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When Bill Met Essie

My great grandparents Wilford “Bill” Luce (1864-1948) and Essie Wilson (1878-1927) got married October 24, 1898 in Champaign, Illinois. So, where did a Wyoming rancher meet this woman from south central Illinois?

I’m afraid I might have been responsible for a bit of erroneous information here. I answered an email off the cuff many years ago, saying I seemed to remember they met in Chicago when Bill was back east selling cattle.

It would have made sense. The Chicago cattle market was huge. If there was ever a reason for a Wyoming man to be in Illinois, that’s where he would have been and what he would have been doing there.

Ever since I said it, I’ve had a nagging feeling I might have got it wrong. And, I did.

Now and then, I’ve wondered if maybe Bill and Essie really met at the 1898 World’s Fair in Omaha. That would make sense too. Omaha was also a big cattle market, and it’s not hard to imagine Essie and her mother might have come to Omaha for the World’s Fair.

But, no. That’s wrong too. My grandmother had a story about going to the World’s Fair, but it was the 1915 World’s Fair in San Francisco. Bill and Essie were long since married. They took their children. It was big deal.

Now I’ve come across my old notes. I see I’ve misremembered the story. According to my grandmother, Vivian (Luce) Swanstrom, her parents Bill and Essie met “at the stock show in Denver.” [1]

The National Western Stock Show is a huge event here in Denver. It takes place every January. Just finished up 2026 last Sunday.

As I do a little digging, I find some interesting background. The National Western Stock Show dates back to only 1906. Bill and Essie were already married then. They married in 1898. Instead, they must have met at the National Stock Growers’ “National Exhibition of Range Cattle,” the precursor to our modern stock show.

Denver had convinced the National Stock Growers Association to hold their 1898 annual convention in Denver. This Exhibition wasn’t planned to be an annual event. It was just a gathering to celebrate the closing of the National Stock Growers’ Convention that year.

The Exhibition was held January 27-28, 1898 at the Denver Union Pacific stockyard grounds near the railroad lines at the South Platte River, north of downtown Denver. Over the years, these stockyard grounds evolved into the famous Denver National Western Complex.

As I research the 1898 Exhibition, I see it was notable for a riot. A barbecue was planned, but tens of thousands of people descended on the stockyard and overwhelmed the food supply. I don’t remember anything about a riot in Grandma’s story, although it would be fun to imagine Bill and Essie meeting in the middle of it. More likely they met at some social occasion.

Why was Bill there? Because he was a cattleman from Wyoming. They typically shipped their cattle to Denver for sale. It was cheaper than shipping to Chicago or Omaha. He’d drive the cattle 60 miles south to the cattle yard at Opal, then ship them to Denver for sale.

Why was Essie there? According to my grandmother, Essie and her mother were visiting “cousins in Denver.” I should know which cousin, but I’m not finding it. I think it might have been Essie’s cousin (her mother’s nephew) John Siegler Howe (1857-1943). He and his family moved to Montana not long after this, but I haven’t found a record of him in Denver. I need to dig in again and get this figured out.

I hope this sets the record straight. Bill and Essie met in Denver, not Chicago. They met in January. Some kind of courtship ensued, then in October of the same year Bill traveled back to Champaign, Illinois and married Essie in the local Baptist church.

  1. I also remembered another piece wrong, here. I thought I remembered Will Luce married his third wife, his former housekeeper, Amanda (Sizemore) Short (1887-1979), when they were in Denver for the Stock Show. I’ve often joked he cheaped out on a honeymoon. Turns out they were married in Denver on March 3, 1930. The stock show is always in January, so they must have made a special trip for their wedding after all.
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Slew His Brother for a Horse

Great grandpa Will Luce married as his first wife a woman who was daughter of a local rustler and the local madame. Grandpa Will later divorced her for adultery after he came home and caught her in bed with one of his ranch hands. She stayed in Big Piney, never re-married, and continued using her married name Luce.

The connection annoyed my very proper grandmother, who used it as as example of why people shouldn’t do genealogy. Nevertheless, I dig into the story from time to time.

This woman was Dorothy (Tarter) Luce (1878-1952). She was daughter of Jefferson Sharp and Mamie Bair. Bob Tarter, the rustler, was actually her step-father, not her father.

Today, I’m looking into Old Bob Tarter. Here’s rough outline from Daniel, Wyoming – The First Hundred Years 1900 – 2000:

Daniel Milton Tarter

“Soon, Bob Tarter was no longer thought of as a good neighbor and an upstanding citizen of the Teton Basin. He was described as being a notorious cutthroat and accused of requiring others to do the dirty work in his rustling operation while he got away with the spoils. Some of the settlers may have been suspicious of Bob’s ranching activities prior to these events. Undoubtedly, word would have reached Idaho that Bob’s brother Dan had been arrested for stealing horses.

“It became known that Bob Tarter’s primary source of income involved two, seperate groups of men. One unit roamed the country gathering horses, while the second unit remained at the ranch. The islands in the Snake River were used to conceal the horses. The rustlers also had a hideout on the east side of the south butte. From that elevation they could survey much of the surrounding country. Bob’s operation extended to Wyoming, Utah, Montana, Oregon and Idaho. His gang took cattle and horses from the Whitney Idaho (just below Preston) area and shipped them from Corrine, Utah or took them north to Montana. At times, these outlaws were so bold as to butcher the rustled cattle, take the beef to the owners homes, and offer it for sale.”

Bob and his family subsequently moved to Baker County, Oregon. Bob and his brother Dan Tarter got into a fight over a horse in 1893. Dan shot and killed Bob. The family story is that Bob’s gravestone used to have a ball on the top but after Daniel got out of jail he went and shot off the ball.

I find this one news item about the shooting:

Slew His Brother for a Horse.

PARKER CITY, Or., June 16. – News had reached here from Eagle Valley that Dan Tarter shot and instantly killed his brother Bob Saturday night. The brothers quarreled over the possession of a horse. Bob was the leader of a notorious band of horse-thieves who operated in the Teton Basin in Idaho for several years. Dan has served a term in the Washington penitentiary for horse-stealing.

The Arizona Republican; Phoenix, Arizona. June 17, 1893; Page One.

Today, I found just a bit more. Dan was apparently charged with 1st degree murder, convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to 12 years in prison. He appealed. The Oregon Supreme Court overturned the verdict and ordered a new trial. State v. Tarter, 26 Or. 38, 37 P. 53 (Or. 1894).

The court’s analysis gives us a bit of information about the incident. The horse they fought over was a filly named “June.” Bob and Dan’s mother bequeathed the filly to their sister May Lloyd. At the time of the killing, “the defendant [Dan] was in the possession of a mare or filly entrusted to him by his mother to deliver to his sister May Lloyd, and the deceased [Bob] at the time was attempting to take said property from him by force, with intent to convert the same to his own use feloniously.”

There must be more to the story, although it’s not clear from the court record what happened. “The testimony of defendant, and also of his sister and William Barnard, who were eye-witnesses to the shooting, was to the effect that the deceased was the aggressor, and that he was armed with a pistol; that he swore he would kill the defendant, and at the same time was reaching for his pistol; and that he was in the act of drawing it, to carry such threat into execution, when the defendant drew his pistol and fired.”

On the other hand, “testimony for the state tend[ed] to show that the deceased was unarmed and not the assailant, when the affray began; that he made no hostile demonstration toward the defendant, and committed no overt act, but that the shooting was deliberate and premeditated.”

It seems there was bad blood between the brothers at the time of the shooting. The court’s analysis includes a question of whether Bob had threatened Dan, which might have shown Bob was the aggressor, whether Dan knew about the threats or not. “Then followed several questions aiming to show that the deceased proposed to the witness to go with him, raise a posse, and hang the defendant and some others.”

Perhaps arising from the same incident, “The record shows that after the witness testified that he had talked to Robert Tarter, the deceased, a good many times shortly before the shooting, and just after tbe difficulty of the Tarters with Holstine….” The reference is probably either to George Holstine or his brother James Holstine, both of whom lived in Union County.

It would be interesting to find more about the events that preceded the shooting.

I haven’t been able to determine whether Dan was re-tried or what the verdict was. I’m guessing he got off. The Oregon Supreme Court reversed his conviction in 1894. He re-married in 1899 in Union County, Oregon, then he appears on the 1900 census in Custer County, Montana, and on the 1910 through 1930 censuses in Harding County, South Dakota.

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Hercules Hills

Hercules HIlls (?-1696) was an early immigrant to Scituate, Massachusetts. He has been proposed as one of the easliest known nonwhite immigrants to New England, but there are problems with the identification.

Stratton suggests Hercules Hill was the unknown “blackamore” who appears on the 1644 List of Men Able to Bear Arms at Plymouth (Stratton, 187-88). Instead, I suggest he was the “Harke Luse” who appears on the same list at Scituate, although there are problems with that identification.

Deane’s History of Scituate says:

Hercules Hills was in Scituate 1636: a soldier in the Pequod war, 1637, afterward returned to England. We learn the place of his residence in England, 1666, to have been Rochester, in Kent, from the conveyance made of certain lands in Scituate, to Edward Goodwin, shipwright of Boston. He had a lot [in Scituate] at Kent street (Deane, 284).

There is some debate about Hills’ earlier life[1] but the details of his life in New England are fairly certain. It’s not clear why Deane says he was in Scituate in 1636, but he was part of a detachment sent against the Pequot in 1637 (Pratt, 158). (Name not listed in official records (Records of the Colony, 1:60-61.) He took the oath of fidelity at Scituate in 1644 (Records of the Plymouth Colony, 8:183; Deane, 154).[2] “Hercules Hill” was one of eight men from Scituate who went on the Narragansett campaign 23 August 1645 (Pratt, 166; Records of New Plymouth, 8″). He later returned to England (Farmer, 144, citing 2 Coll. Mass. Soc. 4:233). In 1666 was living in Rochester, Kent (Deane, 284). He died May 1696 at Hernehill, Kent.

Was Hercules Nonwhite?

In 1986, Eugene Stratton suggested Hercules Hills might have been a nonwhite resident of Scituate, identical with a servant of William Hatch, also named Hercules:

“The first record we have of a black in Plymouth Colony is the list of 1643 of those men between 16 and 60 able to bear arms. The list is quite thorough, ranging from the governor and ministers to servants…. Also on the list is ‘the blackamore,’ and though attempts have been made to identify him…we still do not know who [he] was, what his status in Plymouth was, or how long he had been or remained in Plymouth. However, though highly speculative, there is indirect evidence to link him with one Hercules Hill or Hills. This person is first mentioned in the records by name on 5 Mar 1643-4 when the court, ‘upon heareing of the differrence betwixt William Hatch, of Scituate, & his servant Hercules, for the terme he shoud serve him, whether six or seaven yeares…having heard the evedences on both sides, do order that the said Hercules is to serve the said William six yeares, which wilbe untill the third day of July next, & then to be free from him.’

“It was highly unusual for court records to identify a person by first name only, although Hercules is so uncommon a name for a Plymouth Colony resident at this time that perhaps, like blackamore, it was considered sufficient. The next record shows that Hercules Hill was one of eight men from Scituate who went forth on 23 Aug 1645 on the Narragansett campaign. The fact that he is from Scituate, and the uniqueness of the name in Plymouth, make it likely that Hatch’s servant was Hercules Hill. It is apparent that he is able to bear arms, but the name Hercules Hill is not on the 1643 ATBA [Men Able to Bear Arms]. He is on a list dated 15 Jan 1644-5 of men from Scituate who had taken the Oath of Fidelity (by court order, above, he would have come out of servitude in July 1644). To connect this evidence it is necessary to reason that the black who was in Plymouth in 1643 was a servant to someone as early as July 1638, and was working for William Hatch in 1643-4. The name Hercules, though unusual at Plymouth for an Englishman, is the type of classical name which Englishmen seemed to like to bestow on nonwhite servants. The use of the first name Hercules to identify him on 5 Mar 1643-4 is again highly unusual for an Englishman, but is very consistent with usage at this time for nonwhites. If this speculative hypothesis should be true, it would show a black in Plymouth at this time not as a freeman… and not as a lifetime slave, but rather as an indentured servant with the same rights as all other indentured servants. One last bit of evidence to add to these facts is that William Hatch arrived in New England in 1634 aboard the ship called Hercules.”

Confusion with Harke Luse?

The evidence here is difficult but not overly complex.

Stratton argues Hercules was an uncommon name. Hercules was indeed an uncommon name, but the christening record generally attributed to Hercules Hill in England shows the name was being used in England.

Stratton’s argument depends in large part on the fact Hercules Hill does not appear on the 1643 List of Men Able to Bear Arms at Scituate, but Stratton misses the Harke Luse whose name appears immediately following William Hatch and Walter Hatch (Records of the New Plymouth Colony, 8:190-92). From his position on the list, Harke Luse is likely to have been the Hercules who was their servant. This Harke Luse appears nowhere else in colonial records. His name seems to be a transcription error for “Harkeluse” — Hercules.[3]

Moreover, the “blackamore” referenced by Stratton appears in official records as “Abraham Pearse, the blackamore” (Records of the New Plymouth Colony, 8:187). His name has been crossed out in the original manuscript as shown by the double dagger (‡) marks enclosing his name (Records of the New Plymouth Colony, 8:v). Stratton’s argument depends on the theory the word “blackamore” was intended to appear on the line following Abraham Pearce, not on the same line.

There is no immigration record for Hercules Hill. He is not known to have been one of the servants who came with William Hatch in 1633/4, but we might infer his presence.

The passenger list of the Hercules shows William Hatch, his wife Jane, five children, and six servants (Hotten, xix-xx; Stevens). Anderson names the passengers in this group: William Hatch of Sandwich, merchant, & Jane his wife with their children Walter, John, William, Anne, and Jane. Their servants were William Holmes, Joseph Ketchrell, Simon Ketcrell, Symon Sutton, and Lidia Wells (Anderson, 241, citing NEHGR 75:219). These names are taken from Certificates of Conformity that form part of the same collection (NEHGR 75:219). No Hercules, but we note Anderson lists five children and five servants, whereas Hotten shows five children and six servants, all unnamed (Hotten. xx).

Deane says Hercules Hill was already in Scituate in 1636. If so, that seems to preclude him from being the Hercules whose indenture began in 1638.

William Hatch made a trip to England, then returned on the Castle in 1638 (Anderson, 244, citing Lechford, 163-67). There is no surviving passenger list for the Castle [4], but based on the date of the court order terminating Hercules’ indenture in 1644, after six years, we know Hercules indenture must have begun in 1638. It seems likely Hatch brought Hercules with him on his return trip that same year (Anderson, 244; Lechford, 163-67).

There are two competing puzzles here. First, Hercules Hill should appear on the 1644 List of Men Able to Bear Arms. Stratton suggests he was the anonymous blackamore at Plymouth. I suggest he was Harke Luse. But secondly, if he was the Hercules whose indenture began in 1638 and was complete in 1644, how could he have been in Scituate as early as 1636?

For the dates to work, Hercules must have been in Scituate before he was 16. That is, he must have been born, say before 1621.

  1. He is usually identified with the Hercules Hills who was christened 9 November 1628 at St. Laurence-in-Thanet, Ramsgate, Kent, son of Austen Hill. The identification seems unlikely. If he was in Scituate in 1636 and was a soldier there in 1637, he would have been 8 and 9.
  2. Deane’s list says, “A list of those who took “the oath of fidelity” from 1633 to 1668. Many of them were church members, but they declined taking ”the freeman’s oath” at first, which, however, most of them eventually did (Deane, 154).
  3. A Harkelas Hilles was christened at St. Laurence-in-Thanet on 3 July 1653, son of John Hilles and Tamsen. This is the same parish where Hercules HIlls was christened 9 November 1628.
  4. Hatch’s presence on the Castle is known from court records. Hatch was sued by Thomas Rucke of Charlestown on 26 August 1639 for his accounting of the expenses of the voyage. The suit mentions “the brother of the said William & 8 or 9 other persons the proper passengers of the said William.” Anderson identifies these passengers as William Hatch’s brother Thomas, Thomas’ wife and five children, their sister Elizabeth and her son William (Anderson, 243-44; Lechford, 163-67).

Sources

Community Trees

Revised Sept. 2, 2025.

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Luce Coat of Arms

There is no proven coat of arms for American immigrant Henry Luce (c1640-aft 1689) and his descendants. Henry’s ancestry is unknown, so we cannot connect him to any European family, nor is there any record he himself used a coat of arms.

The arms widely attributed to the Luces in America are:

Arms: Azure a crescent argent. Crest: An eagle wings displayed reguardant holding in the dexter claw a sword erect.

These are the arms of Luce or Lucy family of London (formerly of Antwerp), and Jersey (Burke, 628).

The earliest attribution of this coat of arms to the descendants of Henry Luce seems to be the Cleveland Genealogy, published in 1899 (p. 194). It cites Burke’s General Armory for the Cleveland coat of arms, and some others, so this was perhaps also its source for Luce.[1]

The claim was repeated by Wilford Litchfield in 1901 (p. 35n) and endlessly repeated from there.

There is another old speculation, that Henry Luce belonged in some unknown way to the de Lucy family who were medieval English barons. They took their name from the French town of Lucé in Normandy. There is no basis for the claim the American Luce family might be connected to them. Neverthess, I mention it here for the sake of completeness. Their arms were:

Arms: Gules, three lucies in pale argent.

Instead of following old and discredited claims, we should be coming at this differently.

Henry Luce is believed to have come from Gloucestershire, just outside Bristol. Banks thought he probably came from Horton (Banks, 3:246-48). Another family of Luces lived five miles away in Pucklechurch. Leslie G. Pine, an English expert in baronial genealogies, thought the Gloucestershire Luce families probably had a common origin in the mid-16th century. Further, he believed Henry Luce was probably (although not certainly) a member of one of those families.

Sir Richard Napier Luce, Baron Luce (1936 -) descends from the Pucklechurch family. He has been granted a coat of arms:

Arms: Gules, two lucies naiant in pale Or, and on a chief Or a key fesswise the wards to the dexter Gules between two martlets Sable. Crest: A mute swan naiant proper gorged with a chain pendant thereform a portcullis Or. Motto: Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light).

These arms are his and his descendant’s. In no sense can they be considered the arms of the American family. Nevertheless, they are interesting for us because they reflect the expert judgment of the English College of Arms. The Luce families of Gloucestershire are not descended from the same family as the Luces of London and Jersey, nor are they descended from the medieval de Lucy family.

  1. The Cleveland Genealogy also says (erroneously) Luce is “[a]n old Scotland name” (p. 194) and ”[a]n old Scotland Family of Huguenot descent” (p. 184).

Sources

Revised Aug. 31, 2025.

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Thomas Luce, of Charlestown

Before the publication of Charles Banks’ History of Martha’s Vineyard in 1911 one of the two leading suggestions for the father of immigrant Henry Luce was Thomas Luce, of Charlestown. The other leading suggestion was Harke Luse.

These two men were attractive candidates because their surname matches and they lived in the same general area a generation before Henry Luce. That is, either of them could have been Henry Luce’s unknown father.

Wilford Litchfield, writing in 1901 says Remember Litchfield married about 1670 “Henry Luce (sometimes Lucy),[1] who may have been a son of Thomas Luce of Charlestown [Massachusetts]” (Litchfield, 34).[2]

Litchfield seems to be taking his lead from genealogical compilations by John Farmer (1829) and James Savage (1861).

Farmer says, ““LUCE, THOMAS, Charlestown, had a son Samuel, b. there in 1644. This name is very common at Martha’s Vineyard” (Farmer, 184).

Savage says, “LUCE, OR LUCY, HENRY, Rehoboth 1668. THOMAS, Charlestown, had Samuel, b. 1644, says Farmer, to wh. I can add nothing, but that he prob. rem. soon. The name abounds at the Vineyard. One LUCY, at Portsmouth, m. Mary, d. of William Brooking, and had Benjamin” (Savage, 3:119).

Banks says, “There was a Thomas Luce in Charlestown, according to Farmer (Gen. Dictionary), who had a son Samuel b. 1644, but of whom nothing further is heard. It is probable that this was Lewis” (Banks, 2:55 n.2). Banks dismisses Thomas without further investigation, not for any inherent improbality, but apparently only because he building a case for Henry Luce’s origin at Horton, Gloucestershire.

In the absence of any firm evidence, Thomas Luce has remained an attractive candidate for Henry Luce’s unknown father. Henry’s birth has been estimated about 1640, based on a 1644 birthdate for his wife Remember. If Thomas had a son Samuel born in 1644, he could conceivably have had a son Henry who would have been the right age to be our Henry Luce.

Unfortunately, we find no record of Thomas or Samuel corresponding to Farmer’s information. Charlestown records show a Samuel, son of John Lewis, born in 1641,[3] but not a Samuel, son of Thomas Luce, born in 1644.

Thomas Luce of Charlestown is a ghost. There was no man of that name. He seems to have be an invention or mistake.

  1. Litchfield claims to have been the first to identify the wife of Henry Luce as Remember Litchfield.
  2. A word of caution: many Internet sources have turned Litchfield’s information into a fictional tree, where Henry Luce was a merchant and farmer born 1630 in Gloucester to Thomas Luce (1600-1670?) and Sally Monson.
  3. “Samuel, son of John Lewis & Margaret his wife, b. 24 (4) 1641” (Vital records of Charlestown, Massachusetts, 1:5).

Sources

Revised Aug. 28, 2025.