Volume 9 Number 4 December 1994

Dear Helen,

I was looking at the 1891 Staffs census for my Sanford family (which by the way, I didn’t find) and I came across the 2 Blincow ‘strays’ for Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire. Thought I’d pass them on just in case some one in our group in England may not have the info.

My friend found the burial in Rugby Warwickshire, so I copied that too.

County of West Bromurch, 1891 Census Staffs, England

Burials: Rugby, England

Intered 19 Sept 1884 age 61 Spinster resided St. Matthews, Rugby

– Brenda Morrison, Tacoma, Washington

Letter to the Editor,

Might I make a suggestion which might be taken up at the next reunion. It has become increasingly obvious that we have a lot to do to unravel the genealogy of the Blencowe family. It also seems clear that there has been some multiplication of effort, and I note here, as one example, that several of the Association have searched the Mixbury records ex Brackley Oxon in ignorance of the work done by others. I believe we have enough to do without multiplicating our work. We might wish to duplicate for verification purposes, but any further work is quite superfluous.To counter this, I suggest that the Association develop a listing of individual Association member’s genealogical interests, the directions, and that these are published annually in the newsletter. I know that some entries will be brief, and others long. So be this, for it will minimize multiplication. as a further and probably greater benefit, it will put both old and recent members in immediate touch with those who have similar interests and directions. Might I commence with an example?

Frank Whillans: Prime interest in Mixbury ex Brackley Oxon. Desire to link William Blencowe to other family twigs. William and wife Ann had a son William c06sep1761 (first entry in Mixbury record) and five subsequent children all at Mixbury.

Desire to track down descendants of this Mixbury line.

– Submitted by Frank Whillans, Melbourne, Australia

During a recent trip to my native Pembrokeshire I visited the Record Office in Haverfordwest. It is located in an old 18th or 19thC Police Station and gaol built within the ruins of the old Norman castle that dominate the little town. The castle includes a museum that is also well worth a visit. Thickness of the walls and the nature of the doors suggest that some of the work spaces in the Records Office are within the old cells. I searched, unsuccessfully, for further data of my maternal ancestors but the County Archivist noticed my name when I signed in and came up with an unexpected Blencowe reference; Mr Hughes specialises in records of awards of military medals and here was one of Stephen Blencowe, Private Soldier in the 9th Foot (Norfolk Regiment) awarded a medal in the Sikh War of 1845-46.

The regimental records showed that Pte Blencowe had been awarded the Sutlej Medal with “MOODKE” in the exergue on the reverse, and a clasp for FEROZESHUHUR. He had taken part in the battle of Mudki on 18 December and in the battle of Ferozeshah where he was killed in action on 21 December. No further details were available (although presumably his parents would have been sent his medal) so we do not know where he came from. Whilst Norfolk seems the more likely, units of the regiment had been stationed in Buckingham and there were Blencowes in both counties. However, I was sent an account of the activities of the 3rd Light Dragoons during the Sutlej Campaign and excerpts from this give an idea of what life (and death) were like for soldiers in the days before India became (for more than a century) a British Empire.

The Sikh Confederacy, led by Ranjit Singh, was centred on Lahore, now a major city of Pakistan, and the great Sikh religious centre of Amritsar some 20 miles to the east in present-day India. The Sutlej River provided a boundary to whose south the lands were under the control of the British East India Company. After the death of Ranjit in 1839 the army assumed greater control of the Confederacy and, trained by French and Italian mercenaries, had by 1845 regular forces of 35,000 infantry, 15,000 cavalry, and 200 guns – a much larger force than the British garrison of 7,000 at Ferozepore south of the river.

When, on 11 December, a Sikh army crossed the Sutlej, British reinforcements were moved North. The 9th Foot left Ambala and marched about 140 miles towards Ferozepore, ‘over flat, sandy and dusty country, overgrown with thorn scrub and low jungle.’ They had met up with the British force that had been pushed south from Ferozepore and 18 December arrived at Mudki at 1.00 p.m. They made camp and started to cook a meal as the baggage camels came in, but before this was finished they came under attack by guns of the Sikh army. The British army of some 12,000 men comprised a cavalry division and three infantry divisions, with 42 guns. An artillery duel was followed by an infantry battle and hand-to- hand fighting in which the British lost nearly 900 men, killed or wounded, but forced the Sikhs into a fighting retreat and captured 17 of their guns.

The British army remained camped at Mukdi for two days and moved on Ferozeshah at 4 a.m. on 21 December but, after marching some 10 miles, were not able to join battle until 3.30 p.m. after struggling towards the Sikh entrenchments through dense scrub. Very heavy losses were incurred on both sides, including Pte Blencowe; the battle was resumed the following day after a night of gunfire and infantry skirmishes, with many wounded being shot as they lay on the ground. After the Sikh army had been driven off, leaving 70 guns behind, the almost victorious British then came under attack by a fresh army of 20,000 men with another 50 guns. The fighting seems to have become so confused that the British were lucky not to have been wiped out and they were puzzled as well as jubilant when the whole Sikh army turned and fled towards the river, abandoning its ammunition and stores.

It took two more battles before the First Sikh War was formally ended by a treaty at Lahore on 9 March 1846, but by that time our unfortunate kinsman had been two months in his grave and, we fear, forgotten by all but his next-of-kin back home.

Source: Sutlej Campaign: 1845-6 The Role of the 3rd Light Dragoons by Anthony Farrington, Senior Assistant Keeper, India Office Records

More Chapters in the saga of Ivy Blincow (born 1887),

CHRISTMAS IN GRANITE

We were back in school in Granite another winter. Christmas was always a special time. We’d go with Papa to cut the tree. It was always large and beautiful. We trimmed it with strings of popcorn and cranberries and little things we’d make.

We had stockings with an orange and apple and usually some nuts in it too. Besides the stocking, we each got one gift One year, when we were quite small, Bessie kept saying to me, “if you could have a baby cradle or a bed with springs, which would you want?”, then she’d say, “Oh, a bed would be so nice, wouldn’t it?” All the time she knew what we were getting, as she had found them. She wanted the cradle so badly that it was hardly mentioned, and I kept seeing, as she wanted me to, what a lovely gift the bed would be. Come Christmas and sure enough, the bed was mine and cradle hers. Later, I learned how she kept telling Mama she would love to have a cradle for her doll.

Then I remember the Christmas that we all three got ice skates. We really were thrilled and went ice skating often on the Arkansas River that ran through Granite. Sometimes, my brother and I would cut a hole in the ice and fish. We would catch some nice fish that way.

One year, I remember getting a box with four dolls, each about six inches tall. They were of different nationalities. I thought it was a great gift.

LEAVING GRANITE

We left Granite in the early spring on the day I was 13 years old, March 16, 1910. School wasn’t out yet, and we planned to go back to Kansas. We stopped in Denver for a short time, and finally ended up in Kanarado, Kansas where we lived on a part farm and part ranch, where there was a lot of cattle, My brother and I did a lot of picking up cow chips for the cook stove there. We hadn’t done that before, as we were too young for the job when we lived on the prairie before, but it wasn’t a bad chore really. We wore gloves and carried the chips in gunny sacks. They make a good fire and Mama cooked many good meals with them as fuel.

Delia M. Leist

Delia M. Leist, 99 of Arcadia, Kansas, died at 6 a.m. Thursday, November 17, 1994, at the Beverly Nursing Center, Pittsburg, Kansas.

Mrs. Leist was born October 5, 1985, in Vernon County, Missouri, to George W. and Emma L. White Blincoe.

She married Dell R. Leist December 23, 1914, at Columbus, Kansas. He preceded her in death September 1951.

Mrs. Leist was a homemaker and worked on the family farm. She lived in the Arcadia and Bronaugh, Mo., area most of her life. Survivors include two daughters, Maxine James of Arcadia, Kansas, and Ethelyn Boatright of Bronaugh, Missouri; ten grand-children; and seventeen great-grand-children; and two great-great-grand- children. Mrs. Leist was preceded in death by a son, Raymond Leist, two sisters, and five brothers.

Funeral services were at 10 a.m. Saturday, November 19, 1994, at the Bedene Funeral Home, Arma, Kansas, with the Rev. Bob Dickey and Joy Funk officiating. Burial was in Worsley Cemetery, Bronaugh.

Accompanying note:

Delia lived alone on her farm up to two years ago. And, you can see from the date her husband passed on in 1951, that she had great endurance.

From the wonderful tribute and old neighbour, Joy Funk gave; there are not many left and should be more of her kind in society today. The service was packed.

Marshall, her cousin said she lived within a few miles of her birthplace and probably never travelled very far away.

-Submitted by Marshall and Mary Blincoe, Kansas City, KS

William Blincoe, 1865-1907, An Oklahoma Pioneer

William Blincoe was one of the early settlers of Oklahoma. I have several items concerning him and think they show some of the life and times of early settling of the West.

Settlement of Guthrie. Oklahoma
On April 22, 1889, the signal was given for would-be settlers to rush into the former Indian lands of eastern Oklahoma and stake off their claims for home sites. At noon of that day there was no city here; at sunset there was a population of more than 5,000. The railroad station had been called Guthrie, after Judge John Guthrie, a railroad official, and the new settlement adopted the name. From 1890 to 1910, Guthrie was the capital of the state; then, by vote of the people, the seat of state administration was transferred to Oklahoma City.

Newspaper accolade. Golden Rule, a publication of the Christian Endeavor Society, date unknown
“Truly Christian Endeavor pioneers are all who are Christian Endeavor workers in the new Territory of Oklahoma, and Wlliam Blincoe is a pioneer of those pioneers. He was born at Booneville, Mo., November 15, 1865, and is therefore quite a young man. He took from the Kansas Normal College, Fort Scott, Kansas, the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and from the University of Michigan that of Law. He entered at once upon the practice of law at Guthrie, Oklahoma, where he has made commendable progress in his profession. He holds the important position of schoolland commissioner for the Territory. Mr. Blincoe’s parents died while he was quite young, and he was thrown on his own resources. From the age of sodeen until the age of twenty-five he was an infidel. He became converted in a Christian society he himself had helped to organize, and joined, soon after, the Congregational Church. No wonder Mr. Blincoe, having gained this great benefit from the Christian Endeavor movement, became enthusiastic in promoting that cause. It was he who suggested the organization of the first Christian Endeavor society formed in Oklahoma. This was on December 29, 1889. The next year he attended the St. Louis International Convention, and was appointed superintendent of Christian Endeavor work in the new Territory. Now that Oklahoma has been able to form a Territorial union, Mr. Blincoe was very ft chosen as its president [Christian Endeavor Society]. The GOLDEN RULE sends, to him and to his earnest co-laborers, a most hearty God-speed. Oklahoma presents a difficult field, yet nowhere in the country may Christian Endeavor, win such important triumphs.”

Obituary, part missing. Probably from The Guthrie Leader Not dated but he died in 1907.

….Once or twice a year his old complaint revived.
William Blincoe was one of God’s noblemen.   Even when ill he radiated friendliness and good will. He was most loyal in his friendship; the soul of honor and integrity. Wlliam Blincoe never knowingly did a dishonorable thing in his life. Modest, unassuming he was generous to a fault, a loving husband and an indulgent father. He was a good citizen for the town. During the past two years the deceased had been regularly employed in the editorial department of The Leader.

The deceased was born Nov. 25,1865, near Booneville, Cooper Co., Mo. He attended the district schools, and taught school at 17 years of age. He taught school in Fort Scott, Kansas, and graduated at the Ann Arbor law school. When The Gutluie [OK] Leader was founded he was interested do management for two years in 1892-93. When Governor Renfrow was appointed governor under Cleveland, Mr. Blincoe was made commissioner of the school land department. He inaugurated the system now in vogue, and proved a most invaluable official He organized the Christian Endeavor societies of Oklahoma and was the first president of the C.E. in the Territory.

After leaving public office Mr. Blincoe practiced law. Since 1898 his health prevented him from engaging in exacting business. The deceased was married in 1894. A wife and son, Wiliam survive him. He leaves two brothers, G.W. Blincoe, of Fort Scott, and E.L. Blincoe, of San Francisco; and a sister, Mrs. E.I. Thompson, of Hepler, Kas. Mr. G.W. Blincoe, a nephew Leslie Blincoe, of Fallis, and Mrs. Thompson, of Kansas are here. The funeral will take place from the home at 10 o’clock Tuesday moming. Rev. Harry Oscar Scott, pastor of the Presbyterian church, of which the deceased was a leading member, will conduct the services.

Letter from Ernest Edward Blincoe, written in 1977 [excerpts]
I remember, of course, Untie Wlliam Blincoe quite well, especially in my earlier days which I was a Kid on the farm. He and his wife, Louise, and son Wlliam, visited us on a number of occasions while he was at Guthrie, which was then the territorial capital of Indian Territory, now the State of Oklahoma. I recall that he won the oratorical contest at the Kansas Normal and taught school at Xenia, Bourbon County. Kansas, to make money to go to the Ann Arbor law School, which I later learned was the University of Michigan.

Wlliam Blincoe and family later moved to Perry, Michigan, which was Aunt Louise’s home, and I recall visiting her in the 1920’s. She passed away many years ago and some 15 years ago her son, Wlliam also died, leaving two or three girls whom I have not heard from for years.