Riding With Isaac Parker: Deputy Marshall RM Fry

In the 1980’s I made a trip, along with other family members, to Fort Smith Arkansas.  We were in pursuit of stories about our Clarkson and Fry ancestors, who had lived in Fort Smith during the latter 19th and early 20th centuries.  One of our exciting finds was the name of my 2xgreat-grandfather, Reuben Macon Fry, on the list of Deputies that “Rode With Isaac Parker”, the noted “hanging judge” of the US District Court of Western Arkansas.  It was an intriguing find, but it has taken me almost twenty-five years to set about learning more about this interesting grandfather. 

To give a brief biographical account – Reuben Macon Fry was born in 1847 in Orange Court House Virginia.  As a student of the Cadet Corp of Virginia Military Institute he may have participated in some minor skirmishing during the Civil War.  After the war years, as he moved into young adulthood, he removed with his older brother to Lake Village in Chicot county Arkansas.  There he served as county clerk, operated a retail business, and married Eliza Brooks Hutchins, a “refugee” from Natchez Mississippi.  Business losses probably induced him to move on, and in 1880 he settled his family in Fort Smith Arkansas. 

Reuben Macon Fry’s obituary, twenty-five years later, gives an account of his career in Fort Smith:
. . He followed mercantile pursuits for several years and then became connected with the revenue service.  He afterward served as deputy circuit clerk during the incumbency of AA McDonald [circuit court clerk] and was also chief deputy sheriff during the six years' administration of Sheriff William Bugg.  After Captain Bugg retired he was elected justice of the peace, which position he held until he died. 

Reuben M Fry was commissioned as a Deputy Marshal of the Western District Court at Fort Smith in February 1884, and again in November 1887.  These were the years that he served as a Revenue Officer, and one of his occupations was to incapacitate “moonshiners”.  In the summer of 1888 he participated in an operation in Montgomery county Arkansas, during which one of his fellow officer, John Trammell, was killed.  I have come across several accounts of this 1888 event in newspapers and biographies. 

A report in the St Louis Post Dispatch (St Louis Missouri); 28 June 1888, begins:

Hot Springs, Ark., June 28: News of a desperate fight between revenue officers and moonshiners; which took place near Black Springs, Montgomery County, yesterday, has just reached this city. Internal Revenue Collector R. M. FRY, in charge of a posse, was in that vicinity raiding moonshiner's camps and destroying illicit distilleries. They had succeeded in ferreting out and destroying three. Shortly after they had destroyed the last one they were attacked from ambush by a band of moonshiners armed with Winchester rifles when a desperate battle ensued,. . .

Reuben Fry was accompanied by Deputy Marshals, John D Trammell and Otis K Wheeler.  Trammell was killed in the ambush.  An inquest was held which revealed that two of Trammell’s killers were relatives, a brother and cousin, of Bill Cogburn who was being held in custody.  The primary characters in the bootlegging scheme were Carter Markham, Matthew Pervine, Joseph Pepper, J.D. Hollifield and several members of the Cogburn family.  Community fear held back any witnesses, and the murderers were never convicted. 

A detailed account of this incident can be found online in Brett Cogburn’s recently published book, Rooster:
The Life and Times of the Real Rooster Cogburn, the Man Who Inspired True Grit, 2012; beginning on page 52.

 For more details on Reuben Macon Fry, visit his individual page at Family Stories, pamgarrett.com.


To learn more about the Deputy Marshals of Isaac Parker’s court:
Law West of Fort Smith; Glenn Shirley, 1957.
Larry McMurtry's 1997 novel Zeke and Ned tells the story of Zeke Proctor, one of Parker's deputy marshals.
Loren D. Estleman's 2009 novel The Branch and The Scaffold relates to Parker's tenure at Fort Smith.
Charles Portis features Judge Parker in his novel, True Grit, which has twice been adapted as films of the same name.
Movie – Rooster Cogburn, 1975, based on Charles Portis novel; starring John Wayne and Katherine Hepburn.

Into the FRY Pan!

This Family Stories Blog was established to share with family, friends and fellow genealogists some of the stories I have gathered during nearly thirty years of family history research.  It links with my companion website, Family Stories, pamgarrett.com, that houses my genealogy database and an extensive collection of documents, notes, biographies, and photos.  I’m delighted to announce that my database website is growing again!

Recently I have added about three hundred new family members to my online database, along with significant details about many of their lives.  This is my FRY family, descendants of my 6xgreat-grandfather, Joshua Fry of Albemarle county Virginia.  Joshua Fry is a most interesting grandfather – immigrant from England, teacher at William and Mary College, friend to George Washington and Peter Jefferson, significant player in the history of Virginia.  And, many of his descendants have led interesting and note-worthy lives. 

Joshua Fry, and some of his descendants, have been the subject of many biographies and histories.  Philip Slaughter’s, “Memoir of Col. Joshua Fry . .”, 1880, has made its way around the genealogy circuit for years.  I have not been interested in “duplicating” well established genealogies.  But, it is the nature of a genealogy database to link individuals and families together, and most of the well-known relationships of the Fry family are repeated in my database.  I have tried to include some new bits and pieces of information that might add to the Fry family story.  I have particularly emphasized my own “branches” of the Fry family – a visual of my branch, Moving Back In Time, is given at the close of this post. 

I am gathering materials for a few upcoming blog posts on my Fry Family.  Some proposed titles include: 
Riding with Isaac Parker
Joshua Fry in the Classroom, a Williamsburg Story!
The Hospitality of “Bathing”

I’m excited to introduce these ancestors, and to share a few of their stories.  I hope you will join me for the fun!


Moving Back In Time:  Albert Luther Clarkson 1901 > Aubin Mildred Fry 1878 > Reuben Macon Fry 1847 > Philip Slaughter Fry 1801 > Reuben Fry 1766 > Henry Fry 1738 > Joshua Fry 1700.

Anna Stransky's Letter: A Fridrich Family Story

In May of 1946, Anna Stransky, daughter of Joseph Stransky and Anna Fridrich, wrote a letter to her cousin Bill Svejkovsky of Oklahoma.  Bill Svejkovsky was collecting information for a family history, and Anna Stransky gave a helpful account of her grandmother’s Fridrich family.  As far as I know, Anna Stransky never married.  In 1946, when the letter was written, she was living with her sister Mary in Casper Wyoming.  From my mother-in-law, I received a copy of a ‘hand-written copy’ of this letter.  I do not know the whereabouts of the original letter.  This hand-written copy was all run together, without paragraphs. There probably were introductory and closing remarks in the original letter that were not included in the hand-written copy.  I have retyped from the copy, and present that portion of the letter here.  I have added a few bracket comments to aid identification:

Letter -  Anna Stransky of Casper, Wyoming to Bill Svejkovsky,  May 1946:

 . . . I think we have more information than you about Grandma Fridrich's [Frances Felepena Fridrich] family, but of course we would as Aunt Mary [Mary Fridrich Smith] and our Mother [Anna Fridrich Stransky] still remember the past very well.  Then there are some papers of Grandma's  that Aunt Mary saved when Grandma passed away.  There wasn't much, but I remember the divorce paper and we persuaded Aunt Mary to keep it as there were dates in it and mention of the children.  It proved helpful to Aunt Mary in establishing her birth and residence in this country when she applied for her old age pension...Grandma went by the name of Fridrich and so did her children after this first divorce, but it was not their name by birth.  Their father's name was Joseph Wasatko and that was your Mother's [Bozanna “Bessie” Fridrich Svejkovsky] rightful maiden name.  Grandma divorced him when the children were still young, and he married again, some widow [Frances Beska] in Nebraska.  She had children of her own, and they had one son together, his name is Anton Wastko [Anton Wasatko].  So he is a half-brother of your Mother's also.  We looked him up one time and he was in a bank in Lynch, Nebraska.  He had a nice family and seemed to be quite a progressive fellow.  They came over to Yankton to see us one summer about 10 years ago, but we haven't heard of them recently.  He said both his Father and Mother died years ago, and Mom says she remembers it as our Uncle Joe Fridrich from Tyndall went to the Funeral I believe.  Grandma married Mr Peseck [August Pesek] some years later and they had the one son who is Uncle August [August Bert Fridrich].  However, he never went by his right name either which should have been Pesek, but was always known as August Fredrick [also, August Frederick]. He didn't spell his name like Grandma did either.  You will notice her name has the German spelling, and her Father was a German.  She divorced Mr Peseck also, but I don't know when.  Then after her first husband's wife died in Nebraska many years later, and when she was quite elderly, she married Mr Wastko (our grandfather) again.  It didn't last but a very short time though and she left him and went back to Tyndall to live.  He didn't have any money and neither did she, so Aunt Mary says, and his son didn't approve of the marriage, so it didn't work out.  I often think that Grandma was sure ahead of her time, about fifty years at least.  We don't have any information ourselves, only what Mom and Aunt Mary know and remember.  For that reason we were of the opinion that some facts might be written in this old bible that your folks were supposed to have, that Grandma always said was given to her by her Father when she left the Old Country.  ..We don't know anything about Uncle August, other than that the last time we heard of them they were traveling with a Circus side-show.  Their son [Carlisle Frederick] was a musician and a nice boy, and we had heard that he was killed in the war in Germany.  We don't know this to be true though.  They had a girl [Maxine Frederick], who must be in her twenties now.  I saw her perform in the circus once, and she was very attractive.  Mom and Aunt Mary never could understand Uncle August going into that sort of life. He had a mail route in Geddes, S Dak for years.  But I rather think his wife was the promoter . . .

For more details about the people mentioned in Anna Stransky’s Letter, visit their pages at Family Stories, pamgarrett.com. Also see my blog post, dated 7 August 2013, and titled - The Fridrich Family: Moravia to America.

Photo:  South Dakota Landscape; USDA - Natural Resources Conservation Service, 2009. Creative Commons – Share Alike license.

The Swanda Family: An Immigration Story

Family stories recall the Swanda Family Inn in Bohemia. The inn was not an overnight hostel, but rather a gathering place for the community.  It was common practice among the Czechs to finish their work in the late afternoon and gather for social time and drink before heading home for the evening meal.  The Swanda family made whiskey and prepared food for this daily ritual.  My mother-in-law, Aline Garrett, remembers her mother and aunts speaking of the Inn being in or near the town of Lidice which is about fifteen miles west of Prague.  She has always understood that the Swanda family came from around Lidice.  During her 1996 trip to the Czech Republic Aline visited Lidice, which is remembered for a tragic massacre that occurred there in 1942 under the hand of Hitler. Since that visit Aline has relocated the naturalization paper of her grandfather, James Svanda, which states that his last foreign residence was Blela, Bohemia.  We have located the likely town of Bela that is in the same general area where the Soper family lived.  It is just north of the town of Pilsen and a considerable distance east and south of Prague.  There is another town of Bela, northeast of Prague. We continue to question exactly where the Swanda Inn was located.   

John Swanda and Antoniette Cihlar* Swanda

John Svanda (Swanda) and his wife Antoniette “Nettie” Cihlar* were the owners of the Swanda Family Inn.  They had been married in Bohemia about 1863 and became the parents of eight children between 1864-1880:  Joe, Jim, Frank, Antoinette, John, Anton, Charlie and Pete Swanda.  When their first born son, Joe, reached the age of sixteen they were concerned that he would be drafted into the Austrian army so they decided to send him, along with his next younger brother, Jim, to America with their uncle, Joseph Swanda.  They sailed on the SS Neckar from the port of Bremen 26 September 1880 and arrived in New York about three weeks later.  They moved on to Omaha, Nebraska and spent the next three years working in a smelting plant.  They were able to send back enough money to their family in Bohemia to help them make the trip to America about 1883-84. 

Aline Garrett recalls several stories about their trip to America that were told by her family.  John Swanda decided to lease his inn rather than sell it, as he was not certain he would like America.  Later he had someone sell the inn for him and he received a poor price for it.  John and Nettie Swanda and their six younger children sailed on the SS Uener (Vender) from the port of Bremen.  The family always said that Nettie was a “Princess”.  No one really knows just what that meant, but apparently she wore fine silk dresses on the boat to America.  Her fancy dresses probably didn’t serve her too well as the family set up housekeeping on a forty-acre farm near Sioux City, Iowa.  Their first home in America boasted a dirt floor.  They were not long there before the home, and all of their possessions, were blown away in a cyclone.  John Swanda made several moves after that, living in Omaha, Nebraska and White Lake, South Dakota.  But, in 1889 he heard about the land opening up in the new territory of Oklahoma and he decided to make the Oklahoma Land Run.  He joined the ranks of the Sooners, who came illegally into the area and staked their claim before the run on 22 April 1889.  He had to hide out for a time, but managed to keep his claim. This original Swanda farm was located 2 ½ miles south of present day Yukon, Oklahoma.

In the 1990’s Aline Garrett and her cousin Eleanor registered their grandparents, James “ Jim” Swanda and Mary Soper Swanda, on the American Immigrant Wall of Honor at Ellis Island.

For more details on John Swanda, visit his page at Family Stories, pamgarrett.com.  There you will find a slightly longer version of The Swanda Family: An Immigration Story, and further information on John Swanda, Nettie Cihlar, and their descendants. 

*Additional:  It is of interest that the work of researcher and descendant Thomas Carlile records Nettie's maiden name as Kotoneva.  My mother-in-law's family records her maiden name as Cihlar.  I have not had the opportunity to study this significant discrepancy.  See more at Nettie Cihlar Swanda’s memorial page at FindAGrave website.

Last Journey to America: The Sopr (Soper) Family

Thirty-five years after my husband’s first Svejkovsky ancestors set sail for America, Joseph Soper, his wife Anna Housner and eight of their children made the journey in 1893. They had been married in 1870 in Bohemia and had ten children by 1893:  Joseph, Mary, Anna, Matt, Frances, James, Frank, Christie, Rose and Anton.  Records for this family give a variety of birthplaces for the children, but when carefully studied, it seems clear that the family lived around the towns of Kralovice and Kocin, which are just north of Pilsen in Bohemia. The town of Pilsen is noted for the famous Pilsner Beer.  When my mother-in-law, Aline Garrett, made her trip to the Czech Republic in 1996 she visited the town of Kralovice and took pictures of the old church and town streets.

Aline recalls some of the stories her grandmother, Mary Soper Swanda, told her about life in Bohemia as a young girl.  The Czech people lived mostly in small villages and often their houses and barns were combined under one roof.  Families would go out each day to work their small farms.  They had plots that were worked with spade and hoe by the whole family and primarily supplied the family needs.  Their livestock was usually driven out to a common grazing area and watched over each day.  Mary confessed that she preferred her job of herding geese to the schoolroom. In later years she regretted her choice.  The goose feathers were used for huge feather beds and warm comforters for cold nights.  The villages had large ovens that could bake sixteen loaves of rye bread at one time.  Czech hospitality meant brown bread and wine for guests.    

The Soper family embarked from Hamburg, Germany and arrived in New York City in March 1893.  They lived briefly in Chicago and then moved to Kingfisher in Oklahoma Territory where they lived with the Jindra family.  Shortly thereafter, Joseph Soper made the Cherokee Strip Land Run and established his residence in Garber, Garfield county, Oklahoma Territory.  The family built their first, dugout home around a tree and in those first years they met with very hard times.  The older children set out for Enid Oklahoma to find jobs.  Joe and Matt joined a cattle drive to Dodge City, Kansas and Anna and Mary did housework for families in Enid.  Mary Soper went to work for Joe and Frank Swanda and that is where she met her future husband, Jim Swanda, who she married in 1898.

According to descendant, Emma Irvin, “The hard times for the Sopers didn’t last forever and by 1900 they had built a comfortable home which included 14 windows and 5 doors.  The 160 fenced acres boasted a barn, corncrib, granary, hen house, well with pump and 150 fruit trees.”  Joseph Soper and Anna Housner Soper lived out their lives in Garber, Oklahoma.  Joseph died in 1920 and Anna in 1923.

For more details on Joseph Soper, visit his page at Family Stories, pamgarrett.com.