By Marilyn Miller
Jessica Gorman’s virtual and real trip back through her family tree at the age of 10 started with siblings, James, John and Margaret Dale, who immigrated to Maryland in the late 1600s. “I am descended from James,” Jessica told the monthly gathering at the Dorcheat Historical Society & Museum’s “Night at the Museum” on Monday, April 14.
“James Dale had a grandson named Adam,” Jessica said. “Adam moved from Maryland to Tennessee, and in 1797, he founded the town of Liberty. Among the settlers who followed Adam to Tennessee were my seventh great grandparents, Thomas Dale and Elizabeth.”
However, six generations of Jessica Gorman’s family lived in Illinois. Her father grew up there before coming to Minden.
In June of 2022, Jessica and her father made a trip back to Illinois. On the way home, they made a side trip to Tennessee and found Liberty. “We saw the historical marker commemorating the settlement of the town, the millstone that was used at the Thomas Dale mill,” and nearby an old house where the family probably lived. At this point in time, the lineage gets a little cloudy, so Jessica set it aside “for now.” But, rest assured, she’ll track It all down.
In the meantime…
In June of 2023, a year after joining the staff of the Dorcheat Historical Society & Museum, Jessica Gorman got a message from Michelle Benson Lewis of Springhill. She had some documents that she thought the Museum would be interested in.
“One of those documents was a diploma from the Minden Female College. The diploma belonged to Miss Emily Garrison. She graduated in 1855,” Jessica stated. “We already had a diploma of one of her classmates, Anna Harper.”
Emily was living with the family of R. A. Lancaster, who was mayor of Minden both before and after the Civil War. “In the 1860’s, Miss Garrison was teaching school in Minden, presumably at the Female College,” Jessica remarked. She later moved to Natchitoches, married a J. F. Boone in 1874, and moved to Arkansas. However, she became widowed and returned to Webster Parish and continued to teach.
“In February of 2024, Michelle Benson Lewis contacted me again and said she had another container of books, letters and photos,” Jessica said. “I spent the afternoon doing a quick assessment of what all was in that container. And as I was sorting through the contents, I came upon a letter that stopped me in my tracks.”
“That letter was dated October 1831 and was addressed to William C. Garrison at Liberty, Tennessee. I was shocked.”
Therein lies the presumable connection between the Dales and the Garrisons…Liberty, TN and Webster Parish, LA.
“I’ve had things like this happen before..odd little coincidences that you know aren’t coincidences.” She is not really sure that William is Emily’s father, so she thought she’d go back and take a closer look at Emily.
When Jessica saw the letter (from Webster Parish) addressed to William Garrison in Liberty, TN, she realized that “he had to have known my ancestors. So, the next thing to do was to find out who William Garrison was.” (the whole story from Jessica later)
What Jessica found in her further digging into William Garrison was that she had relatives living in Minden as far back as the 1800s, and she “never realized it!”
This became a “teaching moment” for Jessica. “I learned a LOT from the information that Michelle Benson Lewis gave to me. History is thrown away every day. Our (Dorcheat) mission is to preserve the history of Webster Parish. We MUST preserve information, and there is a lot out there!”
Jessica urges people to be more willing to share old letters and photos with the Museum. “Photos can be scanned and returned immediately,” she promises. And there will be much more room to display items in the near future when the expansion of the Dorcheat Museum begins in a couple of months.
The list of items includes maps, photographs, letters, records, documents, yearbooks, city directories, phone books, business records, records of community organizations, church and school programs, and more.
“These are the things that tell the stories of our community,” Jessica said.