It’s November, 1906, and there is a big party going on at the Buckingham house in Putnam, Ohio. 300 people reportedly attend. The large photo above is their family photo taken at the event. My grandfather, Sherwood Pinkerton, Jr. is kneeling in the right corner, next to his brother, David Wills. Behind him is his mother, Julia Buckingham standing next to her father, James Buckingham. In the center is James’ bride of 50 years, Jane Peebles Wills Buckingham in her wedding dress made of silk, lace, hoop skirt and having a “little old-fashioned waist.” Behind Jane are her two other daughters. To her left is Mary Humphries Greene, who is a recent widow and a current resident in the house. To her right is Elise Wills Darlington, mother of the four other boys in the photo, who are (counter-clockwise from the right, Henry Buckingham, John Hardenburg, Frank Graef and James Buckingham. The young woman with her arms around Frank is 16-year old Eleanor Young, daughter of the Buckinghams’ daughter, Ellen Wood Young, who died of childbirth complications. The baby, Eleanor was taken in and cared for by the Buckinghams.
The man in the back on the left is probably Frank Darlington, Elise’s husband. The Darlingtons live in Indianapolis.
The old woman in the chair, who doesn’t seem to be part of the family portrait could be Mrs. A. Spencer Nye of Chillicothe, related to the notable abolitionist of Putnam and veteran of the War of 1812, whose house was used as a stop on the Underground Railroad.
It’s January 1891, two months after Julia’s sister, Ellen, died of childbirth. Because a large wedding wasn’t fitting, Julia Buckingham and Sherwood Pinkerton had a small wedding on a Wednesday that took place at the house in 1891. After a honeymoon in the South, they lived in the Buckingham house, because “any sort of a separation from his one remaining daughter the sorrowing father feels that he could not endure.”
