Looking for Legrand

Legrand McLean was a great-great uncle on my paternal side. I first heard his name from a cousin who had grown up in White Cottage, Ohio, and who knew a lot about the McLeans who’d lived in that part of Newton Township for at least five generations. I’d gone to him to find out about my grandfather Edward McLean’s roots; I knew only that Grandfather’s parents were Warren McLean and Arena Wilson.

The 1850 federal census (above) revealed that James and Maxa McLean had other children than Legrand, Caroline, and Warren. The 1860 federal census enumeration (below)  of Maxa McLean's household lists five children, but no Legrand.

My cousin told me that Warren’s mother was Maxa Ann Hadden. (It turned out her surname was Lenhart, but a first name like “Maxey Ann” was a good start.) He didn’t know her husband’s given name, but knew that our ancestor Warren had a sister named Caroline and a brother named Legrand who eventually settled in Cattletsburg, Kentucky, become the local sheriff, and had one son. With this information, I was able to locate Maxey and Warren McLean in the 1850 U. S. census. The household head was James McLean, and there were two children besides Warren in the household, Eliza C. and Martha, but there was no Caroline and no Legrand. Ten years later, in 1860, Maxey McLain, a widow, was enumerated with five children:  Eliza, Martha, Warren, James [Jr.] and Caroline. There was still no Legrand, however.

Warren McLean's funeral notice appeared in the
Zanesville Weekly Times Recorder, 15 June 1893

Where was Legrand? Repeated searches in U. S. censuses, using every variant spelling I could imagine, came up nil.  I spent years looking for this guy! To my present chagrin, I admit he was under my nose all the time, but I couldn’t see him. Legrand came to  my attention when I was still very new to genealogical research. In those early days, I made two assumptions about this person that no experienced researcher would make, and from the perspective of nearly 40 years of research, those assumptions are downright embarrassing.

The first assumption I made was that the name “Legrand McLean” was just that—no more, no less. It was an odd name, not found anywhere else in the family, but I never questioned the name was anything but “Legrand”.  Second, since I didn’t find him with his family, I tried to explain his absence by assigning him the position of eldest child.  I knew from the 1850 census, that Eliza was born around 1843, so after finding that James and Maxa married in 1842, I arbitrarily decided that must be Legrand’s birth year. You see, I was anxious to make what I’d been told fit with what I knew from the records.  So although Legrand would only have been 8 years old in 1850, and should have been enumerated in his parents’ household, I excused his absence as being “farmed out”, a not uncommon practice during the summer months, although eight years really was a bit too young. (Researcher beware! Both a lack of imagination or too active an imagination can send one’s research down the rabbit hole.) In 1860, Legrand would have been 18, so his absence from his family was easily explained away. Still, I couldn’t find a Legrand McLean anywhere in either 1850 or 1860, and since he was only a great-great uncle, I laid the search for him aside.

J. L. McLean's obituary appeared in the
Semi-Weekly Irontonian, 8 March 1907

Fast-forward maybe 15 years, to when I found Great-grandfather Warren McLean’s 1893 funeral notice. It included this tidbit of information: “Lee McLean, of Cattletsburg, Ky., who was called here by the death of his brother, returned home today….”  My cousin had told me that Legrand had moved to Cattletsburg, and I suddenly realized that Legrand went by the name Lee! Armed with this new insight, I looked for Lee McLean, born 1842, in the 1870 and 1880 U. S. censuses. A “Lee Mclein”, a potter, was boarding in Zanesville in 1880, but he was born about 1850, eight years later than the year I’d assigned to Legrand’s birth. There was no Lee McLean in the Muskingum area in 1870, but I found James McLain, a potter, living in White Cottage with Fenton and Eliza Bagley. His age, birthplace, and occupation, made it likely he was Maxa’s and James Sr.’s fourth child. (Very recently, I found that Eliza Bagley was Maxa’s and James Sr.’s daughter, Eliza C. McLean.) What didn’t register for me when I found that 1870 census record was that James is listed as “James L. McLean”. If you guessed (as I didn’t), that “L.” stood for “Legrand”, you are absolutely correct.

James Legrand McLean, Jr.s obituary in the
Ashland Daily Independent, 17 May 1965

The proof that James’ and Maxa’s son James and Legrand were one and the same person arrived one day in the mail. I’d written to the historical society in Catlettsburg, Kentucky inquiring about a Legrand McLean who supposedly had been a “sheriff” there. I received two photocopies of local newspaper obituaries. The first obituary entitled “James McLean Funeral to Be Tuesday”, appeared in the 17 May 1965 issue of the Ashland (KY) Daily Independent. The obituary begins: “Catlettsburg—Funeral service for James LeGrand McLean, 71….” The obituary states that Jim was born in 1894, “a son of J. L. and Minnie Faulkner McLean.” The second obituary entitled “Death Relieved Suffering of a Catlettsburg Policeman” appeared in the 8 March 1907 issue of the Semi-Weekly Irontonian (OH). Taken from the Catlettsburg Tribune, the obituary begins: “About two o’clock this afternoon the soul of Policeman James L. McLean winged its flight to the world unknown…. A wife and two children are left to mourn his loss.” The wife was Minnie Faulkner McLean and the children were James Legrand McLean, Jr. and his sister Golda McLean.

James Legrand McLean left Muskingum County for Catlettsburg, Kentucky between 1880 and 1886, but I don’t know why. I do know he had set up a pottery business there by 1886, the year he and Minnie Faulkner were married. In the 1900 U. S. census, J. L. McLean’s occupation was “breweryman”. In the short time between 1900 and his death in 1907, James became a policeman, which obviously led to his Ohio relatives’ idea that he’d become a sheriff. My cousin recalled that in the 1960's, some of James’ descendants (probably James Legrand Jr's. children) visited White Cottage to try to re-establish a connection with descendants of James’ brother and sisters. Apparently no one in White Cottage followed up, and the McLeans of White Cottage, Ohio and the McLeans of Catlettsburg, Kentucky went their separate ways entirely.

    Studio photograph of James Legrand McLean, Jr.,

    probably taken about the time of his father's death. It's

    likely it was his children who tried to make a 

   connection with relatives in White Cottage, Ohio.