Oliver Farrand, the Diamond Merchant Descended from Chief Little Turtle

 Oliver Farrand (1838-1921) - Descendant of Little Turtle, Manhattan Jeweler

 

  On a chilly December day in Manhattan in 1903, the descendant of a Miami Indian chief married the descendant of a soldier stationed at a fort built to repel the Miami. Their families had known each other for nearly 100 years.

  Oliver Farrand, 65, was the groom. He was the great-great grandson of Minsikinawqua, better known as Little Turtle, the great Miami military leader and chief.[1]  His bride was Hattie Barbour Thompson, 29. Hattie was the great-granddaughter of William Suttenfield, a low-level soldier who once manned the fort at Fort Wayne, specifically to secure white settlement on Indian land. Oliver’s father Nathan and Hattie’s great-grandfather William both served on the Fort Wayne Board of Trustees, the governing body of Fort Wayne for a period before the town was incorporated.[2]

  Oliver was born in Fort Wayne. His mother was Ann Hackley, whose Miami name was Pohonghequa. She was the daughter of Rebekah Pemesaqua Wells, granddaughter of Wangapeth “Sweet Breeze” and great-granddaughter of Little Turtle. After her mother’s death in 1835, Ann inherited several hundred acres of land that Rebekah had gained in an 1818 treaty with the U.S. government. Ann was 17 and had been married to Nathan Farrand for a year when her mother died. He was named executor of her mother’s will.

  Nathan was nearly 50 when his son was born. He died in 1845 when Oliver was seven. Three years later, Ann remarried to a widower with several children, Peter Blystone, Jr.

 

Linn County, Kansas

 

  Political decisions would soon impact Oliver’s life. Treaties with the Miami in 1839 and 1841 established a reservation in east central Kansas, along the border of Missouri in what became Linn County. The Miami had a forced removal to Kansas in 1846, when they were rounded up at gunpoint by U.S. soldiers and placed in a prison camp in Peru, Indiana. From there they were herded onto canal boats for the first part of their journey, many of the women clutching bags of dirt taken from the graves of their ancestors. As the slow-moving boats made their way down the Wabash and Erie Canal, even white settlers who supported the Indian removal were moved by the sight of weeping Indians forced to leave their home.

  Arriving after about a month’s journey, many Miami wept when they saw their new lands, and they wanted to return home. But there were others who coveted this corner of Kansas. The 500,000 acres of the reservation happened to be on rich farmland, and soon there was tremendous pressure for the land to be sold and opened to white settlement. In 1854, yet another treaty was signed selling the land to the U.S. government, leading to the eventual creation of a reservation in Oklahoma.

  In 1857, Peter Blystone moved his family, including his part-Miami wife, to the community of Blooming Grove in Linn County, Kansas. The timing was probably not a coincidence. In June 1854 the Miami concluded another treaty with the U.S. government agreeing to sell all but 70,000 acres of their 500,000-acre reservation. Out of the 70,000 acres the tribe selected headrights of 200 acres for “each soul residing on ceded lands at the time that the treaty of 1854 was made,” according to  Miami Chief John Roubideaux in a letter he wrote to the La Cygne Journal (La Cygne, Kansas).

  In June 1858, Congress passed an act “giving to such persons of Miami blood as may have been heretofor excluded from the annuities of the tribe since its removal in 1846, and not included in the supplement to the treaty of 1854, their proper portion of such annuities and directed the Secretary of the Interior to have such persons enrolled on the pay lists of said tribe; also giving to such persons land out of the tract of seventy thousand acres …to the amount of two hundred acres each.”[1] At first, 68, and later, five more tribal members were added to the rolls under this measure. This was probably when Oliver was added.

  Ann died and was buried in Linn County in 1858, when Oliver was 19. He was probably on his own after that. His stepfather remarried the next year.

  On the 1860 census, Oliver lived in Linn County in a household of eleven people headed, according to the enumerator, by Jack Goodnicoop, 32, but probably headed by Jack’s mother Tacuquah. Everyone in the household was identified as Indian, and there were obviously Indian names – Poquangah, Tomekecomwaah, Wangapwah, given with no surname. Next-door in another Indian household was Oliver’s 16-year old brother Rich, again with names such as Nopshingah and Zousequah. Next door to Rich was another Indian household, this one with no English names. Sempkecumwah, Passawalashuga, Arsauconwa, Shumanopo being some of them. The birthplace of all but babies was Indiana.

  Farm life and manual labor wasn’t what Oliver wanted, though. Nor, it seemed, was the company of the tribe.

 

Creating a Life

 

  Oliver was on his own, with very little family.[2] In two later newspaper articles he shared some details of his life after he decided to leave the tribe.

  After his mother’s death, he moved to Paola where he worked in a brickyard.  In 1861 he left on foot, walking to Kansas City, a distance of 44 miles. When he got to the Landing on the Missouri River, he saw the steamboat A. Majors, which plied the waters between Kansas City and Iatan, Missouri forty miles away. Another newspaper account said he had just enough money to pay for a fare on a steamboat to Leavenworth. In both stories, he was hired to work on the steamboat as either a cabin boy or waiter (stories vary).

  He “experienced some of the joys of life,” according to a newspaper story. The joys were not specified, but he was a young man in his early 20s, responsible only for himself. After a while he tired of the steamboat and hired on as a drover in a ox-driven wagon train that went from Westport, Missouri to Santa Fe. He did this a short time – perhaps one round-trip -  returned to the steamer, then, “became a landsman.” He settled in Leavenworth where he first found work in a series of hotels.

  His life took a different course when he found a job in a jewelry store. There was something about it that he liked. After two Leavenworth jewelers moved to New York City, he decided to do the same. According to one newspaper account, he borrowed the money to get to New York. He left in June 1866 and quickly found work with the firm Jumps & Perley, dealers in diamonds and precious stones. There, he learned a great deal and began to be considered an expert. Oliver had found the work that would occupy him for the rest of a long life.

 

The Decision

 

  For reasons unknown, Oliver was dropped from the Miami tribal rolls in 1861, which meant that he was not receiving annuities. A later court petition speculated that it was not only because he moved away, but that he was young, unaware of his rights, and probably taken advantage of. He was re-enrolled in 1869 and received annuities until they ceased for the tribe. He was also named (as Oliver Fawand, nephew of Jack Hackley) in an unratified treaty as eligible for head rights to land.[3]

  The 1870 census listed his occupation as a clerk in the big city. His life had changed dramatically from working in a small-town Kansas brickyard, in a large Indian-identified household, to living in a Manhattan boarding house clerking in a store. In 1871 he began working for the jewelry firm Fellows & Co. Four years later, he was hired by Randell & Baremore, whom he stayed with for twelve years.

  Did his employers know he was an enrolled member of an Indian tribe? The 1901 newspaper profile marveled that “he, who was known in Paola (Kansas) as a barefoot lad, with Indian blood in his veins” would have such success in New York.

  Oct. 7, 1871 and Nov. 25, 1871 the La Cygne Journal printed the list of Head Rights Issued to the Miami Tribe of Indians. Both Oliver and his brother Richard were on the list.[4]

  In 1873 he petitioned the United States Circuit Court for the District of Kansas for American citizenship. There is much behind this.

  In 1867, the Miami were again pressured into signing a treaty, which would remove them from the Kansas land and send them to Oklahoma. By this time, the Miami rolls contained only 106 members – down from an estimated 500 in the forced removal. With dwindling numbers in 1872 they agreed to consolidate with the confederated bands of Peoria, Piankeshaw, Kaskaskia and Wea Indians, who earlier had themselves banded together due to greatly reduced numbers. They were given a choice of joining the confederated band and moving to a reservation in Oklahoma, or giving up tribal membership and petitioning for U.S. citizenship.  At the time, American Indians did not have American citizenship. In fact, it would not be until the passage of the Indian Citizenship Act in 1924 that citizenship was granted.

  Oliver was placed in an untenable position: either give up his chosen livelihood and move to a small area of Oklahoma or renounce his tribal membership. Oliver had maintained his tribal membership at a time when being an Indian carried a great stigma. To be on the tribal rolls meant that he did not have rights Americans took for granted, including the right to vote.

  But given the choice of being dictated to where he would live, with limited opportunities and rights, he made the decision to petition for American citizenship. He was one of 34 members who did. Seventy-two became part of what was then known as the Miami Peoria tribe. Oliver was now, officially, no longer an Indian.

 

A Silver Mine and Diamonds

 

  Legally, he was simply a white man, but he continued to be involved in Miami legal issues. Oliver also kept more than a casual interest in Linn County, Kansas. He owned the 200 acres he received as his head right.

  In April 1872, an item appeared in the La Cygne Journal: “Have we a silver mine among us?” is a question which is agitating the public mind of La Cygne very actively now-a-days."

  The editor said he hadn’t wanted to give publicity to the matter and raise excitement “until we had some solid foundation upon which to build our statement.” But people were already talking about it so much he believed he should report what was known so far.

  An Indian had pointed out the location of a silver deposit in the location known as Round Mound. Acting under Indian guidance a party sank a shaft there a year or more previous, and had now burrowed to a depth of 100 feet. Assays had been made at different depths, which seemed promising, and a carload of rock was sent to Chicago. A quartz-crushing machine was supposed to arrive soon. Some $1,200 to $1,500 had been spent so far in the endeavor. Yet other parties, the editor noted, had assays made of the rock and no traces of silver were found.

  The Indian mentioned was not identified in the newspaper. Owner of the property was Oliver M. Farrand.

  The following month, another article on the mine began calmly:

 

It is well known to most of our citizens that there are several claimants to the land upon which the excavation of silver is being made at Round Mound. Dr. I. Cline, of this city, has held the claim by a tenant for some time past, while a young man by the name of Farrand, of New York, held the head-right. Messrs. Felter & Howard have, as we understand it, been endeavoring to purchase of Farrand.

 

  Felter and Howard were told to stop working on the land until the title to the land was settled, or they would be compelled to stop. When they ignored this warning, a group of about twenty men “armed with revolvers, went up to the mouth of the shaft, and threw down all the working utensils, the greater portion of the shanty, and some twenty-five tons of ore, nearly filling up the entire excavation,” the article continued. “They then went to Howard’s house and warned them off, saying that if they did not go, there would be blood shed.”

  Arrests were made, and the newspaper editor decried any use of violence. In the same issue of the newspaper a small item appeared claiming that before the riot, specimens of pure silver had been obtained and there was every expectation of success.

  By June the Pleasanton Observer (Pleasanton is another small town in Linn County) said, “It is now rumored that the silver mine at La Cygne is all a hoax, gotten up by certain shrewd parties for the purpose of enhancing the value of the lands occupied by the settlers who have not yet paid for them.” The La Cygne newspaper editor responded to this angrily saying that he numbered several of those involved among his “warmest friends” and could speak to their character. After that, there was no more mention of a silver mine in Linn County. What did Oliver think of all this from afar?

  The Kansas Legends website says that several citizens, “acting on the advice of an area Indian chief,” formed a company to look for silver in 1872. “The Indian, who said he received the information through a “spirit,” directed them to a place that took on the name Silver Mound.” Oliver’s property was known as Silver Mound. If he was involved, if there was a scheme to gin up land prices, Oliver never sold the land.

  In 1875 he received a special appropriation, along with the other members of the tribe, for $60 – about $314 in 2022 value. This was a result of the earlier land negotiations from the time when the Miami were being pressured to give up their Kansas land.

  Beginning in January 1876, items periodically appeared in the La Cygne newspaper reporting on what Oliver was doing on the farm. “Mr. O.M. Farrand, owner of the “Silver Mound” farm, is having a fine house built upon the place – size 16 X 24 [384 square feet]. He will have his farm otherwise improved,” a January item noted. “It is one of the best farms in the township, and we are glad that it is to be occupied.”

  The newspaper also noted from time to time who had rented the farm, such as D.Z. Cozad in February 1878, who leased it for a period of three years. In July, Mr. Cozad found a turtle on the property with “Oliver, May 20, 1870” scratched onto its shell. Oliver caught the turtle eight years previous; marked it, then released it.

  For decades, Oliver subscribed to the La Cygne Journal and sent the editor copies of New York papers, such as the New York Post. He also regularly returned to check on the farm, and visited with his cousin Mary Ann Hackley Hiner. She was the daughter of his mother’s brother, John “Lamapincha” Hackley.

  Mary Ann and her two children had been on the Miami tribal rolls, and like Oliver, had given up their tribal membership. Mary Ann was married to John Painter Hiner, who went by Paint, was from New Jersey and had no Indian blood. They were well-settled in La Cygne, and Paint would serve on the town council and as treasurer of Miami County. His obituary noted that he rode horseback from Westport, Missouri to Sante Fe in the 1860s – the same route as Oliver. This may have been how Oliver got that job.

  An 1879 item noted that Oliver had been in Denver shortly before his La Cygne visit. A few months earlier that year, the newspaper reported that Oliver was having an orchard of 500 trees planted on his “fine piece of property,” the work “superintended” by D.Z. Cozad.

  Apparently Mr. Cozad let him know that he would be moving on when his three-year lease was up. On Christmas day 1880, Oliver advertised for a new tenant, with the farm available in March for a period of one year, not counting the orchard. Terms were $50 down, $50 in six months, and the balance of $75 in nine months. He also requested proposals for grubbing, clearing, and “making ready for the plough” a portion of his land.

  December 1881 the La Cygne editor enthusiastically described the improvements Oliver had made to his farm. Six years ago the property was “destitute” of house or fences. About sixty acres had been cultivated earlier, but had “laid idle for some time.” Since then, Oliver had increased cultivated land over 100 acres, built a house, dug wells, fenced an entire quarter section and planted 2,000 apple, pear, peach and cherry trees. A section was laid off, with holes dug, ready for another 1,000 trees when the weather turned warm. The editor said, “…as the farm is not for sale it is safe to surmise that at no very distant day Mr. Farrand intends to locate among his many friends here.” The editor explained that the farm got its name from “the high and commanding mound thereon,” completely ignoring the old business of the silver mine.

  September 1881 Oliver sent ten dollars in care of the La Cygne editor to be given as a special premium at the Linn County fair for the best design for a combined corn crib and granary. No one claimed this, probably because there was only short notice between this announcement and the fair.

  In 1882 cousin Mary Ann left for an “extended visit” with him in New York. The La Cygne newspaper item said she was visiting Mr. O.M. Farrand “and wife,” though a record of a wife at this time hasn’t surfaced. Maybe it didn’t sound seemly to say that a woman was visiting her single male cousin. This was also reported in the Paola, Kansas newspaper where Mary Ann lived, only no wife was mentioned.

   The La Cygne editor noted two special historical events that Oliver sent him newspapers about: the death of Ulysses Grant in 1885 and the unveiling ceremony for the Statue of Liberty. He also enclosed an official program from that ceremony -- something Oliver witnessed.

  In 1887 he went into business for himself. Interestingly, he advertised his business in the La Cygne Journal. It seems unlikely that there would be high demand for diamonds in La Cygne, or for the diamond appraisal service he offered through the mail (“They can be sent to me by express…”). The editor of the La Cygne Journal was characteristically supportive of Oliver. “All doing business with him will find Mr. Farrand strictly honorable and his goods at all times the best…” the editor said, noting he was the owner of Silver Mound Farm and a “thorough gentleman.”

  Oliver’s business was located at 3 ½ Maiden Lane, three doors down from Broadway. This was then the Jewelry District of New York, so much so that when saying “Maiden Lane,” New Yorkers thought of diamonds and other jewels. He lived in a pleasant, leafy area on 15th Street.

  In May 1888 he was before Congress on Miami tribal business.  Oliver returned to the time period from 1861 to 1869 when he was inadvertently, and inexplicably dropped from the rolls of the tribe. “The petitioner is now a citizen of the United States, residing in the city of New York, but was formerly a member of the Western Miami tribe of Indians, and resided in Kansas. He became a citizen under the provisions of the act of Congress of March 3, 1873, an act to abolish tribal relations of the Miami Indians,” his court petition stated. What he was seeking were the annuity payments for the eight years in which he was dropped. It’s unclear whether he received back payment or not.

  In 1889 he applied for a passport to travel to Europe for business. This gives us his description: He was five feet three inches tall, with a dark complexion, black hair and “gray” eyes.

 

Looking Back

 

  As the decade of the 1890s arrived, Oliver was 52, single and childless. He looked back on his earlier days nostalgically, sharing memories with newspaper editors in La Cygne and Paola. He wrote the La Cygne Journal editor in 1893, “Your paper is a great comfort to me. As I read about local matters around your town I picture to myself all the locations I saw there in my youth over thirty-two years ago. Then there was but one house on the site where La Cygne now stands, and that a small log cabin ten by twelve and one story and an attic. A family by the name of Stewart occupied it during the winter of 1859 and 1860, with twelve children. How times have changed since then!”

  He finally married in 1892 to Ella Signa. She was a New York native, an only child. She was a policeman’s daughter and granddaughter of an Italian immigrant on her father’s side, and the granddaughter of an attorney on her mother’s side. She was either 28 or 31 according to varying accounts of her birthdate.

  In 1895 she traveled to La Cygne with him. An article in Paola’s newspaper, the Miami Republican, from this period denied his Indian heritage. “He was an orphan boy, without kindred, and was thrown among the Indians and for two years lived with the Miami Indians as interpreter and guide, and was himself a veritable Indian, participating in all their hunting trips, councils, forays across the country, etc.,” the editor wrote. “He spoke the language of all the tribes located in this section of the state, dressed like an Indian, and looked like one.”

  The article continued:

 

  In 1861 the conviction took possession of him that there was something better for him in the world than to be an Indian, and he struck out on foot across the endless plains…

 

  He was described as “a pleasant, affable gentleman, an interesting, entertaining conversationalist” who talked “of his early experience in Kansas with much interest.” One wonders what cousin Mary Ann Hackley or the various people who were still in the area who knew he was a member of the Miamis thought about this article.    

 

Business and a New Wife

 

  According to a family tree on the Ancestry website, Oliver and Ella had a baby on August 6, 1898 who died the same day. Ella died the next day. Her will left everything to Oliver, and named him as executor.

  In 1902 an item in the Paola paper said that “Paint” Hiner, cousin Mary Ann’s husband, bought the stock and crops on Oliver’s Silver Mound farm, and that the Hiners planned to move to the farm to fix it up in preparation for sale. Paint helped Oliver with the farm earlier, when a tenant died suddenly in 1900. Throughout the first decade of the twentieth century, the Paola and La Cygne newspapers continued to report on Oliver’s visits to his cousin.

  August 7, 1903, a small item appeared in the New York Herald. “In Memorium. In loving remembrance of Ella Signa, beloved wife of Oliver M. Farrand, who passed away Aug. 7, 1898. Oh, for a touch of a vanished hand! Oh, for a voice that is still!” It was the fifth anniversary of her death.

  Four months later, he married Hattie. It would be interesting to learn how he and his second wife met. They married that December, these two with their shared roots in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Oliver’s father Nathan worked with Hattie’s great-grandfather William Suttenfield in the early days of the town. His parents joined Second Presbyterian Church in 1844; her grandparents Myron and Jane Barbour joined in 1848. Hattie grew up in a Chicago suburb but had frequent visits with her Barbour grandparents in Fort Wayne. When her mother remarried in 1897 three years after her father’s death, they moved to Manhattan.

 

National Press

 

  In 1897 Oliver was in the national news because of a crime. Florence Harmon, a well-dressed woman with an air of refinement, walked into his store, asked to see some rings, and took a tray of them over to a window, supposedly to examine them in better lighting. She returned the tray saying nothing had interested her and left the store. Oliver noticed a diamond ring set with an opal was missing; its value was about $3,500 in 2022 dollars. He asked an employee to follow her, which led to her arrest. The case made the national news because Florence Harmon was the sister of former U.S. Attorney General Judson Harmon.

  Judson Harmon told the district attorney his sister was insane and should be sent to a sanitarium. Although grand jury testimony is supposed to be kept confidential,  it was reported that Oliver made a statement that he believed she was insane and did not know what she was doing when she took the ring from the store. The charges were dropped.

  In 1900, Oliver was quoted as an expert on the potential impact of the Boer War on the diamond industry. A Cincinnati jeweler who was going out of business blamed the “African war.” He said inferior stones were all that was available and that prices tripled in eight months. Oliver was quoted at length explaining why the war was not the cause of any difficulties in the industry, and that indeed, prices were set by a syndicate in London.

  In October 1908 Oliver was once again making national news as the victim of theft, this time a much more costly and personal one. It was a betrayal by a trusted employee.

  Herman Marschner was 15 when he was hired by Oliver. A wire service story said that Oliver had been a newsboy and bootblack in his early days, and so had known struggle. To reference newsboys and bootblacks telegraphed “childhood poverty and hardship” to Americans at that time, even though those occupations weren’t true for Oliver. So Oliver was sympathetic to the boy and took him under his wing. Fifteen years passed and Herman was a trusted employee, “like a son,” one story said, who advanced in the company.

  While Herman was away on vacation, some discrepancies were noticed. After some delving, Oliver discovered $10,000 worth of diamonds were missing (about $320,000 in 2022 value). Herman did not return from vacation at the expected time, or wire his boss to explain his absence. Oliver wrote the hotel where he’d been staying. The hotel in the Delaware Water Gap area confirmed that Herman and his wife stayed there – but they were gone. This was another surprise to Oliver, who didn’t realize that Herman had been married for nine years and had three children.

  The articles said that so trusted, so beloved was Herman, that Oliver had written his will to leave $22,000 to him. Dramatic headlines said things like “Farrand mourns him like a son.” Articles sent by the Hearst news syndicate said Oliver was a millionaire and the amount of diamonds stolen were worth $25,000-$50,000. These articles also said Oliver was leaving the entire business to Herman in his will. The newspaper in Paola, Kansas printed the $50,000 figure, noting that Oliver was “a cousin of J.P. Hiner,” visited frequently, and was “part Indian.”

  The story probably captured the public because of the amounts of money quoted, the universal interest in a tale of betrayal, and the irony that Herman could have legally obtained so much more money than his theft, if the lower value of the jewels was accurate. One story implied that the woman with him at the hotel was not his wife – another layer of scandal.

  This was the story that circulated on the wires. However, there was another accounting of the story that wasn’t quite as dramatic. Herman was arrested in Jersey City and admitted taking 22 rings worth $3,200, according to a New York Sun article. Oliver was quoted saying there had been no large embezzlement at his business and that only about $2,000 in stock had come up short.

  Yet a few days after this story ran, there was one in the Fargo Forum and Daily Republican and a few other papers with a (supposed) interview with Herman. “It’s the same old story – a soubrette,” Herman was quoted as saying, using a word better-known in the nineteenth century. A soubrette is an actress playing a flirtatious role.

  “It’s just another case of a man losing his head over a woman. A New York girl got me on the string, and whenever she wanted to go out for a good time, I’d take a ring and treat her with the proceeds.”

  Articles on the prosecution of Herman weren’t found, so it’s unknown which version of the story is most accurate. It’s understandable why Oliver would want to downplay the story. No one wants to be duped, especially publicly.

 

Later Years

 

  In 1910, Oliver and Hattie lived on 113th Street, a narrow leafy street of brownstones and low apartment buildings a few blocks from the imposing Cathedral Church of St. John Divine. They employed a live-in Irish maid. Oddly, Hattie told the census enumerator that her husband was born in France, as were both of his parents. She accurately reported that he was a naturalized citizen.

  Oliver appeared a few more times in newspapers, in small ways. That year he was back in La Cygne looking after his Silver Mound farm. The paper noted that he was in Joplin, Missouri earlier, “inspecting his interests in the zinc mines there.”

  The year before the census, in 1909, he contributed to the Hudson-Fulton Celebration, an elaborate event organized by the rich and powerful such as Andrew Carnegie and J.P. Morgan. The celebration was a commemoration of the 300th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s “discovery” of the Hudson River and the centennial of the first successful paddle steamer. Oliver contributed a dollar – roughly equal to $32 in 2022, which got his name listed in The Brooklyn Daily Eagle.

  In 1911 he sponsored a baseball team, the Oliver M. Farrand Diamond House team (quite a mouthful), who played against the Coney Island Starlings that August.

  There were the usual reports of visits to Paola or La Cygne checking on his farm, though cousin Mary Ann died in 1912. (Her obituary said her father had been an advisor to the Miami tribe.) Oliver continued to visit with her husband, Paint Hiner, after her death.

  In 1919 he made what was probably his last trip. The reporter said he “lived here with the Indians as a child,” and that it would be “hard to follow him through all his hardships and wanderings.” He stated that Oliver’s farm “is probably the only piece of land in Linn County that has never been sold or transferred by the original owner.”

  Why did Oliver hang onto it all his life? Was it just income to him, or did it represent something much more? It was also mentioned that he visited with Paint Hiner and the Hiner’s daughter, Mable Hiner Vernon. Hattie was not mentioned as accompanying him on these visits.

  On the 1920 census, he and Hattie had moved in with Hattie’s widowed mother Eliza “Lida” Barbour in Queens. Lida answered the enumerator’s questions, and though she accurately identified Indiana as Oliver’s birthplace, she said his father was born in France. Oliver’s occupation was still listed, at age 81, as diamond merchant with his own business.

  When Oliver died the following year, he was back at his West 113th Street address in New York City. His funeral was held at the home, with a private burial. There was only the briefest death notice, without a word about his long career in the diamond business.

    

Note: Here's how Oliver fits in my family tree: There are the long-time connections with William Suttenfield, my fourth great-grandfather, described above. Hattie Barbour Thompson was the granddaughter of Myron Fitch Barbour, my third grandfather. He is the main person I "anchor" myself to in the family tree, moving forwards or backwards.

Sources:

 

  Aacimotaatiiyankwi blog posts, Myaamia Center at Miami University, https://aacimotaatiiyankwi.org/. See especially the “Removal Commemoration” posts.

Anson, Bert. “Chief Francis LaFontaine and the Miami Emigration from Indiana,” Indiana Magazine of History, Vol. 60, No. 3 (September 1961), pp. 241-268. 

“Documents Relating to the Negotiation of an Unratified Treaty of March 9, 1869  With the Miami Indians,” images.library.wisc.edu/History/EFacs/IndianTreatiesMicro/Unrat1869no58/reference/history.unrat1869no58.i0001.pdf

Griswold, Bert. A Pictorial History of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Chicago: Robert O. Law Company, 1917.

      “La Cygne, Kansas – City of Swans,” Kansas Legends, https://legendsofkansas.com/lacygne-kansas/  

      “Miami Indian Tribe,” Kansas Genealogy, https://kansasgenealogy.com/uncategorized/miami_indian_tribe.htm#:~:text=The%20Miami%20reservation%20contained%20about,for%20two%20hundred%20thousand%20dollars

      “Letter From the Secretary of the Interior Upon the Subject of the Consolidation of the Miami Indians of Kansas with the Confederated Bands of the Peoria, Piankeshaw, Kaskaskia and Wea Indians, in Indian Territory,” https://shareok.org/bitstream/handle/11244/38059/House-44-1-Executive-105-Serial-1689.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

      Manual of the Second Presbyterian Church, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Fort Wayne, Indiana: T.S. Taylor & Co., 1869.

“Oliver M. Farrand,” H.R. Rep. No 2405, 50th Congress, https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5392&context=indianserialset

     “Report on the Miami Indians,” S. Rep. No. 280, 44th Cong., 1st Sess. (1876), https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3457&context=indianserialset

“Settlers Upon Miami Reserve in Kansas,” H.R. Rep. No. 256, 36th Congress, 1st Session, 1860, University of Oklahoma College of Law Digital Commons, https://digitalcommons.law.ou.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2556&context=indianserialset

“Will Records of Allen County, Indiana 1831-1869,” Mary Penrose Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, 1934, http://genealogytrails.com/ind/allen/wills.html

 Newspapers:

 

      Fair Premium: La Cygne Journal, 3 Sept 1881, p. 3.

      “Silver Mound Farm,” La Cygne Journal, 24 Dec 1881, p. 3.

      Fair Premium: La Cygne Journal, 3 Sept 1881, p. 3.

      Statue of Liberty: La Cygne Journal, 13 Nov 1886, p. 3.

      Support for diamond business: La Cygne Journal, 23 June 1887, p. 3

      Newspaper subscription: La Cygne Journal, 11 Feb 1893, p. 4.

      “From the Plains to the Metropolis,” The Miami Republican (Paola, Kansas), 9 Aug 1895, p. 3.

      “Larceny Charge Dismissed – Former Attorney General Harmon Says His Sister is Insane,” Washington Times (District of Columbia), 26 Sept 1897, p. 3.

      “Truth Often Stranger Than Fiction,” The Miami Republican (Paola, Kansas), 28 June 1901, p. 3.

     Visit with cousin: The Miami Republican, 14 Oct 1904, p. 5.

      “Admits Theft of 22 Rings,” The Sun (New York, New York), 6 Oct 1908, p. 3.

      “Old Story of Fine Prospects – Actress – Temptation – Jail – Ruin,” Fargo Forum and Daily Republican (Fargo, North Dakota), 10 Oct 1908, p. 1.

      “Hudson-Fulton Celebration Commission Fund,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 17 Sept 1909, p. 6.

      “Farrand,” The New York Times, 27 Nov 1921, p. 22.

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