Elizabeth Augusta Hearn and Dwight Ellinwood Hollister

Elizabeth Augusta Hearn was born 24 Nov 1876 in Jersey City and baptized 31 Dec 1876 at St Joseph's Catholic Church. She was the second child and oldest daughter of Bridget Augusta Heath and Edwin Ross Hearn.

By 1883, the family had moved either to Passaic City, Passaic County, or to Bergen County immediately across the Passaic River. In the 1885 New Jersey State Census they were enumerated in Rutherford, Union Township, Bergen County. This set of records was 136 pages long. The Hearns were listed on page 1 - actually, they're the first household listed. Page 57 included Horace H Hollister, his wife Ada (or Adelaide) Ellinwood and their two children, Maud Ellinwood Hollister and Dwight Ellinwood Hollister. Ada and Horace had arrived in New Jersey from New York via Ohio sometime in the early 1870s. Horace was "Rutherford's earliest physician," at least according to the Rutherford South Bergenite published 29 Aug 2013. Maud was born in NJ 23 Jun 1875 - I don't have a birth record so I don't know specifically where. Dwight was born in Rutherford 17 Apr 1877.

The 1885 census district included both Rutherford Borough, which was formed from portions of Union Township 21 Sep 1881, and the rest of the township, apparently also referred to as Rutherford. The Hearns were gone by the next New Jersey State Census in 1895, but I was able to trace some of their neighbours forward. Their properties were located in the portions of Union Township that, on 17 Apr 1889, became Boiling Springs Township. On 28 Mar 1894, Boiling Springs Township was dissolved and East Rutherford Borough took its place. The Hollisters, on the other hand, were located in Rutherford Borough. Still, it's not unlikely that the Hearn and Hollister children might have known each other.

Bridget Augusta Heath Hearn died in 1888. By 1894 the Hearns had left New Jersey for New York City, where they lived at 158 West 77th Street.

Edwin Ross Hearn Sr died in Los Angeles 11 Mar 1899. His will, written 05 Nov 1898, was interesting. He named his brothers Frank J Hearne and William J Hearne as executors. (He spelled his own surname once with an -e at the end and once with.) To his son "Edwin R Hearne" (Jr), he left 50 shares of the capital stock of the Riverside Iron Works in Wheeling, West Virginia. He then divided the remainder of his estate among his four daughters, Elizabeth A Hearne, Mary Frances Hearne, Anna Theresa Hearne and Lillie Lee Hearne. They were to the receive the "rents, issues and income" from the estate, paid out in quarterly payments, for ten years after their father's death. After ten years, they were to receive the corpus of the estate.

I can't find any of Bridget Augusta and Edwin's four daughters in the 1900 US Census. They may have been travelling in Europe. According to the issue of the Sag Harbor L.I. Corrector published 18 Jan 1902, Elizabeth's sister Annie Theresa met Rudolph John Heise in Berlin in 1900. Elizabeth may have been one of the "Misses Hearn" who occupied the "Lilly Pond Cottage" at Sag Harbor, Long Island, in the summer of 1901, chaperoned by "Mrs. Dr. Smith." (The reference is to the widow of Dr James W Smith, the cottage's owner, not to the sisters' aunt Mary Hearne Smith.)

Rudolph continued to pursue Annie Theresa at Sag Harbor. Elizabeth and Mary Frances, the next oldest sister, were not impressed with Rudolph and planned to send Annie Theresa to Europe. This caused Annie Theresa and Rudolph to elope. They married in Manhattan 09 Jan 1902. Mary Frances married Stanley Pitkin Christopher in Manhattan a week later, and then finally Elizabeth - the oldest sister - married Dwight Ellinwood Hollister in Manhattan 26 Feb 1902.

Married Life Out West

Dwight had not been wasting his time. After graduating from Princeton in 1897, he had earned a law degree from the New York Law School in 1899 and began practicing law in NYC. In 1904 he and Elizabeth gave up life in the city for ranching. They moved out to Wapiti on the North Fork of the Shoshone River, which was at the time in Big Horn County. (Park County was split off from Big Horn County in 1909.) In a letter to Princeton written from Wapiti 28 Sep 1908, Dwight wrote:

I have devoted my time to ranching, partially cattle, but now more particularly horses. Have been admitted to the bar in Wyoming, but do not pretend to practice...

We live on our ranch, twenty-seven miles from the nearest railroad station - the town of Cody, population 2500, and the metropolis of Big Horn County, and make it our home the year round, except for an annual trip in the winter, of not more than three months' duration, back to the "effete" East...

To say that both Mrs. Hollister and I are enthusiastic ranchers and Westerners, is putting it very mildly. The experience, while entirely novel to both of us, has not been the less delightful, and if one enjoys an open air existence, free from unnecessary restraint, this life cannot be surpassed.

-- Duodecennial record of the class of eighteen hundred and ninety-seven, Number Four, pp 98-99. Published by Princeton University, 1909.

I'm sure that Dwight was since when he claimed that not only he but also Elizabeth was an enthusiastic rancher and Westerner. However, when their son Dwight Ellinwood Jr was born 10 May 1909, he was born in Missouri. I would assume that Elizabeth had gone to stay with her sister Mary Frances in Kansas City for the birth.

The US Census conducted in April 1910 enumerated Elizabeth, Dwight Sr and 11-month-old Dwight Jr as living in Marquette. (About 10 miles west of Cody, Marquette now lies underneath the Buffalo Bill Reservoir. Billings Gazette, 15 Nov 2008.) Dwight Sr is listed as a farmer. Registering for the WWI draft 11 Sep 1918, he gave his occupation as cattle-rancher and his address as Wapiti. The 1920 US Census agreed that Dwight Sr was a rancher on a stock ranch.

In 1925 Elizabeth began to show signs of the chronic nephritis that was one of the causes of her father's death. The Kansas City Star reported 30 Mar 1927 that Mary Frances Hearn Christopher had left for Cody, Wyoming, to visit her sister. Then eight days later the Star reported that Mary Frances would be arriving home from Cody the next day - and that her sister had accompanied her. Elizabeth died of chronic nephritis in Kansas City 17 Apr 1927. The informant's name on her death certificate is D E Hollister, which could be either her husband or her 18-year-old son.

Elizabeth's place of burial is given both on her death certificate and in her death notice in the Star 18 Apr 1927 as Rutherford, New Jersey. This is not necessarily a reference to the Hearn family plot in Paterson. There may have been a Hollister family plot in Rutherford or Lyndhurst. After Dwight's sister Maud died 08 Jan 1969, the Batavia NY Daily News published 13 Jan 1969 reported that she had been buried in Lyndhurst. (Lyndhurst is the next township south along the Passiac River from Rutherford. It was created 15 May 1917 from the leftover portion of Union Township that hadn't become Rutherford or East Rutherford.)

After Elizabeth: Orilla Lydia Russell Downing and Dwight Ellinwood Hollister Sr

The 1930 US Census found Dwight Sr back in Wyoming, but not on the ranch. He was living in Cody at 1008 Alger Avenue with Orilla Downing and her son George. Dwight had returned to practicing law.

Orilla Lydia Russell Downing was born in Denver, Colorado, 06 Feb 1884, the daughter of Delia Helen Kirkland and George Stanley Russell. She and her family were still in Colorado for the 1885 Colorado State Census but moved to Wyoming soon after that. They settled in Cody in 1897. Orilla married Gaylord Orth Downing 26 Mar 1907. Together, they joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. Orilla performed as a cowgirl for only one season, while Gaylord continued in the show until 1910. They had two children, Doris born 1909 and George born 1913, but were divorced by 1918. In 1922 Orilla became Clerk of the District Court of Park County, a position she was to hold for 42 years.

Orilla was at the same address in 1940 as in 1930. I'm not sure where Dwight Sr was then, nor can I find his WWII draft registration record. However, according to his obituary in the Princeton Alumni Weekly, Volume 52, he and Orilla married 31 May 1847. He died on his ranch 14 Jun 1951. Orilla died 10 Apr 1972.

Dwight Jr was working as a labourer in an oil camp in Park County in 1930 and boarding with a couple named Bernice and Verne Marshall. I couldn't find him in 1940, but I know that he served in the US Navy during WWII as a Pharmacist's Mate 2nd Class. He died in Napa County, California, on 20 Feb 1961 and is buried in the Golden Gate National Cemetery in San Bruno, California.