Enoch Mannin

By Don Taylor

Today I am reminded about the importance of doing it right the first time.

When I first seriously began doing genealogy, I was so excited by what I was finding. I didn’t document things very well.  I imported GED files from others without concern.  I seldom connected the sources I did have with the data entered into my software meaningfully.

When starting, there is often a key, pivotal person in your ancestry that provides the foundation for many other searches.  For me, it was Enoch Mannin, my 3rd great-grandfather. Many other people were researching his line, and they were willing to share GED files.  Also, he was readily findable in the censuses and many other places, so he was a great person to research, find information, and put it in my tree without properly documenting it.  Well, that laxness finally caught up to me, and I’ve spent the last several days cleaning up the sources and the links to facts for Enoch.  Not a small task. I have 26 sources for Enoch and many different kinds of information. Census records, Civil War records, Pension Application Records, Land Patents, Death Registration, and even the image of his entry into the family bible regarding his birth. It was a lot of effort to sort out everything, remove relationships between source and data that don’t exist, and create new data elements that fit the source information.  For example, most census records only provide a birth year estimate, plus & minus a year. Also, the census records only give the birth state, so associating the county and specific date information is inappropriate. Consequently, I created a lot of different alternate information entries. 

I cleaned his records up and promised myself never to take shortcuts in documentation again.

Biography – Enoch Mannin

Enoch Mannin/Manning was probably born on 3 Jan 1823 in Owingsville, Bath County, Kentucky. I say probably because his enlistment papers indicate that he was 44 when he enlisted in 1863, making his birth year 1819. In various documents, his birth year ranges from 1819 to 1824, but the bible record indicates 1823. 

It appears his father and mother, Meredith and Rachel Fugate Mannin, were married about two years after his birth.  Enoch was the oldest of twelve children and grew up in Bath County, Kentucky. In 1843 he married Minerva Ann Tolliver and remained married to her for nearly 60 years until her death in 1902. They had nine children, four of which died before 1900. 

During the Civil War, he volunteered for a year with Company E, 40th Kentucky Mounted Infantry Volunteers (Union), and served from September 1863 until December 1864. He lived in Carter County, Kentucky, when he enlisted.  On the day he volunteered, 29 Aug 1863, he also gave his permission for his son, John W. Manning, my 2nd great grandfather,  to volunteer when John W was only 17.  Also enlisting on the same day was John N. Mannin, the son of his brother Tarleton Mannin.

He served primarily in Eastern Kentucky. Morgan captured him in May or June of 1864. His regiment of over 1000 lost about 1% to wounds and another 9% to disease for 102 total deaths. He spent much of his time on scout duty. Later, he cited actions in December 1863 as the start of hearing loss and dizziness.  His regiment had action on December 2nd and 3rd, which were the probable cause of his medical issues later in life. In May and June of 1864, he was involved in action against Morgan and was captured by Morgan during those actions.

In 1883 or 1884, Enoch moved to Holding, Stearns County, Minnesota. In the spring of 1888, Enoch and Minerva moved to Cass County, Minnesota. In 1890, Enoch applied for an Invalid pension and a disability pension, and in 1894, Enoch received a land grant for 160 acres in northern Minnesota. Today, the land does not have a home on it, and looks like it is mostly swamp with some woods and a little grassland. It is the Northeast quarter of the section shown in https://goo.gl/maps/zkjT7.

I am sure life was harsh in May Township (north of Motley), Minnesota, at the turn of the century.

Minerva died in 1902, and Enoch passed five years later, on 7 Apr 1907. He is buried in Bridgeman Cemetery, about 2 miles south of his Minnesota homestead.

Sources for the above information are available at https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/177688032/person/302307570610//facts