The following was found written in a notebook by my great-grandfather, Rufus Henry Null, when he was 82 years old, apparently found after his death. Rufus Henry Null was born June 12, 1882, in Rockingham Co., Virginia, the son of Samuel Henry Null and Emma Catherine Rodgers. His daughter, Virginia Sunshine Null Warner, was my grandmother, being the mother of my dad, Francis Eugene Warner. There is a bit of genealogical data included in this writing, as well as other names and places and events of interest. However, reader beware! There are some bits of family lore, too, but those are so obvious, I believe you'll know them when you see them. Hint: It seems everyone in my family tree is descended from someone famous! I made a few numbered footnotes if I found something that might actually be misleading, and if I have missed any or have made any errors, I welcome any comments and corrections.
Above is a portrait of Rufus Henry Null. Now on with his story:
Oakdale, La. April 6, 1965
As I sit here tonight reading a story of the life of a young couple just married and went from the east to the state of Montana to make their home in the unsettled country and being one of the pioneers of the now state of Montana, makes me think of the life I have lived in the 82 years I've spent in the different parts of the country, and taking a retrospective view of the past, I am going to state the happenings of the past, some of which I am not proud of, but may be helpful to someone else if they are found by my children after I have passed away.
First, I was born at Port Republic, Virginia, on the north fork of the beautiful banks of the famous Shenandoah River. My grandfather was a native of Germany, came to the U.S. before the Civil War, married a Miss Evers in what is now known as Rockingham County near the county seat of Harrisonburg, Virginia (see footnote 1). My grandfather gave each of his children 40 acres when they were married as a wedding present. My grandfather had 2 sons and 1 daughter by his first wife who died at my father's birth (fn 2). The daughter married Scott Hook (3). My Uncle Leonard Null married Miss Laura Crown (4). My father married Emma Rodgers, the daughter of Canaan Rodgers, a direct descendant of John Rodgers and Pocahontas (5), a daughter of Powhatan, chief of the Powhatan tribe of Virginia.
My grandfather Rodgers had 2 sons, James and William, and John who was killed at Blacksburg in the Civil War; 3 daughters (6), Sis, Eliza, and Emma who was my mother. Sis married John Hinkle (7); Eliza married LaFayette Smith, a descendant of Captain John Smith (8); Emma married Samuel H. Null, my father, who lived in Rockingham County, Virginia, near Port Republic, a small village situated in the forks of North and South Fork forming the historical Shenandoah River of Virginia. I have stood on the very spot where Stonewall Jackson stood when he dared the enemy to cross in the Battle of the Shenandoah.
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| Samuel Henry Null and Emma Catherine Rodgers Null |
I had 2 brothers and 1 sister. Both brothers were older than I and my only sister 2 years younger than I was. My oldest brother was named Abram Evers after my mother's people. My next oldest brother was named George Ellis. Then I came on and named Rufus Henry after a noted crooked attorney. My only sister named Cora Edna after some of Mother's people.
My father decided he could make a living for the family. He sold his 40 acres to his sister's husband, Scott Hook, and we moved to Faquier County near Washington D.C. He bought a section of land. After moving across the Blue Ridge Mountains via road wagon, walking and driving the stock, we finally took possession. My uncle by marriage to my mother's sister Eliza, LaFayette Smith, wanted my father to take him and his family on as partners which he did to his own sorrow. My father and my uncle (Smith) bought a section 360 acres in partnership, each to pay 1/2 of the price of the land and divide the section equal 180 acres each. When my father went to the county seat to pay the final payment on his 180, he discovered that Smith had defaulted on payment of his part, and the crooked lawyer from whom they had bought the section from demanded full payment of the part Smith was to pay, and my father couldn't make the default payment. Consequently, the lawyer foreclosed the lien on all the section.
My father lost his 1/2 of section, and decided to take the stock he had left, after selling some to get money to move back to Rockingham County. Temporarily he rented the home his father had given him and my father sold to Scott Hook, and after we moved in the house, Hook would not let us keep the stock father had on the place. And my father and mother had to go 2 miles twice a day to feed and look after our stock. The consequences were we all had the typhoid fever. During the early winter months my mother walked in the snow twice a day to milk her cow. Hook wouldn't even let her keep her milk cow in the barn while we were all down sick with typhoid.
As soon as we were all able to move, my father moved to a small boom town at that time named Shendun, and went to work for C. H. Rose Mfg. Co. manufacturing toilet seats and tanks, the early bathroom fixtures. After about 4 or 5 years Rose went broke or claimed to. Never paid the last two months' salary of around 200 employees. The Rose Company main offices and sales force were in New York City. The brick factory was sold to a young financier named William Livers, who manufactured telephone boxes and general equipments made of wood. Mr. Livers was a Pennsylvanian and his father died in Pa., and young William and his 2 sisters moved to the town of Shendun whose name was and now is the present town of Grottoes, Va. After Mr. Livers took over the Mfg. plant, he moved his 2 sisters to Grottoes, and the older one took charge of the office for her brother, and I at the age of 12 years was the office boy. So I got to be well acquainted with the family and associated with them. The youngest sister Anne and I became infatuated with one another, she being only 2 years older than I. All of a sudden the bottom fell out of the use of wood parts for telephones and the factory was forced to shut down. Only 2 people were employed, a night and day watchman.
My father had bought some lots in town and built a house for us, but it was not all paid for. His obligation necessarily made him seek unemployment. He went to the adjoining county seat. There he connected with the W. W. Putnam Organ Co. We moved to Staunton, Virginia. And the organ factory was in its infancy only working 8 men. After being with them several months, my dad got them to put me on as his helper, and I worked with them 5 years. At the age of 17 I quit and went to Hagerstown, Md., and a great uncle of mine (a United Brethren Minister) named Abram Evers took me to the Hagerstown Pipe Organ Co. and introduced me to the owner who was a member of his church.
I worked there 18 months and quit, went to N.Y. City. Spent week, couldn't get a job there, came back to Philadelphia, Pa., got on with Henry Diston Saw Works manufacturing all kinds of circular saws, all sizes from 8 inch diameter up to 48 in. in diameter. I had a roaming disposition after working some 7 or 8 months at Diston's. I had met several young people my age and one day a boy that I had been chummy with, Charlie Knell by name, said to me, I hear they are begging for help in West Virginia, let's quit and go to West Virginia. Having a roaming disposition, I had a partner and we hit the road. But snow was on the ground and all the work was outdoor building mostly dwelling houses. So we took the road again and landed at Columbus, Ohio, and got a job at Casparis Stone Company, 5 miles from the city.
I worked as an oiler for 1 month, then got a job as night engineer running a 350 horsepower Hardy Times Corliss Engine. While working for W. W. Putnam Organ Co. in Staunton, Virginia, they had bought a 350 horse Hardy Times engine and I had helped Pat Mitchell the engine company man install for organ co., so I felt I could handle the engine and I did for a year, and I decided I wanted to go home and visit my people in Virginia. So I gave notice and went back home.
When I got home I had spent all my money but $4.50 out of $95.00 when I quit the stone company and to top it off, the next day after I got home
Adam Forepaugh & Sells Bro. circus were showing in town. And I had a sweetheart whom I had kept in touch with in all my roaming around and I borrowed $5.00 from my brother which gave me $9.50 to take her to the circus. I finally got a job with the Stacy Furniture Mfg. Co. at Ronceverte, West Va., was working there when I married the girl I had kept in touch with in my roaming, Miss Mary Lazette Potter, a grand niece of the late Bishop Potter, a bishop of the Methodist Diocese of New Jersey (9).
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| Mary Lazette Potter Null |
After our marriage (5 February 1904) I was offered a foreman's job with Stacy Mfg. Co. which I accepted and held successfully until Mr. Chas. Stacy sold the shop. The General Supt, Mr. George Sensbaugh accepted a job with a large furniture mfg. co. at Greenwood, Miss. I took an asst. foreman's job with Basic City Witz Furniture Corp. when Sensbaugh left the Stacy Co. After Sensbaugh had been with Lockwood Mfg. Co. at Greenwood 2 or 3 months he wrote asking me if I would consider a job as shipping clerk. He also told me my oldest brother was his Machine Room Foreman which I didn't know about. So I took the job as shipping clerk but didn't take my family because of my wife's health.
After being at Greenwood about 10 or 11 months I got a telegram to come home at once, my wife was seriously ill. When I got home to Staunton she was in critical condition. That was first of January and she never put a foot on the ground till Labor Day of that year. I put her in a buggy and took her to a parade and Labor Day celebration. When I got home from Miss. her doctor told me that I had to get Lithia Water for her to drink, that the limestone water would kill her if she kept using it. I knew there was a big spring at Basic City, and I went to Mr. Witz and explained the situation to him and he told me that he was making some changes and if the changes he was making didn't work, he would be glad to put me on. So I was told Karl Barkoff was starting a branch of Barkoff Pipe Organ Co. at Basic City. I went to see them and got the job of making pipes for their organs.
I learned the method of making the pipes of wood out of which all the sound and notes come from in a pipe organ. All the metal pipes on the front of the large pipe organs are a decoration, not a sound comes from them. It was from the organ manufacturers I learned to be a glue expert. The mixes and usages of glue in pipe organs are different from any other usages of animal or chemical glues made. The secret lies more upon the application of the glue because of the fact that a nail screw or any metallic instrument or scale or object, even a pit in the wood, will change the tone of the pipe which range from 14 inches in length to 16 feet in length and from 2" square to 14" square made of soft yellow poplar.
After working for the pipe organ company a little over a year, I had a letter from Tallahatchie Furn. Mfg. Co. at Greenwood, Miss. offering me a fancy salary to come to Greenwood and take charge of the factory as draftsman and Asst. Supt. After talking it over with my wife who seemed to be improving in her health, we decided I'd accept if they let me have 30 days to get my affairs straightened up. After writing the company when I would be there, my wife said she had changed her mind and wasn't going with me, afraid she would die there in Miss. I told her I was going if I didn't stay but a day, that she should not have agreed for me to accept the offer. So she asked me to take her to her Daddy's. When I was buying my railroad ticket, she slipped up behind me and said get me one, too, which I did.
And when we got to Greenwood she was the sickest person I ever saw. I thought she was going to die. I took her to a boarding house, asked the woman running the house to tell me a good Dr. She told me there was an old country Dr. named Campbell just a block from the boarding house. I hustled off to see him. He asked me what was the matter. I told him what the Dr. in Virginia told me and she had been two days and two nights on a train, but she had been sick for about 10 or 12 months. He said no use for him to see her, that he would give her some medicine and if it didn't help her he would come to see her. I took the prescription to the druggist and had it filled, cost me 65 cents. She took that medicine and she took that one bottle of medicine and we lived in Greenwood from 1907 to 1913 and she never took another dose of medicine while we lived there (10). And when the worst flu epidemic that ever hit this country, she and I nursed all the people in the part of the city we lived in, and she never was sick while we lived there except when Ed was born. I asked her if she remembered what she said to me when she told me to buy her a ticket. She said to me I'm going with you but you are taking me there to die, not realizing that by following me she would be made well. Many times she regretted saying it. But she never mentioned it to me and many happy years we had after that took place. 4 years we enjoyed life together after I took her to Greenwood to die, she thought. And never after that when I changed jobs did she ever refuse to risk my judgment.
When the flood of 1913, the Dr. told me to take Ed and the family and get away, that there was going to be lots of sickness and the weak condition of Ed, he would die. So I up and got me a job in Memphis, Tennessee with the Florence Table Co., with them 6 years and they moved to Indiana, and I got a job with Weatherford Cooperage Co. Was with them 2 years, then I went from there to Alexandria, La., Bolton & Heyden 5 years (11), from there to Leesville, La., Hooker Furn. Co., there 4 years, to Orange, Texas. Built factory in Orange, stock company went broke, went to Pineland, Texas, Temple Lumber Co. 2 or 3 years, went to Benton, Ark., bought farm, built log house. Went to Owosso Mfg. Co. in Benton, with them 5 years, Furniture and Plywood and Veneer Mill built a new addition to Owosso Plant, back to Alexandria, La., novelty shop of my own, to Oakdale, La. 1945, business of my own. Lost my wife 19.
That is where the journal ends. There was a definite period after "19", but I am not sure what he was trying to say. Mary Lazette Potter Null died on 3 Feb. 1953, 12 years before the start of his journal, almost 15 years before his death on 3 Jan. 1968. It's possible there could be missing pages.
Footnotes:
(1) My records show his grandfather to be George Null born 1813 in Rockingham Co., Virginia, who married Diannah Evers.
(2) I show that George and Diannah had two sons and
four daughters--Margaret, Catherine, Sophia, and Josepha. His father was Diannah's last child, but she died 23 October 1857, almost 2 1/2 years after his father's birth on 15 June 1855.
(3) The daughter who married Abraham Scott Hooke was Sophia.
(4) Leonard Null actually married Laura Crabill.
(5) Pocahontas was actually married to John Rolfe.
(6) My records show there were 7 daughters--Frances, Serena Margaret, Emma, Eliza, Annabelle, Mary Henriette, and Cora Lee.
(7) Sis appears to be Frances who married John Henkel.
(8) Captain John Smith never married or fathered any children.
(9) Although this fact is possible, I think it is doubtful. To be Mary Lazette's great uncle, it would have to be her grandfather James Potter's brother. I can find no relation to the more famous Potter bishops who were bishops of the larger state dioceses.
(10) According to my records, Robert Null was born May 3, 1907, in Virginia; Edward Null was indeed born in Mississippi on Feb. 18, 1911; but Virginia Null was born in Virginia on August 6, 1912.
(11) My records show that in Nov. 1916, daughter Mary was born in Greensboro, Guilford Co., North Carolina, there when he registered for the draft in Sep. 1918, and still in Guilford Co. in the 1920 census. Rufus Henry Jr. was born in Greensboro, NC, in Aug. 1922, and Leonard "Rabbit" was born in NC in Dec. 1924. The 1930 census finds the family in Memphis, Tennessee, and in 1940, in Arkansas.
