Black & Blue - Colorful Clayton Connections.
Teresa Martin Klaiber, Dec. 2019
From an early age I
remember being told I looked tired because I had circles under my eyes. By the time I graduated high school my eyes
looked like I might have been punched. Physicians
said it was allergies, I did not drink enough and was dehydrated, and needed
more rest, a heart valve issue (discovered at age 40). Makeup nor the photographers touch up hide or
mask “the circles” in my high school graduation picture. Even with age and glasses, the dark area cannot
be hidden.
Teresa Lynn Martin 1967
I visited Bernice Graham,
in Marietta, Ohio in the early 1980’s. She immediately commented that I had
eyes like Isaac Calvin Clayton. I nodded,
thinking she was talking about the hazel color, as she pulled out the book, she
had written[i], turning to the page with
a picture of Isaac. My mouth probably
fell open because she was not referencing the color of my eyes. She was in fact
referencing the deep coloration around my eyes.
Even in a black and white picture of my 2nd great
grandfather, you could distinctly see the darkness.
Isaac Calvin Clayton
It would be a few more years before my
allergist would admit that genetics probably played a role, after all I still
like to sleep for up to 12 hours a night. And while genetics play a role,
predisposition such as thyroid disease can also play a role.
Isaac Calvin Clayton[ii], [Alexander, John,
Thomas, Thomas, Zebulon, John, Edmund, Henry] was born 17 April 1843 in
Bartlett, Wesley Township, Washington County, Ohio, son of Alexander and Hannah
W. Collins Clayton.
As a child I would visit
Greenlawn Cemetery in Portsmouth, Ohio with my sweet, tiny, great aunt Eva
Clayton Scott. “Aunt Eva” was the sister of my great grandmother, Dessie, who
died prior to my birth. She made her
home with my grandmother, Katherine Halderman Feyler, since both were
widowed. As you enter the cemetery you are greeted with
a beautiful Civil War Monument circled by those who served. Isaac Calvin Clayton’s military stone faces
the entrance and is one of the first stones you see within Soldier’s Circle.
On May 2 1864 Isaac
enlisted as a private in Company D of the 148th Regiment Ohio
Volunteer Infantry at Plymouth, Ohio[iii]. His description was duly noted on the record
with blue eyes, brown hair, fair complexion and 5 feet 10 ½ inches tall. There is no mention of the circles around his
eyes.
He was mustered in the 17th
of May at Marietta for 100 days. The
Regiment was organized as an Ohio National Guard Unit. On May 23rd
the Regiment boarded a Marietta & Cincinnati train headed for Harper’s
Ferry. Shortly after leaving Marietta
the train was involved in an accident.
Three men were killed and three seriously injured. The Regiment, with Isaac, proceeded to
Harper’s Ferry where it remained a short time before moving to Washington,
D.C. By June 12 they were at Bermuda
Hundred. The following day they were in
General Butler’s entrenchment at the front.
Isaac was among seven
companies under Lt. Colonel Kinkead that left Bermuda Hundred for City Point on
16 June 1864. On the ninth of August Joseph
Smith of Company D, S. E. Graham of Company H and another man in company A were
killed by an explosion of an ordinance boat.
Sometime between May 2 and June 30 Isaac reported sick. The total loss of the Regiment was forty,
many due to illness. On the twenty-ninth
of August the 148th left City Point for a return trip to
Marietta. They arrived in Marietta on
September 5. On the thirteenth a public
dinner was given the Regiment by the citizens of the County. Isaac mustered out the following day. He received his honorable discharge 15
December 1864 signed by Abraham Lincoln, as President, and Edwin Stanton,
Secretary of War[iv]. His discharge is in possession of descendent,
Kacey Cavanagh Coleman.[v]
Four months later, Isaac
married Anna Jane Graham 24 January 1865 in Bartlett, Wesley Township,
Washington County, Ohio[vi]. Their first child, our ancestor, Dessie Mae
Clayton was born 15 July 1865 in Bartlett[vii].
In early 1883 Isaac got a
job with Drew Selby & Company in Portsmouth, Ohio. By Fall of 1883 Isaac was able to move the
family to Portsmouth permanently. He
went to work at Drew, Selby and Company shoe factory where Jesse Mains Graham[viii] was already employed.
Portsmouth flooded in
February 1884. The Ohio rose an average
of a foot per hour. Flooding began the 8th
and reached its height February 12th. People were driven from their homes. Family stories passed down say that during
the flood Isaac bruised his hand while repairing a boat.
A callous was worn in the
center of his hand. While driving a
stake at his residence, on Third Street, in April 1884, he bruised the hardened
flesh, of the callous, which caused catarrh.
While catarrh is usually described as a buildup of mucus in the nose or
throat, in this case it was an inflamed and purulent hand. He continued to work for several days before
calling Dr. Gibson. Gibson found him laboring with a high fever and diagnosed
him with pyaemia.
Isaac Calvin Clayton died
23 April 1884. Isaac was only 41 years old. The obituary in the Portsmouth Times
states that the employees of Drew Selby & Company attended the
services “in body.”
I will never know if
Isaac was predisposed to heart disease or thyroid disease, or if an earlier
ancestor blessed us both with “raccoon eyes.”
I still visit Greenlawn Cemetery and wonder at the parallels. My thyroid was removed in 2009. I still battle allergies. Isaac died of blood
poisoning and in 2014 I was diagnosed with a blood cancer[ix]. I am drawn to this man that died far too
young.
[i] GRAHAM Descendants
Of William and Dinah Wilson Graham
[ii] Second
great grandfather of compiler.
[iii] Civil
War Index To Pensions 1861-1934, T288, 546 rolls
(Washington, D.C.: National Archives NARA, ), T288-85, Isaac C. Clayton, D
148th Ohio Inf
[iv] microfilm
publication (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, ),
Civil War Pension #44468, Isaac C. Clayton
[v]
Coleman resides 2019 Lexington, Fayette, KY
[vi] Clayton
- Graham, (1865), Ohio, Washington County Marriages: vol 4 page 65; courthouse,
Marietta, Ohio, Ohio
[vii] Family
data, Feyler Family Bible, The Holy Bible: The Authorized Edition of the New
Testament...revised...1881...with Complete Concordance...Comprehensive Bible
Dictionary, (Philadelphia, PA: A. J.. Holman & Company, 1889); original
owned in 2016 by Teresa Martin Klaiber, [address
for private use], Rush, KY.
[viii]
Jesse Mains Graham brother of Anna Jane Graham Clayton. Mother of Isaac Calvin
Clayton.
[ix]
Multiple Myeloma
