In JSTOR – An Underappreciated Resource I wrote about the hints to our family history that we find in old letters. I used the example of finding James Liberty Fisk within my family tree and provided numerous links to his remarkable life. I concluded with a photograph depicting James Liberty Fisk, featured above as this article’s lead photograph.
What I didn’t realize at the time is that the photograph contained a hint to find yet another distant relative, and a murder mystery in Leeds, England.
In the town of Wortley, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, 1844, a watch maker named William H. Illingworth lived with his children, his sickly, invalid wife, and a caretaker named Ann. Hannah “Ann” Silcox was actually married to a bricklayer named Billy Simpson, and despite that marriage Billy seemed nowhere to be found. Ann’s principal duties involved caring for William’s wife Elizabeth, though history and stories would indicate Elizabeth was not the only one for whom she cared.
It appears that in 1842 Ann gave birth to William H. Illingworth Jr., though how Elizabeth was unaware of this additional “bairn” is unknown. On 12 Dec 1844 Elizabeth died of the effects of poison, and under circumstances of some suspicion. William was investigated, but it was Ann who was charged and found guilty of willful murder. Then another twist in the story saw the verdict reversed, and Ann was released. The full, and fascinating inquest can be read in the following article: The Leeds Intelligencer and Yorkshire General Advertiser, Jan 4, 1845, pg. 8.
William and Ann continued having children, including a daughter born at sea May 15, 1850, as the family immigrated to the United States and settled themselves in St. Paul, Minnesota. Once in St. Paul, William returned to watch making, and eventually his young son William Jr. worked with him, learning the trade.
William Jr.’s interests turned from watches to the new developments in stereoscopic photography. Because his father had means, he was able to purchase this new-fangled camera. His natural instinct for the art brought him some notoriety in St. Paul. In 1866 at the age of 24 he volunteered to be the photographer for James Liberty Fisk’s Expedition. This bold adventure sought a safe and practical land route from Minnesota to the gold fields of western Montana and Idaho. From this first journey, he produced a superb series of views documenting more than two months of covered wagon travel across the plains.
Fisk made four expeditions to Montana country and Illingworth accompanied him often. In 1874 Gen. Custer formed the Black Hills Expedition and made William the expedition’s photographer. Over 883 miles of travel, William’s photographs were the first ever to be taken in the Black Hills.
Returning to St. Paul after all these adventures, William’s life began to unravel. A decline in the popularity of stereograph photography, court battles with the Army over rights to his photos, and alcoholism all attributed to his downward spiral. In 1888 the St. Paul District Court granted a divorce to his third wife Flora, stating, “The defendant W. H. lllingworth, has been guilty of cruel and inhuman treatment of the plaintiff as charged against him in the complaint herein, and further that said defendant … for the space
of more than one year immediately preceding the filing of the complaint in this case was a habitual drunkard and guilty of habitual drunkenness during this time.”
Following the divorce, William went downhill rapidly, his drinking escalated, and he was forced to sell most his belongings to support his habit. Alone, destitute, and sick, in 1893 at the age of 50, he ended his life with a shotgun blast to his head.
Despite the tragic stories behind his father’s and his own life, William Illingworth Jr. left us with a memorable collection of rare photographs that depict the life and the landscape of those early trails to settle the west. For a more complete description of his life see: Stereoscopic Eye on the Frontier West
William Illingworth Jr. left more than his photography. In the photograph heading this story it is William and his wife standing beneath the tree with James Liberty Fisk. The remarkable thing about the photograph, besides being of two men who were so instrumental in the settling of the west, is that they would be a part of an entwined family they could not yet image. This is one of the odd revelations of genealogy, that we find connections after the fact, in unexpected ways.
Through his sister Frances back in St. Paul, he had a nephew named Hugh, whose daughter Alice married and had a daughter Anna, who married Albert Bull of Great Falls, Montana, whose daughter married Leslie Simonson. And my mother’s maiden name is Simonson, married to James Goddard, whose mother was Mildred Fisk, who has the same ancestor as James Liberty Fisk.
Two adventurers and friends standing beneath a tree, unaware of the connections that would take place in the future, which would inexplicably tie them to family that did not yet exist.
Sources:
Stereoscopic Eye on the Frontier West by Jeffrey P. Grosscup
Montana The Magazine of Western History, Spring, 1975, Vol. 25, No. 2 (Spring,
1975), pp. 36-50
Stereoscopic Photographs provided by Montana State Library, Montana History Portal
The coroner’s inquest: The Leeds Intelligencer and Yorkshire General Advertiser, Jan 4, 1845, pg. 8
JSTOR – An Underappreciated Resource – by Mark Goddard, a treatise on family clues and James Liberty Fisk, with several links covering his life and expeditions.
