Category Archives: Prettyman family

Were Annie Horan and Anora Lee Prettyman the same person?

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[NOTE: I recommend you read this revised post on Anora instead: https://blackenedroots.com/blog/anora-a-fresh-look/.]

confusedfamilytreeIn yesterday’s post, I investigated the birth family of my great-great-grandmother Mary Ann Horan. I learned that her parents were William and Anna (“Annie”) Horan. William Horan apparently disappeared (died? divorced?) around 1880. Annie Horan is listed on the federal census of 1880 as being the head of her household, while also marked as being married but not marked as being a widow.

Five years later, in 1885, Annie Horan also appears to have disappeared or died and her children appear to have been adopted a brother-in-law and next-door neighbor of Mary Horan, her husband’s older brother Francis (“Frank”) Marian Prettyman and his wife Anora Lee Prettyman.

When doing further research today into the mystery, I discovered a growing number of similarities between Anna Horan and Anora Lee Prettyman that make me now think that they were quite possibly the same person. If this is true, then my great-great-grandmother’s mother was also her sister-in-law! Continue reading →

Who were the Horans?

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When I was in my early teens and starting to get interested in family history (thanks, Roots!), my grandfather Bill Prettyman told me what he knew about his ancestors. He told me that his grandfather was Alfred Minus Prettyman and that his grandmother was Mary Ann Horan. With those words, I learned of my great-great-grandparents for the first time.

Since then, I’ve learned much about Alfred Minus/Minos Prettyman and his ancestry, tracing the Prettyman line back to my 18th-great-grandfather John Prettyman, who lived in Bacton, Suffolk County, England in 1361, the location of the Prettyman ancestral home, Bacton Manor (the most recent iteration of the Manor House dates to the late 1500s).

Mary Ann Horan and her ancestry have proven quite a bit more difficult. I could find information about Mary once she had married Alfred Prettyman (for instance, the 1885 census—see image below—that was taken almost 6 months after their December 1, 1884, wedding), but information about her before she was married proved very difficult to come by.

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Veterans Day

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US_Flag_BacklitNinety-five years ago today, on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, an armistice was signed with Germany to cease fighting the Great War. One year later, on November 11, 1919, President Woodrow Wilson declared that the day would be called Armistice Day, to honor those who fought in World War I. More than three decades later—after the “war to end war” gave way to World War II and to the Korean War—the holiday was renamed Veterans Day, and was intended as a day to honor all veterans of the U.S. armed forces.

In today’s post I’d like to honor all of my family members who served in defense of our country.

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Thanks for the dandelions, Dr. Prettyman

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Bierstadt_Albert_Oregon_TrailToday’s post is about Dr. Perry Elgin Prettyman, the brother of my 4th-great-grandfather, and the uncle of Alfred Wharton Prettyman, the subject of a recent post. Perry was, by all accounts, an intelligent and hard-working man. Among other things, he was a medical doctor who specialized in herbal medicine, a pioneer, and an inventor. He was also the man who was quite possibly single-handedly responsible for introducing dandelions to the Pacific Northwest. More on that later.

Perry Prettyman, like two centuries of Prettymans before him, was born in Sussex County, Delaware. He was born on March 20, 1796, in Georgetown, Delaware, to Thomas and Mary Prettyman. He married Elizabeth Hammond Vessels in Georgetown on October 23, 1824. A couple of years later, in 1828, he began studying medicine at the Botanic Medical School in Baltimore, Maryland.

Perry and some of his siblings, for whatever reason, made the decision to leave Delaware and head west to seek their futures. His brother Robert headed to westernmost Virginia (now West Virginia), and another brother headed to Chicago. Perry arrived in Missouri in 1839, and stayed there for eight years. On May 7, 1847, he and his family started west again, traveling by wagon over the Oregon Trail to the Oregon Territory, a journey that took them five months and three days to complete.

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Alfred Wharton Prettyman (1823–1892)

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My 3rd-great-grandfather, Alfred Wharton Prettyman, was the man responsible for bringing the Prettyman family to Minnesota. I haven’t yet written a post about Alfred W. Prettyman, so this will be an overview of his life, to be built upon in future posts.

By the time of Alfred’s birth, seven generations of his Prettyman ancestors had lived their lives on the Delmarva peninsula. The immigrant John Prettyman moved to the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay in 1643 (he actually immigrated from England a few years earlier, first settling on the the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay 1638, in St. Mary’s, Maryland). While the immigrant John died in the Virginia portion of the Delmarva peninsula, his son John and his descendants have lived in and around Sussex County, Delaware, ever since. In fact, this year marks 370 years that Prettymans have lived in Delaware, and 375 years that Prettymans have been in North America.

Alfred Wharton Prettyman was born in Georgetown, Sussex County, Delaware, on December 1, 1823, to Robert Prettyman (1800–1863) and Elizabeth (Pepper) Prettyman (1803–1837). While Alfred would be the last Prettyman of his line to be born in Delaware, it was actually Alfred’s father, Robert Prettyman, who first broke tradition and departed the Prettyman’s ancestral stomping grounds in Delaware for the wilds of West Virginia (then just the western portion of Virginia). According to Edgar Cannon Prettyman’s 1968 work, The Prettyman Family in England and America, 1361–1968, Robert lived most of his life in Woodsfield, Ohio. Woodsfield is just about 15 miles to the west of the Ohio River and the West Virginia border.

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C.A. Prettyman, barber and singer, part 2

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Rockwell_1936_QuartetIn my first post on this topic, I wrote that my uncle Dan told me about two songs that he thought my great-grandfather, Charles Austin (C.A.) Prettyman, had written. Yesterday, after a little more digging, Dan learned that while his father (C.A.’s son) referred to these songs as “Charlie’s songs,” it was apparently because he (C.A.) sang them so much, not because he had written the songs.

Dan did a little research and discovered that “Saloon, Saloon, Saloon” was written in 1919, and that “Say Cuspidor was a barbershop take on another song called ‘Say au revoir but not good-bye‘”.

While that’s a bit disappointing, knowing the actual historical facts is ultimately more satisfying than believing in a history that never happened. So for today’s post, I’ll pass along what my uncle learned of these songs as well as some other bits I dug up.

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C.A. Prettyman, dairy farmer?

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dairy cowsI found a couple of clues today that indicate that my great-grandfather, Charles Austin Prettyman—in addition to being a barber, real estate appraiser, mortgage banker, insurance agent and real estate developer—was also a dairy farmer for a time.

According to the membership list published in the Proceedings of the 34th annual meeting of the Minnesota State Dairyman’s Association, held in Wadena, Minnesota, from January 16–19, 1912, Charles Austin Prettyman (referred to on page 13 simply as “Austin Prettyman,” one of several names he went by) was a member of the Minnesota State Dairyman’s Association in 1912:

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C.A. Prettyman, barber and singer, part 1

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Rockwell_1936_QuartetMy uncle Dan surprised me with a wonderful historical tidbit about my great-grandfather, Charles Austin (C.A.) Prettyman. In addition to being a barber as a young man (read more here), he was apparently also a talented singer and a songwriter. And what’s more, at least two of the songs he wrote survive today in the memory of my uncle.

My uncle is a talented musician with a great voice, and his father before him was also musically gifted, having sung throughout his life including, my uncle tells me, being part of a barbershop quartet. It makes me wonder if C.A. was also in a barbershop quartet, and just how far back this Prettyman musical talent extends. Did it start with C.A., or was C.A. continuing a tradition that his father, Alfred Minus Prettyman, passed to him?

My uncle is planning to record these two songs for me, and he’s just sent me the words to Charlie’s two songs. I’d like to share those with you.

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The Prettyman barbershop, part 2

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2013-07-21 scans002 (1)I introduced the Prettyman barbershop in yesterday’s last post. The four Prettyman brothers—Roy, Irvin, Charles, and Clarence—appear to have worked in and managed a barbershop in Wadena, Minnesota, from the 1910s through at least the early 1920s. Yesterday I presented what I thought were the only two photos I had of the barbershop, asking my readers to help me identify the men in the photographs and to discover what other details could be learned about the barbershop, including its location.

Since that post, I’ve discovered that I actually have a scan of another photo of the barbershop, plus scans of the back of these photos, which contain helpful information recorded by the Wadena Area Historical Society. As a result, I now know where the barbershop was located—110 Jefferson Street South in Wadena.

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The Prettyman barbershop, part 1

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2013-07-21 scans002 (1)My great-grandfather, Charles Austin Prettyman, and his three brothers ran a barbershop in Wadena, Minnesota in the 1910s through at least the early 1920s. All four Prettyman boys were involved with the barbershop—Roy, Irvin, Charles, and Clarence. In fact, when my grandfather, William Prettyman, was born in 1919, his father’s profession was listed on the birth certificate as “barber.”

I’ve found two photos of the barbershop, but because I don’t know who is who in these photos, I’m hoping my Prettyman relations out there can help me sort that out.

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