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Roger Avery Stubbs was born March 24, 1910 at Crystal Bay, Minnesota. He was the oldest of eight children and was born into one of the early pioneer families of the Lake Minnetonka, Minnesota area. He spent several years in dairy farming and later in house moving, a family business. Avery was the guiding force behind the archives and genealogy department of the Western Hennepin Pioneer Association Museum. The WHPA was founded in 1907 by area pioneers who called themselves "Old Settlers". Avery dedicated much of his life to the Museum; collecting and preserving a large amount of the Museum's pioneer and Victorian era artifacts, portraits, photographs, and over 1200 family history files. He wrote and co-authored over 25 works of history and genealogy. Roger Avery Stubbs died at age 80 in 1990.
With a strong interest in his genealogical roots Avery was able to visit the home of grandfather Henry and great-grandfather Nathan Stubbs at West Elkton, OH in 1940 as he wrote of below. A short audio recording (360 kB) of an interview with Avery in 1987 by Dan Stubbs. [Note: Camden and Sommerville are both on the present day Norfolk and Western train line. Both are about 6 miles from West Elkton]
"When I was at the Presbyterian General Assembly
in Rochester, New York in 1940 I met a delegate from near there [West Elkton,
OH] who told me that I should go and visit Bill Stubbs her neighbor now
95 years old - before it was too late. I met my sister C. in Albany at
our brother F.'s who took us up into northern Vermont looking up our mother's
people - the Butterfields. After this trip, C. and I took the New York
Central down to New York City and then the Pennsylvania express train to
Washington, D.C. There I enjoyed a couple days researching family history
at the National Archives and Library of Congress, getting safely by armed
guards - it being war time. This was before the era of microfilms which
are so hard to use, especially with bi-focals.
When it was time to start back towards home we
again took the Pennsylvania to Chicago with stopover at Richmond, Indiana.
It was midnight and the train agent told us that the closest we could get
to West Elkton by rail was to take the Wabash line to Camden, Ohio. That
train was to leave at 4 A.M. so we waited up and boarded with anticipation.
We reached Camden as the sun was rising. It was a miracle; all the way
as back in Richmond, we were told emphatically that this mail train did
not stop at Camden, whizzing right through. Undaunted I had prayed that
if it was good we could get off there. We explained our plight to the ticket
agent in Richmond whom I overheard telling the head dispatcher that a couple
came so far and absolutely HAD to get off at Camden. The train engineer
was notified who must have thought we were some special people. There was
no depot and we got off and noticed a mail sack tossed to a waiting man
who carried it to his Model T Ford roadster and he looked friendly and
told him we wanted to go to West Elkton. He seemed pleased explaining that
he was so surprised as that mail train never stopped at Camden in years.
He told us that he was going to the postoffice at West Elkton and we could
ride along. He knew the Bill Stubbs. We were anxious to see and the postmaster
turned out to be a Stubbs. Neither of these two had a car but were very
agreeable and told us how to get down to Elk Creek just a good hike down
the pike. West Elkton, a little settlement, is on the south line of Preble
County. Just across the line is Butler County, and the Nathan Stubbs homestead
is inside that county up to the Preble boundary.
It was a very hot day and we stopped for a drink
at Lee Talbert's, nephew of Uncle Tom Talbert's. One sip and we had enough.
It tasted like half Epsom salts! I now realize what Henry Stubbs meant
when he said his wife MARY (ECCLES) was so sick and they went back to North
Carolina where she was born to get better water and she improved rapidly.
We met an elderly lady, a Louanna Stubbs Roberts, who reminded us of Carrie
Chapman back home. Jolly and so good natured. She showed us the site of
the old 1817 grist mill and the dugout sluiceways, now grown up with thicket.
When the mill was torn down after a century the boards were still good
and they were used to construct a barn, sheds and chicken houses. The mill
stones were mounted as garden and lawn seats and we took pictures. The
Nathan Stubbs house had been remodeled beyond recognition; even then we
should have taken a photo. She said a spring still flowed through the rock
walled cellar and the cold water used for refrigeration. We waded In Elk
Creek which was only a foot deep as it was midsummer. The covered bridge
across to Nathan's house was gone. The creek descends over a series of
flat sandstone terraces rippling along. The old dam where a watchman stood
to blow a trumpet when there was enough head of water to release to flow
to the millwheel was gone. Right across the creek on the north was a huge
old house of Mrs.Roberts' grandfather Nathan Stubbs, Jr. older brother
of our Henry. Being millers and prosperous and busy with many coming and
going; having many auxiliary structures this Stubbs settlement was well
suited as an important 'station' on the UNDERGROUND RAILROAD. If fleeing
slaves could make it across the Ohio River from Kentucky, to the big town
of Cincinnati they could hide and by darkness make it to West Elkton to
the Quaker sympathizers. Mrs. Roberts recalled many hair raising tales
she had been told and secret rooms the refugees were hidden in. Haystacks
were hollowed out; some hid in coffins made by the Talberts. Slave hunters
swinging long bull whips would gallop through West Elkton with intent to
terrorize the Quakers. Henry's son Joel was inventive and rigged up a false
bottomed covered wagon for the next trip to market in Richmand, loaded
with mill products, fruit vegetables and dairy products. The poor blacks
hidden under the load must have gone through terrible fears. Uncle Tom
Talbert told how slave hunters came to his father's place, and the slave
was told to quick get into a casket whereupon, the family shut him in and
posed as a funeral procession. Perhaps these resourceful people, dabbed
their eyes in ‘grief’. Near Richmond was Newport where the noted Levi Coffin
related to the Gordons and Talberts, had a 'station' camouflaged."