The travel diary and correspondence details her time on the road from Chicago to Miami to Boston and her time reconnecting with relatives, visiting significant family and historical sites, and discussing the findings of her research. There are currently 69 seperate documents related to her travels that have been added to this site’s document sharing section (Other’s Research –> Laura’s Research –> Research Trip Diary). There are two additional documents that require further analysis to determine when and where the correspondence was written. Enjoy.

Laura Alta (Davis) Shoptaugh

Laura and I are kindred spirits. She invested a great amount of time documenting her family’s history before she passed away in the late 1950s. She was a teacher early in life, eventually went to college and studied business, worked for a few years as an book keeper and stenographer, then married her husband, James Andrew Shoptaugh, in the late 1890s. James and Laura eventually made their way to Oakland where Laura and James raised their 4 kids, established a church where James was the minister, and began a printing business. Below are a few photos of Laura provide by Lee:

Lee was kind enough to allow me to bring a small portion of her research home to make copies (see LADS and Laura Alta (Davis) Shoptaugh Wakefield Research in file sharing). I will continue to make copies of her research in the coming weeks while I am working in Phoenix. Correspondence between Laura and Roberta Wakefield (Wakefields of the South), Laura’s Wakefield Research, and a few other items will be posted in the file sharing section.

More information forthcoming when time permits.

The Wakefields were living with the Davis family on Market Street in Brookville. The families did not stay here long as they moved to Bartholomew County, Indiana and then to Tennessee. Not surprisingly, the Wakefields and Davis family are found living next door to each other in the 1830 census in Tennessee.

Barbara and James have completed a tremendous amount of research on the Parks family and families associated with the Parks. In the hills of Burke County, the Parks family and the Wakefields are very closely related with generations after generations of cousins marrying one another going back to the 1700s. Barbara’s research on the Parks and Wakefields can be found on her husband’s Dr. James Parks’s website.

It was quite a surreal experience seeing Wakefield material they shared with me include content from this site. Barbara and James, I hope we are able to meet sometime in the near future to get to know each other better and share information on our families.

Bruther, Bertha
Bruther, Caleb
Bruther, Charles
Bruther, Charles E.
Bruther, Dave
Bruther, Elizabeth
Bruther, Ella
Bruther, Emily (Burgtal – Caleb’s wife)
Bruther, Eva
Bruther, Jesse F.
Bruther, M. Frances
Bruther, Omer
Bruther, W. W.
Turner, Mattie M. (Omer’s Wife)
Wakefield, Loretta
Wakefield, Willard Totten

For a complete list of individuals buried at Old Bethal Cemetery:
Old Bethal Cemetery Records

Date Of Birth: March 16, 1903 (Released March 31, 1903)
Place Of Birth: Madison, Indiana

Father: I. Wakefield, age 42, Farmer
Place of Birth is Craig, Indiana

Mother: Anna Boggs, age 38
Place of Birth is Warsaw, Kentucky
Residence is City (Madison)
# of children of this mother: 6

Post Office is Madison

Elizabeth Ann (Jones) Wakefield was born on March 6, 1811 in Ohio, died, according to this article, on November 23, 1895, and was the wife of James Wakefield. Eliza passed away at the home of her daughter, Evaline A. Wakefield and, son-in-law, Isaac F. Banta.

Mr. Wakefield, our first witness, is a son of the distinguished jurist, Judge J.A. Wakefield. He is a prominent journalist, and was the nominee of the United Labor party, for Vice-President, in the Presidential contest of 1888. In a letter to the author, dated Lawrence, Kan., Sept. 28, 1880, Mr. Wakefield says:

“My father, the late Judge J.A. Wakefield, was a life-long friend of Lincoln’s, they having served through the Black Hawk war together and been in the Illinois Legislature together, during which latter time Lincoln boarded with my father in Vandalia, which was then the state capital. I remember of his visiting my father at Galena, in 1844 or 1845. They continued to correspond until Lincoln’s death.

“My father was a member of the Methodist church and frequently spoke of and lamented Lincoln’s Infidelity, and refereed to the many arguments between them on the subject.

“The noted minister, Peter Cartwright, boarded with my father at the same time that Lincoln did, and my farther and mother told me of the many theological and philosophical arguments indulged in by Lincoln and Cartwright, and of the fact that they always attracted many interested listeners and usually ended by Cartwright’s getting very angry and the spectators being convulsed with laughter at Lincoln’s dry wit and humorous Comparisons.”

Lincoln’s legislative career at Vandalia extended from 1834 to 1837. It was about the beginning of this period that he wrote his book against Christianity. He was thoroughly informed and enthusiastic in his Infidel views, and it is not to be wondered at that on theological questions, he was able to vanquish in debate even so eminent a theologian as Peter Cartwright. Ten years later, Lincoln was the Whig, and Cartwright the Democratic candidate for Congress. In this campaign a determined effort was made by the church to defeat Lincoln on account of his Infidelity. But his popularity, his reputation for honesty, his recognized ability, and his transcendent powers on the stump, carried him successfully through, and he was triumphantly elected.