Un-answered questions about possible family members are often fascinating, frustrating and mysterious! It is always great to be presented with a puzzle and help another person try to solve it.
I had a question from a researcher about a man named Franklin Augustus Dension. As you can see from this photo, Frank was black. This means that to learn more about this person whose surname is Denison, I must go beyond the information in the Denison genealogy.
Frank was a member of the Eighth Illinois United States Volunteers, a black regiment, who served our country in the Spanish-American War. For this fellow researcher, I located his place of burial from Find-A-Grave and information about his service from a book that has no known copyright at a Web site called Internet Archive.
It is not completely known how this very interesting man fits into the huge family of Denisons that originate from Cap't George Dension who came to America from England in the early 1630s to Massachusetts and to Connecticut.
Proving that this man is a descendant is hard to do since we are not sure who his parents were! Is he an illegitimate child of a Denison who lived in Texas and a black slave? We may never know but it is great to be able to read about him and to see what a handsome, dashing, accomplished person he was.
5 comments:
My grandfather served in the 8th Illinois and the 370th in France under Col. Denison. He was the first AA to command a regiment in battle and was promoted to Brig. General. He was involved in politics, a lawyer, a states atty in Illinois, he also was marred and had five children. My grandfather spoke fondly of Col Denison and always had kind things to say about him.
My grandfather served in the 8th Illinois and the 370th in France under Col. Denison. He was the first AA to command a regiment in battle and was promoted to Brig. General. He was involved in politics, a lawyer, a states atty in Illinois, he also was marred and had five children. My grandfather spoke fondly of Col Denison and always had kind things to say about him.
Col. Denison, later Brigadier General Denison, was my Great-Grandfather's older brother. Leon W. Denison was my paternal grandmother's father. They were both born in san Antonio, had more siblings, and their mother was a former slave named Rose. For an unknown reason, they led a peripatetic life, traveling north to Michigan and Illinois, frequently. Franklin attended a Negro college, Lincoln College, in Pennsylvania. He passed the Illinois State bar exam at the age of 20, and was his class valedictorian at what is now Northwestern University. He was born in 1862, and died in Chicago in 1932. He married a white woman, had five children. One child, Franklin Jr., passed for white, and built a world-renowned boat company called Denison Yachts. Captain Leon W. Denison also passed the bar at an early age, and immediately volunteered to join his brother in the Illinois 8th Regiment. Remarkably, I know even less about my Great-Grandfather than I do about my GG Uncle.
They were both probably related to, although not descended from Elizabeth Denison, whom you should look up, as she was the first African-American land owner in Detroit.
I have passed this onto the Denison Society so they can add to his notes. Thank you.
Midge
My Grandfather was Col Franklin Denison...
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