John Herniman and Children: 52 Ancestors Prompt “Close to Home”

Close to Home:

John Herniman: 1834-1916

Elizabeth Anne Herniman 1868-1933

Ella Matilda Herniman 1866-1950

            Until recently, my second great-grandmother Nancy Ann Herniman Macbeth was, genealogically speaking, a bit of a brick wall. I wasn’t even sure of the spelling of her maiden name, which made identifying her parents very difficult. But thanks to a photo hint from FamilySearch, I discovered one of her siblings, which led me to the rest of her family.

Much of my genealogical research so far in 2020 has revolved around filling in this branch of my family tree. One of my most intriguing discoveries was that several of my second-great-grandmother’s nieces and nephews were born and raised just miles from my own birthplace. I had no idea anyone from this branch of the family tree was in the same area.

            Nancy Ann Herniman and Charles Macbeth met in New York and had their first children in the Buffalo and Grand Island area. They moved to Minnesota sometime around 1865. Apparently one of Nancy’s siblings, John Herniman, also left New York a few years earlier, around 1860. John, his wife Jane McCann Herniman, and his growing family spent about four or five years in Lenawee County, Michigan, and then relocated to Minnesota around the same time as the Macbeths.

While Nancy and Charles Macbeth settled in Blue Earth County, John and Jane Herniman moved to Watonwan County, settling in Adrian Township part way between two small towns, Sleepy Eye in Brown County, and St. James in Watonwan where their children’s birth records were recorded. Their farm was less than ten miles from my own father’s farm.

The 1870 census shows John was a farmer, and the 1880 census shows the family still living on the property although John’s occupation was oddly left blank on the census form—I suspect a census taker’s error. However, the obituary of one of their daughters states that the family operated a hotel in Sleepy Eye for many years, so perhaps John was operating that business as well. The Hernimans were still living on the Adrian Township farm in 1885 when their thirteenth and final child, daughter Bertha Violet Herniman, was born on March 20, 1885.

However, by the time of the 1900 census, some of the family had relocated to Park, North Dakota, and shortly thereafter, John, Jane and several of their children moved to Alberta, Canada, settling first in the hamlet of Strathcona (now part of Edmonton), and later moving 160 kilometers south to the tiny town of Mirror.

Not all of John and Jane’s children followed them to Canada. Four children ended up in California. And Ella Matilda Herniman and Elizabeth “Libby” Anne Herniman, the first of John and Jane’s children to be born in Minnesota, both married Sleepy Eye men and remained in the area until their deaths.

Elizabeth Anne Herniman, known as Libby, was born July 23, 1868 in St. James Minnesota. She married a Sleepy Eye businessman, Adolf G. Jensen, on November 26, 1889. She was 21 years old, and Adolf was 24. At the time of the marriage, Adolf was a tin smith working for the R H Bingham store which was a combination hardware and home furnishings store. By 1892, he was doing well enough that the newspaper in nearby New Ulm ran an item reporting that he was building a “nice residence”. That was the year Libby gave birth to their only child, Lyle so the couple probably needed more space.

Adolf, along with a partner named Palmer, eventually bought out R H Bingham. The store, located on Main Street in Sleepy Eye, seemed to prosper.  In 1915 Adolf bought out his partner and became sole owner of the store. Adolf was a respected member of the community; he was elected to the city council in January of 1903, and he seems to have invested in area real estate.

Tragically, Libby and Adolf’s son Lyle died in 1903 at the age of ten. I have been unable to find an obituary or a record of his burial. Libby died in 1933 at age 64. I have no information on her obituary or burial either.

Ella Matilda Herniman was born April 1, 1866. When she was 24, she married Martin Casperson, a contractor and builder. The February 18 1891 record of his marriage to Ella states he was divorced; he was 38 years old, so considerably older than she.  

Casperson had started his career in the Chicago area, and married a woman there who oddly enough also named Ella. They had two daughters, Charlotte and Evelyn, who remained with their mother, who also remarried. Martin apparently moved to Sleepy Eye in 1889 after the divorce. He was well-respected in the community and won many building contracts in the area. 

He was profiled in a history of Brown County Minnesota; the first paragraph of the article is pictured below, along with a newspaper article above describing his winning the contract to build a local church.

Martin and Ella had no children during their forty years of marriage. Martin died September 6, 1936 at age 82. Ella was 70. She lived another 14 years. She remained close to her siblings and their children, often housing them when they visited from Canada. One of her nieces who lived in nearby New Ulm, Blanche Barton Loffelmacher, took Ella in and cared for her for the last year or so of her life.

Now that I know about these ancestors who lived so close to home, I need to visit Sleepy Eye’s Historical Society and view the archives of the local paper to find out more about John Herniman and his daughters Libby and Ella, and hopefully I can locate the women’s graves and visit them.