We have a new member of the family and he likes history. I decided that for Christmas I would see what I could find on his father’s family with the little information that I already had. I started searching on the Greenfields in Nebraska and it looks like he will be getting a notebook with 24 pages of discovered relatives.
His Greenfield ancestors, from what I can tell so far, are from New York and are of Puritan stock according to one write up. They moved from New York State in the mid 1800s and relocated in Wisconsin until the beginning of the 1900s when some of the family would move on to Nebraska while others remained in Wisconsin.
His third great grandfather Caleb Greenfield seemed to have been a popular and influential entrepreneur. He fought in the Civil War and was wounded in the right arm. Over Caleb’s lifetime he would own various boarding houses and hotels making his living in that manner. From what I can tell he was married three times. His first wife was Martha Wedge in Tompkins New York. She would follow him to Wisconsin having the last of their seven children there. After her death in 1881 he would marry Emily J Prutsman. They would own several hotels and move on to Nebraska, where some of Caleb’s children had moved. The Stevens Point Daily of Wisconsin would make note of her death in May of 1895. His last wife was Nancy according to the 1900 and 1910 census.
Caleb’s son John W. would also serve in the Civil War and be wounded. John was sent to Washington after his release from the hospital to serve as a guard there. He was located in Washington at the time of the assassination of President Lincoln and was a part of the honor guard that would accompany the remains of the President from the White House to the Capitol.