It has been a few months since my last blog post, because that post inspired me to dive back into some tricky research. But last night I finished reading the novel Orphan Train and figured I should record what I have learned so far about my own orphan train story.

My Grandma Dorothy grew up on a farm in Kalispell, Montana, at the foot of Glacier National Park. Her grandmother Hattie lived in a small house down the road.

Hattie was born in New York City in 1859 (April 1 according to some records). In 1860, the census records that a two-year-old named Hattie Washington was living with the Irish Durnin family: Patrick and Catherine, and their boys Michael (1840, Ireland); Patrick (1850, England); and George (1852, NYC). There is another baby with a different last name also living with the family.

Whether this Hattie is my Hattie or another is a question, one I don’t see easily remedied unless I can find a record of her adoption. Hattie Washington, born 1859, was also put on the orphan train to go west in search of a family who would raise her.  The train was headed to Hanover, Jefferson County, Indiana. (Marjorie Mills provided this information, who I later discovered was her granddaughter through her son Harrison.)

What I know for certain is that in 1870, Hattie was living with her new, adoptive family in Geneva, Jennings County, Indiana. She shared their last name, and on first glance one might think that she was simply the last-born daughter. But then you take a closer look and realize that Betsy was 52 when Hattie was born, and her husband, the Reverend Timothy Jayne, 54. In fact, Thomas and Betsy had already raised five sons and three daughters, all of whom had left home before the 1870 census.

I have not yet uncovered when it was between 1860 and 1870 that Hattie was adopted.  A search of the Jennings County Courthouse records did not return any results (thank you, though, Sheila Kell for looking!). My next step is to try to research through the records of those searching for Orphan Train riders and their descendants, or possibly the records of the Children’s Aid Society.