised for his first nine years in a rather intellectual family. His father had been a U.S. Attorney and was a populist in philosophy. Friends with Clarence Darrow, who was a frequent guest in the Shirer household, Shirer's father was constantly espousing on the likes of John Dewey and Theodore Dreiser. But very quickly, Bill Shirer's world would change. At age nine, his father suddenly died of acute appendicitis and Shirer's mother with little money moved the family to his maternal grandmother's home in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. But because of his previous life in Chicago, Bill Shirer came to dislike the squeaky-clean life he lived in Iowa.

The lack of money only allowed Shirer to attend Coe, a small Presbyterian school in Cedar Rapids. He found it boring, but became the editor of the school's newspaper, which he promptly used as a forum to eschew bourgeois lifestyles. Upon graduation he took off for Europe where he was able to garner a job with the Paris Tribune. His newspaper career was born but Shirer would find himself in and out of work until he met Ed Murrow.

Murrow was trying to establish CBS as a news organization and felt hiring a journalist would add even more credibility to the task. Shirer, out of work at the time, accepted even though he did not feel he had the voice for broadcasting. Paul White, Murrow's boss felt the same way, but Murrow prevailed.

Shirer's work on CBS is a standout. He was able to get to the heart of what was happening to the people of Europe, especially Germany, in light of Hitler's rise. He was able to ferret out a story and reported with not only the people's comments, but with some wit of his own. As Nazi power increased, Shirer was increasingly in danger and had to be careful how he reported the news. Eventually, he had to escape Germany wherein he returned to the USA and began reporting news and commentary on his own news program in New York. He eventually left CBS and broadcast journalism and began working on several books detailing his own experience (Berlin Diary) in Germany. His most famous work was The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich which reports in details how Nazism was able to come to power, and how it ultimately fell from grace.

During the Red Scare (McCarthyism era) William L. Shirer's early anti-bourgeois pronouncements cost him his reputation for many years, as well as his job with CBS. For Bill there were some difficult years when he lectured and wrote books that had modest sales. Then he started work on Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which came out in 1960 (and still sells quite well all over the world). He used to say that if he had not been fired from CBS he would probably never have gone back to his first love - writing. He was very grateful for that firing in the end -- it gave him a much longer career as a writer.

After immigrating, it appears that Thomas settled first in Pennsylvania, where he married Margaret Shaver and his son Samuel was born about 1826, then he settled in Ohio in 1830, where he lived until 1839, then relocated to a farm just west of Mt. Vernon, Linn County, Iowa. Children shown here from the first marriage (except John and James) were listed in the Craig household in the 1850 census. Family tradition says that he had eleven children with his first wife -- ten are documented here.

He left a will -- Source: Probate Case Files, 1840-1924; Author: Iowa. District Court (Linn County); (online via Ancestry.com). Probate Place: Linn, Iowa:\<p\>\</p\>

Will of Thomas Craig -- "In the name of God, amen. I Thomas Craig of the township of Franklin in the county of Linn and State of Iowa of the age of sixty-one years, and being of sound mind, do make, publish, and declare this my last will and testament in manner following that is to say:

First, I give and bequeath to my wife Martha Craig the sum of Seven Hundred Dollars to be expended in the erection of a dwelling house for her.

Second, I give and bequeath to my daughter Jane Craig the sum of Four Hundred Dollars for her kindness to me and her past services in my family and I do hereby direct that the same be paid to her within one year after my decease.

Third, I give and bequeath to my two grandsons, Thomas Craig and Samuel Craig; sons of Samuel Craig deceased, the sum of One Hundred Dollars each and I direct the same to be paid to them respectively when they become twenty-one years of age.

Fourth, I give and bequeath to my grand son George Craig; son of John Craig the sum of One Hundred Dollars and I direct the same to be paid to him when he becomes twenty-one years of age.

Fifth, I give and bequeath to my two grand sons Nathaniel Beechly and Thomas Beechly, sons of Jesse and Harriet Beechly; the sum of One Hundred Dollars each and I direct the same to be paid to them respectively when they become twenty-one years of age.

Sixth, I give and bequeath the rest and remainder of my personal estate to my children Thomas Craig, James Craig, Adam Craig, Jane Craig, Margaret Craig, Martha Craig, Harriet Beechly, and Nancy Ellison to be divided equally between them respectively.

And lastly, I do hereby appoint my son Thomas Craig the executor and my wife Martha Craig the executrix of this my last will and testament.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand this second day of February in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty. { signature of Thomas Craig }

The above instrument consisting of one Sheet, was, at the date thereof, Signed and declared by the Said Thomas Craig, as and for his last will and testament, in presence of us, who, at his request and in his presence have Subscribed our names as witnesses thereto.

{ signature of Henry A. Collins } residing at Mt. Vernon, Linn County

{ signature of James McAlister } Residing at Pioneer Township of Cedar County

{ Linn County seal }."

NOTE: His son John was living at the time this will was written, but John, alone among Thomas' living children, received no bequest. It appears to me that John was already engaged in arranging a relocation of his family to California -- he was not in his household with Frances and the children when the 1860 census was taken in June. I suspect that Thomas disagreed with John's intention to relocate to California, for some reason, and had a dispute about that subject that caused him to exclude John from the will. DLB 2023 \<p\>\</p\>.

Obituary -- Dayton Daily News, Dayton, Ohio, Sunday, 8 APR 2007, p.27 (Newspapers.com):

SEMLER, Melvin

78, passed away April 3, 2007. He was the son of Harry & Leah Semler. He retired from Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. He is survived by his wife, Louise; son and daughter-in-law, Doug & Mary Semler; daughter and son-in-law, Susan & Don Boyd; five granddaughters; Chela Alley, Lauren & Emily Boyd, Angela & Cassidy Semler; great-grandchildren, Jacob & Skylar Alley. A memorial service will be held Monday at 11 a.m at Trinity United Church of Christ, 821 N. Central Avenue, Fairborn. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Community Mercy Hospice, 1343 N. Fountain Blvd., Springfield, OH 45504 or Trinity United Church of Christ. We greatly appreciate all the heartfelt prayers and thoughtfulness extended to our family. Arrangements by MORRIS SONS FUNERAL HOME, 104 W. Main, Fairborn. Condolences can be sent to www.morris-sons.com.