This Week in Frick-Heckman History

On 13 September 1862, Michael Crissman enlisted and mustered as a private in Company G of the 78th Pennsylvania Infantry. The record places his residence and enlistment in Armstrong County. His surname appears in military records as Crisman and Christman as well as the family spelling Crissman.

Michael was joining a regiment already filled with family and familiar Armstrong County faces. His father-in-law Hugh F. Hooks, his brother-in-law Hugh A. Hooks, and many other Kittanning men had enlisted in 1861, about a year before Michael. The regiment was helping defend Nashville when Michael entered the service. Its history says General Rosecrans's army reached the city in early November 1862 and raised what contemporaries called "the siege". Michael's individual travel record has not yet been found, but his September enlistment makes it reasonable to believe that he reached Nashville with the recruits and relief forces gathering there during that period. This remains a historical inference rather than a documented itinerary.

Michael's service was tragically short. He became unfit for duty later that year and died of disease in Nashville, Tennessee, on 25 February 1863. He was about twenty-four years old. The interment record identifies his rank, company, regiment, state, and death date.

Michael's family-held federal pension file identifies Nashville Hospitals No. 14 and No. 16 in connection with his final illness and death. Hospital No. 14 occupied the former Nashville Female Academy. The displayed 1862 image shows that complex during its wartime use, before it was photographed as an operating hospital. The scanned pension pages do not establish Michael's precise sequence of treatment between the two hospitals.

The federal pension index carries the family story beyond the battlefield. It names Nancy J. Crisman as Michael's widow and records W. Henry as guardian on the minor claim. Nancy later married William Henry, so the card links the soldier, his widow, her later husband, and the care of Michael's children after his death.

Family evidence associated with Nancy identifies four children, including a daughter Catherine. The later dependent-pension papers name only three daughters: Malinda J., born 9 March 1859; Mary R., born 1 September 1860; and Margaret A., born 1 September 1861. Catherine's absence from the later dependent record is consistent with the family story that the infant, born near her father's death date, died relatively soon after Michael, although the reviewed pension pages do not provide her precise birth date, death date, or circumstances. Given Catherine's reported birth date, Nancy would have been pregnant when Michael joined the 78th Pennsylvania Infantry. Given Michael's date of death, it is very likely that the news of Michael's death arrived within days or weeks of Nancy giving birth to Catherine, either just before or just after the birth.

Michael and Nancy had married on 27 August 1857 in Armstrong County. Their daughter Mary Rachel later married Wilson Bowser (a relative of her Step Father's first wife) and continued Charlie's direct line.

John Peoples died of pneumonia at his North Grant Avenue home in Kittanning on 17 September 1912. His original Pennsylvania death certificate identifies him as Irish-born and names his parents as William Peoples and Mary McNutt, information that remains a strong lead for the family's Irish origins.

A contemporary newspaper notice published on 18 September reported that John was eighty-one, that his wife had died nine months earlier, and that seven children survived him. St. Paul's Episcopal Church recorded his burial on 19 September at age eighty-two. The differing ages reflect the uncertainty surrounding his precise birth date.

Federal censuses place John and Nancy together from 1860 through 1910. The 1900 census reports that John immigrated in 1848 and married about 1857. The 1910 census gives an 1850 immigration and about fifty-four years of marriage. Those small conflicts are common in self-reported census records. Both reported immigration dates fall within Ireland’s Great Famine, placing John’s arrival in the United States during the great migration of those years. Whether famine directly prompted his departure remains unknown.

John worked as a limestone quarryman and miner before moving into Kittanning. A 1904 city directory places John and Nancy at 659½ North Grant Avenue with Margaret and a younger Nancy Peoples boarding at the same address. Their daughter Martha Anne, remembered as Granny Peoples, continued Charlie's direct line.