The Mystery of Eliza Jane Dillon

As winter begins to sink in again, I've resumed research into my ancestry, picking away at the many threads of my bloodline.  Although I have mapped out a fairly extensive list in many regards, there is still much to do, and lingering lines that will forever remain lost in the fog of time.  I was looking at one dead-end in particular not so long ago, that of my great-great-great grandmother, Eliza Jane Dillon (or Denny).

Her maiden name, itself, is sometimes disputed. Depending on which descendant researcher you run across, some say her last name was Dillon, and others list it as Denny.  She was born 17 April 1836 in Zanesville, Ohio.  On 1 January 1852, she married Frederick Stark, a German immigrant almost 10 years her senior.  They moved out to Indiana, then later to Illinois, and together they had 3 children, Henry Irving Stark, James Franklin Stark, and my great-great grandmother, Mary-Etta Stark, the future wife of Charles W. Bailey.  Fred Stark died in 1867, and Eliza remarried twice (Sampson Cantrell in 1868, and Josiah S. Fletcher in 1893).

Eliza died on 19 August 1914 in Fort Scott, Kansas.



Mary-Etta Stark, daughter of
Eliza Jane Dillon/Denny

Trying to find Eliza's parents has been an arduous process, and I have made little progress.  To my knowledge, nobody alive currently knows who her parents were, and census data isn't that helpful, either.  Their alleged birthplace varies with each census Eliza took.  In 1880, they were from Virginia and Ohio.  In 1900, they were from France, and in 1910 they were from Maine.  I've confirmed beyond a doubt that all of these census reports are for the same woman, yet she clearly didn't feed the census takers the same information each time they came around (or whoever was answering for her didn't know and/or made stuff up).  This has led me to wonder if the truth about her parents might even be different than any of these claims.

In my continuing quest to unlock the secret of Eliza's origins, I came across an interesting 1850 census form for Zanesville, Ohio (actually two, since the household started at the bottom of one page and continued on another).  This census report was for the household of Moses & Mary Dillon.  They had 4 children listed, and two other individuals living with them:  Mary A. McCormack and Elizabeth Denny.  I find this to be a very compelling coincidence, indeed.  Since Eliza is known by both names, Dillon and Denny, it could be that she was born Denny, and was "adopted" by the Dillons.  The 1850 census didn't ask for all that much information, and didn't even list a person's relation to the head of household, so it is unclear if this Elizabeth Denny was an adopted daughter or not.

Another curiosity with this record is Elizabeth Denny's birthplace.  On this form, it's listed as Germany, and this gives us more circumstantial evidence to consider.  We know that Frederick Stark was from Germany, and it is possible that his wife had her origins there, as well.  She may have come over very young, or perhaps she truly was born in Zanesville, Ohio, as is consistently reported.  She may have been born to German parents shortly after their arrival, giving some people the impression that she was also "from" Germany.  Either way, it seems logical that Eliza may have had a similar origin/background as that of the man she wed at the tender young age of 15.

The truth of Eliza's parents may never come to light, though I continue my pursuit.  New possibilities continue to emerge, leaving renewed hope that the answers are out there to be found, eventually.