I’m going to tell you right up front: This is going to be a very niche history post. It’s about a well-traveled, seemingly financially stable single woman in the 1800s who was only briefly related to Nashville history and who seems to barely exist.
I’m talking, of course, about Mary L. Loofborrow, who was renting Thompson Anderson’s house from the U.S. government while Anderson was busy writing sternly worded letters about loyalty and running all over town dramatically underlining things he thought were important right after the Civil War.
I thought to myself, How hard can someone named Mary L. Loofborrow be to find in the historical record? And I’m very curious about her. What brought her to Nashville? Where did she get the money to set up her business as a boarding house proprietor? What happened to her afterward? And let me reiterate: Her last name is Loofborrow. How hard can she be to find?
Due to the Freedmen’s Bureau records, we know she was in Nashville in 1865. She is in the city directory in 1868 ("Loofbourow Miss Mary, b h 188 Church") and 1870 ("Loofborrow Mrs. Mary, widow h 188 Church"). So she should be here in the 1870 census, right? There are five possibilities in the 1870 census: Mary Loofbourrow married to James, with a kid, in Iowa; Mary Lifbraugh, who lived in Illinois, but was only 22, which makes her an unlikely boarding house proprietor in 1865; Mary Loofburrow, a married mother in Nebraska; and Mary Loofboro, a married grandmother in a different part of Iowa. None of these women seem like a good match for our Mary.
OK then, it’s still a pretty distinctive last name. Maybe the newspapers can tell us something. On March 26, 1858, in the Times-Picayune down in New Orleans, there’s a notice that “Loofborrow Mary L miss” has mail at the post office she’s not picked up. On Oct. 1, 1858, there’s a similar notice in The Louisville Daily Courier for “Loofborrow miss Mary L.” And last, in the Jan. 12, 1861, issue of the Chicago Tribune, we again find letters that “Loofborrow Mary L miss” needs to pick up.
I think this tells us a few things about Mary. She traveled, which indicates that she had money — either her own or family money. People knew where she was, because they knew where to send mail. And probably, when our city directory called her a widow, it was wrong, but at least that indicates she was old enough for people to assume that she had been married.
I want to be clear that I’m taking a slight leap in assuming all these Miss Mary L. Loofborrows are the same woman, but I could only find census records on one Mary L. Loofborrow (we’ll get to her in a minute) throughout the 1800s. As surprising as I find our Mary’s ability to never be counted in a census, I find it nearly impossible to believe that there was more than one Mary L. Loofborrow who could avoid census takers. So, if there is only one Mary L. Loofborrow who wasn’t married and who left very little trace, then I found her again at the end of her life.
In 1878, all the state institutions in Ohio made their reports about what went on in 1877 to the Ohio General Assembly. And in the Annual Report of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Orphans’ Home, we find this:
On the 10th of last January, the teacher’s place in the fifth grade was made vacant by the death of Miss Mary L. Loofbourrow […] Miss Loofbourrow belonged to the “Home” corps of teachers as early as 1870, and continued to teach until August, 1873. At the time of her appointment, the last time, as teacher in the “Home,” she was residing in California, whence she came to this place September, 1876. She was a lady of rare culture and refinement, and admirably adapted to the vocation in life which she selected—the training of the youth.
The Home paid for her funeral, but I couldn’t find any other record of her death, and I couldn’t find her burial place. The Home had a cemetery on site for children who died, so possibly she’s buried there.
But this is bananas. This woman worked for a state institution, has a firm death date, and an unusual last name. Where is she in the census, ever? Who are her people, and why isn’t she in their family trees? She lived in California for three years. By herself? Did she go to be near family? You want to know how many Loofbourrow families were living in California in the 1870s? Two. David Thomas Loofbourrow (1829-1914) and his family, and Elias Loofbourrow (1841-1881) and his wife Mary. And those guys were second cousins. It seems like they’d have to be Mary’s family. According to his obituary in the San Francisco Examiner on March 31, 1914, David “was a native of Ohio and came across the plains in 1851.” He served in the California legislature and became a socialist. Elias was born in Indiana, served in the Civil War and, like Mary, was a teacher. Both men had sisters named Mary. Elias’ sister Mary died very young in 1851 at the age of 18. So unless she faked her death and hopped a steamboat for New Orleans, she’s not our Mary.
The dry-goods merchant founded Mt. Olivet Cemetery, loved the Union and loved being pedantic
Which brings us to David’s sister, Mary Louise Loofbourrow, who was born in Madison County, Ohio (the county just east of where the Home was), in 1834. At first glance this seems like it must be our Mary. She is literally the only Mary L. Loofbourrow I could find any record of. She has ties to Ohio and reason to visit/live in California — her brother and cousin were there. Many of her relatives served in the Civil War, which may have been why she was in Nashville and why she worked at the Home. Except she got married in 1853 to Benjamin F. Thomas. They were having kids all the time our Mary was gallivanting around the country — and she died on Sept. 5, 1918, not back in 1877.
So what’s going on here? How can our Mary L. Loofbourrow just … somehow … not exist? She was never born, didn’t have any family to appear in the census with, and even died without somehow leaving a permanent mark? This took some unraveling, but I’ve figured it out. Family historians and Ancestry.com all conflate David’s sister, Mary, with the Mary who married Benjamin F. Thomas. This seems like a reasonable mistake to make. You have Mary Loofbourrow born and raised in Ohio around 1830. In the 1850 census, she’s living near a Benjamin Thompson, and Mary marries Benjamin Thomas, and you find her married in the 1870 and 1880 census. Plus, if you know there’s a Loofbourrow married to a Pancoast (or Pancost) somewhere in there, well, Mrs. Thomas’ parents are Nathan Looofbourrow and Hannah Pancoast.
Except David’s parents are Wade Loofbourrow and Nancy Swinney. Wade’s first wife was Mary Pancoast, who was the mother of David’s half-siblings. Clearly, due to all the similar first names (half the men in this family are named Wade and half the women named Mary) and the repeating last names, family historians and Ancestry’s algorithm just conflated the two Mary L. Loofbourrows.
But the most likely history of the woman who so aggravated Thompson Anderson here in Nashville goes like this. She was one of at least six girls and two boys of Wade Loofbourrow and his wives. Her brother was the afore-discussed California David. The family seems to have imploded after the death of their father in 1852, and most of the siblings ended up leaving Ohio. Mary moved around a lot, came to Nashville during the war, and taught in a home for Civil War orphans in Ohio, where she eventually died.
I know I harp on this a lot, but it is a marvel how the internet has changed genealogical research. It’s true that some people out here are finding it a curse, because they’re learning things they wish they didn’t know. But I think it’s amazing that, thanks to the internet, you can piece together the whole arc of a life of a woman who lived briefly in Nashville, 160 years ago, whose life had been hidden in the shadow of her same-age/same-name cousin.
