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1. Family Matters
- University of North Texas Press
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1 CHAPTER 1 Family Matters H arvey Alexander Logan was born to William Henry Neville and Eliza Jane (Johnson) Logan in Richland Township, Tama County, Iowa (not Rowan County, Kentucky, as written by some) in 1867, according to 1870 U.S. census records.1 The Logan ancestors have been traced back to Har vey’s great-grandparents James and Caroline Elizabeth Logan. James Logan was born in 1767 in Lewis County, Kentucky, and died in the same county in 1838. 2 Logan descendents had been living in Fleming County, Kentucky, as early as 1795, and that is w here Harvey’s grandparents, William Logan and Elizabeth Ray Powers, were married on August 24, 1815. Elizabeth w as born to Jacob P owers and Ann (Shelton) Crosthwait on May 7, 1798.3 The Fleming County census record of 1850 shows William to have been born in 1792 in Pennsylvania . Harvey’s father and mother were both born and raised in Fleming County, Kentucky, in the vicinity of Morehead. William Henry Neville Logan was born in 1834 and Eliza Jane Johnson in 1838. They were married on October 5, 1856, being twenty-two and eighteen years of age respectively. Eliza Jane was the daughter of Zachariah R. Johnson and Delilah Evans.4 According to one writer/researcher, Harvey’s dark skin coloring can be attributed to his Grandmother Delilah’ s Welsh descent. This trait was not owing to an infusion of Cherokee Indian blood as has been so often stated by contemporaries of Harvey and later historians.5 Harvey had four brothers and a sister. The oldest brother, James William , was born in 1860, the onl y Logan child born in Rowan County, Kentucky. (The area in Fleming County in w hich the family lived, was changed to Rowan County that same year.) The family relocated to Richland Township, Tama County, Iowa, in late 1860. The next son, Denver Henry “Hank,” was born here in 1862, as well as Harvey Alexander in 1867, John A. in 1870, Loranzo Do w “Lonie” in 1872, and a sister 2 Chapter 1 Arda Alma “Allie” in 1868.6 There has been some confusion concerning Loranzo’s family nickname. Variations including “Lonnie,” “Lonny,” or “Louis,” are not cor rect. In the Chouteau County , Montana, elections registrar of 1894, he gives his name and spelling as “Lonie,” and stated his birthplace as Tama, Iowa.7 Sometime after Lonie’s birth in 1872, the family moved to a farm in Gentry County, Missouri, possib ly near Gentr yville. The father, William , disappears from the scant records during this period , which could account for some histories stating that he had died. Ho wever, according to Logan family history, the father and the oldest son James were known to leave for long periods of time, and do carpentry or other construction work.8 He was not divorced by Eliza, and neither one mar ried again, contrary to what has been written.9 Family members believe Eliza died in childbirth in 1876, necessitating the children’s move to Dodson, Missouri , to live on the small farm of their aunt and uncle, Elizabeth and Hiram Lee.10 It is not certain how the Logan children managed to travel to Dodson, since there is no record of their father accompanying them.11 It has been said that he may have abandoned his family, except for James, sometime before Eliza died. A check of the 1880 Missouri state census records by one author indicates father and son were in the Gentry County jail in Albany, for committing an unspecified crime.12 Elizabeth (Logan) Lee w as born in Fleming County , Kentucky, on September 26, 1828. Hiram Lee, also of Fleming County , was born in the year 1825, marrying Elizabeth there on October 7, 1849. The couple moved to Kansas in the f all of 1859, mo ving again in 1864 to Dodson, Missouri, now part of Kansas City.13 At that time Dodson was a small village situated just outside the southern limit of Kansas City. They lived in a two-story frame house that sat on a small hill betw een Dodson Road (present 86th Street) and Troost Avenue. Hiram was an invalid who had been injured either through some kind of accident, or possib ly from Civil War wounds as a result of fi ghting for the Confederacy. Every day during the summer months he could be seen in his rocking chair on the front porch.14 The Lees had eight children...