Belarmino Gonzalez
Belarmino Gonzalez was born in Spain nearly 160 years ago on February 2nd, 1860.
** Interesting events that occurred around the World during Belarmino's birth year of 1860 included.
• On February 26th, 1860 white settlers massacre a band of Wiyot Indians on Indian Island, near Eureka, California. At least 60 Women, children and elders are killed.
• On April 3rd, 1860 the Pony Express begins its first run from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California, with riders carrying a small Bible. The Pony Express was a mail service delivering messages, newspapers, and mail using relays of horse-mounted riders. Many people used the Pony Express as a communication link. It also encouraged catalogues to be created, allowing people to buy goods and have them brought by horse to their customers.
• On May 28th, 1860 one of the worst storms ever experienced in the region hits the East coast of England, sinking more than 100 ships and killing at least 40 people.
• On October 15th, 1860 11-year-old Grace Bedell writes to Abraham Lincoln, then the-Republican nominee for President asking the clean-shaven candidate to grow "whiskers". She said "All the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President."
Lincoln responded to Bedell's letter, saying: "Your very agreeable letter of the 15th is received. I regret the necessity of saying I have no daughters. I have three sons – one seventeen, one nine, and one seven, years of age. They, with their mother, constitute my whole family. As to the whiskers, having never worn any, do you not think people would call it a silly affectation if I were to begin it now?"
Needless to say Lincoln began to grow his famous beard after the exchange of letters with Bedell but this was not the end of the story: Lincoln actually met Grace while he was taking a train from Illinois to Washington D.C. for his inauguration in February of 1861. Stopping in Bedell's hometown of Westfield, New York, Lincoln asked to meet the girl. Years later she recalled: "He climbed down and sat down with me on the edge of the station platform," she recalled. "'Gracie,' he said, 'look at my whiskers. I have been growing them for you.' Then he kissed me. I never saw him again."
• On November 6th, 1860 Abraham Lincoln defeats John C. Breckinridge, Stephen A. Douglas, and John Bell, and is elected as the 16th President of the United States. He is the first Republican to hold that office.
• On December 20th, 1860 with the Civil War looming, South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the Union.
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At the age of 23, Mr. Gonzalez would immigrate to the United States and specifically New York City in 1883.
Six years later, he meets and marries Mary Dugan a recent immigrant to the United States herself. Mary had arrived @ NYC from Belfast, Ireland three years prior in 1886. Together the couple would have 7 children although only three were living by 1910. Son's Celso, Alfred, and Belarmino. The Gonzalez family live in the borough of Brooklyn . ( I am going to share an odd number New York census record from 1892 in the comments below where Belarmino's occupation looks to be that of a "Signmaker" but I'm not entirely sure if that is what he wrote. ) Feel free to opine.
The Gonzalez family relocate to the Sunshine State and city of Tampa, Florida in 1909 where Patriarch Belarmino the Sr. becomes involved in the cigar making trade in order to support the family.
We know not the circumstances but on Monday, May 8th, 1924 Gonzalez Patriarch Belarmino would lose his life at the age of 64.
Belarmino Gonzalez... Beloved Husband and Father