A Tintype Photo Gallery of some Newtown, Indiana Clawsons and their neighbors in Richland Township, Fountain County from the 1860’s
As stated in the introduction page, my grandmother Edna Mae Laird was born Edna Mae Clawson in 1893. Her father was Allen David Clawson, his father was Allen Clawson, his father was Josiah Clawson. Josiah Clawson, along with his wife Sophia, and their eight children - came to Fountain County Indiana ca 1825. Josiah died in 1827 and his widow Sophia died in 1858 - both in Fountain County. In the 1860’s, their sons Allen, Moses, and Josiah lived in Fountain County. Allen and Moses both died in 1872, and Josiah died in 1864. Allen and Moses - along with many of the early Clawsons - are buried in the Old Baptist Cemetery in Richland Township in Fountain County, not far from Newtown. The cemetery sign is shown above.
I managed to obtain a number of tin type photos that include the Clawsons - likely taken in Fountain County Indiana in the 1860’s (Thank you Candy Clawson, who called my attention to these photos and made this all possible!). I authored an article on those photos for the Fountain County (Indiana) Genealogical Society newsletter, which is posted below, which tells the story of those photos and what I know about who is in them. I have given this subject its own website page to be able to provide these photos for any descendants - but as half of the collection are unidentified, also with the hope that by featuring them up front it might lead to someone being able to make an additional identification. This page contains the article below that explains it all, then the photos, and along the way, family group sheets for Moses and Allen Clawson, so you can see who might be potential candidates in the unidentified photos. First, the article . . .
This article above is from the May-June 2017 edition of the Fountain County Genealogical Society newsletter - which details the tintype photos I acquired. The article did include a copy of each photo, but the quality is much better by posting them below in a larger, higher resolution format. So I didn’t include the photos that were with the article, but instead posted them below individually, with a small caption with a comment on each. In case anyone is interested, I also scanned each photo without the “sleeve”, to just capture the image. I have those, but did not post them here.
A tintype photo of Allen Clawson (1816-1872), my great-great grandfather. He has facial features that are reflected in future Clawsons, so this is clearly a member of our family. This photo is the header on the Clawson introductory page.
A tintype photo of Willard Clawson (1858-1875) son of Allen Clawson and Caroline Taylor - brother of my great-grandfather Allen D. Clawson. He died at age sixteen.
Joanna (Bake) Clawson (1817-1861), wife of Moses Clawson - brother of Allen Clawson,. Of the photos included here - Joanna was the photographed person who died at the earliest year. I had thought these photos to be mid-1860’s, but an inclusion of Joanna belies that possibility.
Bake Clawson (1850-1883) was the son of Moses and Joanna Bake Clawson, and was given as his first name the name of his mother’s surname.
Lucretia “Lucrecy” Clawson (1842-1866), was the daughter of Moses and Joanna Bake Clawson. The fact that she died in 1866 is another factor in assessing the dates of these photos.
After the five identified Clawson photos were four other photos with identifications. The photo of Elma Titus is the only one for which I have been unable to find out anything about the photo’s subject.
Henry Slusser (1801-1873) is buried in the Old Baptist Cemetery in Newtown, Indiana - the same cemetery where many Clawsons are buried and the sign for which is posted at the top of this page. In the 1850 and 1860 censuses, he is shown as a farmer in the Newtown area, born in Virginia, with at least eleven children. He left a large estate with son Fielding Slusser as administrator. It is unclear if he had a relationship to the Clawson family.
Huldah Stephens Coon (1820-1873), was born Huldah Stephens and married William Coon. The Stephens family was a large family in the Newtown area, and the Coon family had ties as well - one of the Coon family members married Jonathan Clawson, son of Abraham Clawson - Allen and Moses Clawson’s cousin. Huldah is also buried in Old Baptist Cemetery in Newton - as are the Clawsons and Henry Slusser.
Irwin Beckley (1841-1883) was another resident of the Newtown area, and is shown as buried in Newtown Cemetery, another cemetery in the same general area as where the Clawsons and the others lived.
Of the nineteen tintype photos in this collection - five were identified as Clawson family members, four were identified as other people, with three of the four clearly linked to the Newtown area. And the remaining ten photos carried no identification. The odds are they are from the Newtown area - but unless someone can come forward and identify any of them, they shall be remain of unidentified subjects. This photo of an older woman, is the first of the ten.
The second of the ten unidentified photos is also of an older woman.
The third of the unidentified photos is the third one of an older woman
The fourth of the unidentified photos of of a younger boy.
The fifth of the unidentified photos is of a younger man. Some of these photos were on the backside of another photo - meaning there was an open oval with a different photo on each side. The photo on the other side of this one was the photo of Willard Clawson.
The sixth of the unidentified photos was of a younger woman.
The seventh of the unidentified photos was a young woman also.
The eighth of the unidentified photos was of a woman of an undetermined age. I originally tagged her as another younger woman.
The ninth of the unidentified photos was also of a younger woman.
The tenth and final unidentified photo was of a younger woman.
Family Group Sheets - Allen and Moses Clawson and Their Families
Shown above are nineteen photos. Nine are identified, and five of them are members of the families of Allen Clawson or Moses Clawson. Allen and Moses were brothers, and lived not far from each other in the Newtown area of Richland Township, Fountain County, Indiana. Three of the other four identified photographs were people in the Newtown area, and one was born a Stephens - and it can be seen by the Moses Clawson family group sheet that one of his sons also married a Stephens. This version of the sheets does not list the parents of either Allen or Moses’ wives, but Allen’s wife was Caroline Taylor - and her uncle Charles Taylor and his family lived nearby the Clawsons. In fact, one of the Charles Taylors’ son married a Stephens. Moses wife was Joanna Bake, and one of her sons - for whom there is an identified photo above - was named Bake Clawson after her family surname. And Caroline Taylor had a cousin, a daughter of Charles Taylor, who married Asher Bake, Joanna’s brother. So there was significant intermarriage between the farm families of this area in the period in which these photographs were taken.
I thought it important to post the families of Allen and Moses below, because it is quite possible that some of the ten unidentified photos, are of people from these families. With the ages evident - in relation to the time these photos were taken - it might be concluded who was of the right age to fit one of the unidentified photos. And the sheets also place Allen Clawson, Willard Clawson, Joanna Bake Clawson, Lucretia “Lucrecy” Clawson and Bake Clawson - the five Clawson family members among the identified photos. That also allows the researcher to look at their ages in the family group sheets below, and assess how someone of that age looks in these photos. I am hopeful that all this will spur the possibility of further identification of one of the unidentified photos. Additionally, it is a long shot - but maybe there’s a descendant who recognizes one of the people in the photo because they have photos of them thirty or forty years later and they can see a resemblance.
I will look on the internet in public member trees, and see if I can find additional descendants that might be of help. Any suggestions are welcome, and if anyone has any information to contribute to this effort, they can use the “Contact” page on this website to pass that information along.
