Favorite Discovery - Samuel Longstreet Forman (1856-1857)

I found a baby in the fall of 2018. He’d been lost for 161 years. And it’s only because of the Forman Family Bible that I’m confident he belongs in our family. You’ll recall that we learned from the family names listed in the Bible that the “L” in Samuel L. Forman’s name stood for “Longstreet.” So I wasn’t immediately surprised to happen upon a death record for Samuel Longstreet Foreman. Until I read that he died at age 14 months in 1857. Ancestry.com only had the indexed details, but FamilySearch.org had an image of the actual document (shown above.) No parents are listed for this baby.

Samuel Longstreet Forman, born 1805

The original SLF is named after his mother’s father (Samuel Longstreet.) So who would be likely to name a child Samuel Longstreet Forman in 1856? Wouldn’t it be logical that the son of Samuel Longstreet Forman would give that name to his son, possibly his first-born son? Samuel L. Forman had 2 sons: William Lake and Isaac E. In 1856, Isaac was only 15 years old, but William Lake had been married to Amanda Orilla McAllister since 1853. That date is fairly new since I only found their marriage date in a newspaper record in the past year or two. What troubled me about the date is that their first known child is our direct ancestor, William Charles Forman, born to them in 1859. Six years with no children? Though possible, it was unlikely, so I assumed they’d dealt with miscarriages or lost babies. So let’s assume William Lake and Amanda Forman have a baby boy in 1856, 3 years after their marriage, and they name him after William’s father, who died 12 years earlier. I think it’s a logical conclusion. I’m so confident that this baby belongs to them that I have added him to my trees on Ancestry and FamilySearch. Though it’s possible I’m wrong, I’m willing to risk being wrong than to leave this baby without a family (until we get to the next life and can find him and ask him!) But the mystery doesn’t stop there! Curious now about other potential lost babies to this couple, I searched for deaths of Forman children between 1853 and 1859. There was only one that didn’t connect to another family somehow, a baby girl named Mary who died in 1856 at the age of 15 days. Let’s do some math: Samuel Longstreet died 25 Sep 1857 at age 14 months, so he was born around July of 1856. Baby Mary died at 15 days on 4 Aug 1856, putting her birthdate in July 1856, the same as Samuel Longstreet. Could they be twins? 

 The single clue that makes me believe they belong in the same family is that both babies were buried in Machpelah Cemetery (now defunct) located at 11th St. and Washington Ave in Philadelphia. No other Formans who died in that time period were buried there. I’d never come across this cemetery before. (All interments were moved in 1895 to Graceland [North Mount Moriah] Cemetery in Yeadon, Delaware County, Pennsylvania.) I am not as confident about placing Mary in the family because her name is so common, but I’m keeping her information with the family just in case. Had Baby Samuel Longstreet’s father or mother not insisted on including his middle name on the death record, we wouldn’t even be discussing any possibilities. It would have been so easy for the doctor to just write down “Samuel Forman.” In the elder Samuel L.’s death record, his middle name isn’t written out on his death record (or anywhere else but the Bible.) I am grateful to believe in a universal resurrection, the redemption of little children, the sealing ordinances that bind families together forever, and I am thrilled to know that Samuel Longstreet Forman can now take his place as the oldest son born to William Lake and Amanda Forman.

SO FAR AWAY

We’ve talked about our Baragwanaths in Cornwall, England, but what about the branch that traveled "so far away" - to South Africa?

  We aren’t closely related to Orlando Baragwanath, the subject of the book “Trail of the Copper King” by T. V. Bulpin – he’s my second cousin 7 times removed! Our common ancestors are Richard Baragwanath (born 1699) and Zenobia Stevens (born 1705), of Cornwall, England. 

Jump forward 5 generations and we encounter John Albert Baragwanath who took his family on the trip of a lifetime – from Cornwall, England to Durban, South Africa, in 1850. John Albert had been a Cornish sea captain.

  His first wife, Elizabeth Jane Trise, mother of Elizabeth Grace, Orlando, John Albert Jr., and Emily E., passed away the year before the voyage. He quickly married Wilmot Baragwanath (a cousin) later the same year. 

The family set sail in February 1850 on the “Lady Bruce.” They joined 150 other settlers intent on a new life in a new land, with the promise of land at the end of the journey.

Lady Bruce

“Each adult will be provided with an intermediate passage, including provisions on a liberal dietary scale, for the sum of 19 pounds, or a steerage passage for 10 pounds, and on arrival in Natal [Durban] have secured to him twenty acres of freehold land.”

The passage monies had to be paid in advance and each passenger needed their own knife, fork, tablespoon, teaspoon, metal plate, a hook-pot, a mug and bedding. Each ship was required to carry a doctor. John and Wilmot’s first child together, Charles, was born on the ship, but died a few weeks after arriving at their destination, aged 8 weeks. They arrived in Durban on 9 May 1850. John, Wilmot and the 4 living children settled on a farm called “Isipingo” just south of Durban. Son John Albert was later apprenticed to a saddle maker. He opened his own trading store, ran the Concordia hotel, and had some prospecting operations. He was very successful and prosperous. He married Elizabeth Adelaide Trennery and together they had ten children. But oldest son Orlando (Orrie), born in 1872, was the stuff legends were made of!

Orlando on his 100th birthday

Orlando lived to be 100 years old, and on the occasion of that milestone, an article was written about him in the “Rhodesiana” publication. “In the autumn of 1894 a solitary passenger climbed off ...[an] ox-drawn Cape cart in Fort Victoria. . . He was Orlando Baragwanath, a young man of 22 years with some mining experience, a prospector’s zest for the unknown and an explorer’s nature.” For the next few years he worked at different mines, learning and yearning for adventure.

In May 1899, Orrie and his partner Frank Lewis, set out, their supplies packed in 50 lb. loads packed on two wagons and a four-ply canoe. They had six pack donkeys and ten armed natives. They had no need of money so they took white calico called “limbo” for currency.

They had contracted for a 3-year stint with the Tanganyika Concessions Company, earning £25/month.
The surface copper had been known, worked and traded long before. But these men were the first to use dynamite to find more beneath the surface in Northern Rhodesia! They pegged and named many copper mines on their travels, and in 1901 discovered the vast copper field on the Wusikili river, which later became the great Nkana Mine and the heart of the fabulous Copperbelt. At the spot where John Albert had his farm and hotel now stands Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital, which holds the Guinness World Record for the largest hospital on earth with almost 3300 beds! Some of this material was found in an article from: http://www.rhodesia.nl/rhodesiana/volume28.pdf “Orlando Baragwanath: A Centenarian Pioneer of Rhodesia” by Roger Howman. “Rhodesiana” Publication No. 28, July 1973, The Rhodesiana Society Salisbury, Rhodesia.
- "Trail of the Copper King" by T. V. Bulpin, illustrations used above by A. A. Telford, published November 1959 by Bailey Bros & Swinfen Ltd., London W.C.