Amos L. Hamm part 6, 1880s

• 1880 Census, Salisbury NH
• 1884 Civil War Pension Filed
• 1888 Historical Insight -- Great Blizzard

1880 Census

1880 Census Salisbury, Merrimack NH
Amos L. Ham

Amos L Ham is 45 years old, living in Salisbury, Merrimack NH, no street nor house number. He is a farmer, and, according to this, he was born in Vermont, yet both parents were born in New Hampshire.

1884 Civil War Pension Index

1884 Civil War Pension Index

Amos Ham, soldier for Company E, 6th Vermont infantry.  Filed 21 February 1884, application number 506.664, certificate number 312.685.  I am unsure if this belongs to our Amos, as this one fights for Vermont, although he files from New Hampshrie.  It could be him, but both of these Pension indices cannot be the same person, right?

1888 Historical Insight -- Great Blizzard

1888 Ancestry.com Historical Insight -- Great Blizzard of 1888
Credit: Buyenlarge/Archive Photos/Getty Images

New England was buried under arctic drifts of snow during the “Great White Hurricane” in the spring of 1888.

March 11, 1888 began as a spring day with rain along the Eastern seaboard, but in a short time temperatures plummeted, three to five feet of snow fell, and gale-force winds up to 80 mph created 20- to 30-foot snowdrifts from New Jersey to Vermont, isolating nearly every city.

Telegraph, telephone, and electrical lines went down, stranded passenger trains littered railroad tracks, and people remained trapped in their homes or businesses without access to food or heat. More than 400 people died, including U.S. Senator Roscoe Conkling of New York, who died of exposure when he lost his way home.

In addition to the snow and freezing temperatures, citizens had to contend with fires that burned out of control and the floods that came when the snow melted. In the wake of “The Great White Hurricane,” Boston and New York City officials resolved to bury their cables and wires and run trains underground to prevent future disasters.

from Ancestry.com Historical Insight 

Amos L. Hamm part 5, 1870s

• 1870 Historical Insight -- 15th Amendment to the US Constitution
• 1870 Residence Salisbury NH age 36
• 1872 Civil War Pension Filed
• 1873 Daughter Mertie born, NH

1870 Census

1870 Census, Salisbury, Merrimack NH
Amos and Mary J. Ham

age 36, born 1834 in Vermont.  He is a farmer with $1850 personal estate value and $600 Real Estate Value.  His "inferred" spouse (as Ancestry.com calls it) is Mary J. Ham, and his daughter is age 13, Nellie, from a previous marriage.

of note is the Scribner family in close proximity, including George age 21 and Morrell K. age 14.  Morrell would later go on to marry Adella G. Scott.  Looks like they were childhood pals.

1870 Historical Insight -- 15th Amendment to the US Constitution

When the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified in early February 1870, celebrations erupted in African American communities and abolitionist societies disbanded thinking their work was done. The amendment prohibited government at all levels from denying voting rights to men based on race.

The Republican Party gained an African American voting bloc in the North. However, African Americans who wanted to vote in the South were met with poll taxes they could not afford, literacy tests they could not pass, and threats of violence from the Ku Klux Klan they could not ignore. Voter registration among African American men in Mississippi decreased from 67 percent in 1867 to 4 percent in 1892.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1876 that poll taxes and literacy tests were legal, effectively nullifying the intent of the 15th Amendment and leading to the entrenchment of Jim Crow laws for another 90 years.

from Ancestry.com Historical Insight 

1872? Civil War Pension Index filing date

1872 Civil War Pension index

Amos L. Ham, soldier for Company B, 18th New Hampshire infantry.  filed 22 August 1872, invalid, application number 177317.  Does this belong to our Amos?

1873 Mertie born

Daughter Mertie is born 22 March 1873 in Salisbury, Merrimack NH.  The only source for this birth is the 1880 Census when she is age 7, and her Christmas marriage record of 1893 when she is documented as 21 years old.  These are both considered secondary sources.