Timothy R. Lyons was the younger half-brother to my 2nd great-grandmother Mary Dorgan. He was born on March 19, 1868 in Jeffersonville, IN, the third child of my 3rd great-grandmother Catherine Murphy and her second husband Jeremiah Lyons.
Tim had a normal childhood growing
up in a small river town. By age 20, he is listed in the 1888 Jeffersonville
City Directory as boarding at his parents’ home and working at the Ohio Falls
Car Company alongside his father. After a few years he found work as a railroad
man, per the following clipping from the May 1, 1894 Indianapolis News:
Collided With a Cow
Jeffersonville, May 1 – Tim Lyons and John Kelly, switchmen in the employ of the P., C., C. & St. L. (Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis) railroad, last midnight had a thrilling experience. They were standing on the foot-board of an engine backing over to Louisville, when suddenly a cow appeared on the track. The locomotive struck it and killed the animal instantly. The body of the cow struck the switchmen, both of whom are badly if not dangerously injured.
(The article leaves out the
fascinating fact that this happened on a railroad bridge across the Ohio River
from Jeffersonville, IN to Louisville, KY and doesn’t mention how a cow got up there
in the first place.)
Unlike the cow, Tim recovered from
this unfortunate incident and four years later, on October 10, 1898, he enlisted
with the 13th Infantry, Company C of the U.S. Army. He was assigned
to Fort Porter, New York, which was headquarters for the 13th. In
June, just prior to his enlistment, this company was sent to Cuba during the
Spanish American War, and led the 1st Infantry's attack on San Juan Hill, capturing the Spanish flag. Their Major William
Auman was the first commanding officer to reach the top of
San Juan Hill. Tim, however, missed out on all the action and spent the
entire time at Fort Porter.
He was discharged from this unit on
February 21, 1899, and immediately reenlisted, this time with the
2nd Infantry Company M. He was assigned to Camp Shipp in Calhoun
County, AL, although he was allowed some time at home on furlough before
meeting up with his company in early April. They spent some time camped at
Savannah, Georgia while waiting for passage to Cuba.
While in Savannah, something
mysterious began happening with Tim. On April 18, 1899 he was admitted to the
hospital for intestinal indigestion, marked as “in line of duty”. He was
discharged three days later and released to duty. His company remained camped
at Irish Park in Savannah until departing for Cuba on May 24 aboard USAT (US
Army Transport) Crook (formerly Roumanian_
By all accounts, although this trip only took 6 days it would have been miserable for anyone. I can only imagine how uncomfortable it was for poor Tim; not only was it most likely his first experience with the open ocean, but he was still suffering from whatever sickness began in Savannah. There is a description of the bleak experience here:
“The
sleeping quarters were at the bottom of the "black hole", reached by
a crude ladder that ran down through the port hatches, past two decks of
houses, into the darkness. Hammocks were hung at night in double tiers
between rows of upright posts, and so close together that elbows touched.
The air was hot and stifling and the sight of the mass of legs and arms
protruding in all directions, in the dismal half gloom from the lantern,
recalled Dore's pictures of the Inferno. The ship having been used for
years as a cattle boat, the reminiscent odor combined with the smell of bilge
water and stale provisions can convey no adequate appreciation by mere
description. From the cracks in the boards that covered temporarily the
rough bottom a dark slime oozed and made the footing insecure. One could
hardly stay there without feeling giddy, but that is where the men were
expected to sleep and eat. A soldier found on deck after taps had sounded
was summarily ordered below, on penalty of arrest . . . Only the guard relief
and the sick men were allowed to sleep on deck . . . The ship being
shorthanded, soldiers were asked to volunteer for stoker duty. The reward
was food: three portions of sailor's stew a day. The temptation to get
something beside weevily hard-tack, spoiled canned beef and rotten tomatoes,
drew many a sturdy lad to the fire-room . . . Few of the soldiers could stand
the test for more than one shift, although the promise of food was hard to resist
. . . The water supply provided for the men was warm and polluted. The
steward of the boat made a nice profit selling ice water at ten cents a glass
and warm beer at half a dollar a bottle, till stopped by the commanding officer
. . . The sanitary arrangements of disarrangements of the ship transcend all
description. Let it be said in short that the "ROUMANIAN"
was considered the very worst transport that ever went out.”
The company arrived at Cienfuegos, Cuba on May 30, 1899 and one week later Tim was once again admitted to the hospital at Cienfuegos, this time for “acute alcoholism, not line of duty”. He remained there for two days and was discharged to duty on July 9. But this wasn’t the end of his troubles. Not even two weeks later he was once again in the hospital at Cienfuegos, again for “acute alcoholism”. But this time, he remained in hospital for six weeks, from July 20 to August 31. Nothing is mentioned in what few records I can find of his condition beyond “acute alcoholism”.
While he lay sick in the hospital,
his company departed for their final destination, the new barracks known as
Rowell Barracks at Paso Caballo, Cuba. When Tim was released, it was only to be
transported to the field hospital at Rowell Barrack, where he was admitted on
September 2 for “undetermined diagnosis, unknown if line of duty”. The
following day he was discharged for transfer to the US Government Insane Asylum
in Washington DC!
Tim’s poor mother, Catherine, had
last heard from her son before he left for Cuba, and it’s not known if she knew
he was sick in Savannah. She had last seen her son, hale and hearty, in April
while he was home on furlough and, I imagine, was excited about his upcoming
adventure in Cuba. But on October 13, 1899 she received a letter from Tim, from
the St. Elizabeth’s Hospital (which was the government’s insane asylum) in
Washington DC. We do not have a copy of that letter, but we do have the letters
that Catherine herself sent to his doctor, as well as a letter from a physician
in Jeffersonville who also wrote to the hospital on Catherine’s behalf. The letters
read as follows:
Doctor Stack
St. Elizabeth Hospital
Washington, DC
Dear Sir,
I write you on behalf of the mother of Timothy R. Lyons of our city, and a soldier of the regular Army. She today received a letter from her son saying that he is confined in your hospital on account of mental derangement. This is the first word she has had from him since the first of July last.
Will you kindly let me know his real condition and whether
or not in your judgement his mental trouble is permanent, as his mother is
naturally enough very solicitous about him.
James
K. Marsh
Jeffersonville, Ind.
Oct. 3, 1899
Dr. Stack
Dear Sir,
As my
son is under your care in the hospital I ask a favor of you as Tim wrote me and
told me you were a Catholic and I know you will grant it. Please see that he
makes his confession and receives Holy Communion, and Doctor I hope he will
soon recover and for my sake keep him under your care in the hospital until he
has, for of course if he was sent home without being cured we would have to
send him to Indianapolis and I think he is better cared for where he is.
It was
an awful shock on me Doctor when I learned he was in an insane hospital as Tim
was always a strong healthy boy but I pray to God that he will entirely recover
under your care.
Yours
Respectively
Mrs.
Catherine Lyons
P.S. Please answer soon.
These letters and a handful of Carded Medical Records are
all that we have been able to find of Tim’s medical history, so we don’t know
exactly what his condition was or what caused them. Family lore has always been
that he “got hold of some bad rum in Cuba, and was never the same”. But he was
hospitalized before he ever reached Cuba, and his records initially stated it
was “indigestion, in the line of duty”. Later hospitalizations changed this
diagnosis to “acute alcoholism”, the definition of which is “alcohol poisoning
resulting from the usually rapid, excessive consumption of excessive alcoholic
beverages”. A cousin and fellow genealogist who has been working on Tim’s
story along with me has said that he has seen the term used primarily when
there is a sudden onset – meaning, Tim was likely not a habitual alcoholic,
just an unfortunate victim of the cheap, poor-quality drink that was often sold
to unknowing servicemen who were just looking for a fun time while off duty.
I have read through the monthly
returns for Tim’s regiment during his first enlistment, and he never appears on
the lists of those ill, furloughed or AWOL, or as being disciplined in any way.
While the information I have found is sparse, nothing indicates in any way that
Tim was anything other than a normal, healthy, hardworking young man until he
suddenly wasn’t.
We may never know exactly what
happened to him, but we do know it drastically and permanently changed in his
life and the lives of those that loved him. He was officially discharged due to
disability from the army on October 31, 1899 while still in the hospital in
Washington, DC. His discharge papers state “recommended for discharge on
account of insanity”. The original hospitalization
in Savannah is not mentioned; instead, the date and place of disease contracted
is listed as “about July 19, 1899 at Cienfuego Barracks, Cuba”. The company commander wrote that the cause of
disease was not known, “believe sickness was brought on by drink”.
However, the Army surgeon who signed the discharge and
certified him incapable of performing his duties wrote the cause was “melancholia
developing into acute insanity. The immediate exciting cause is alcoholism. The
remote cause in my opinion was sunstroke.” He further states that “sunstroke
followed by exciting cause of alcoholism, the primary cause was incurred in the
line of duty.” Because of this, Tim was
granted a pension in April 1899, which his family no doubt needed to help with
his care.
We don’t
know when he was released from the hospital in Washington D.C., but by June of
1900 he appears on the census in Jeffersonville, living with his parents. His
occupation is listed as day laborer, but he is marked as not being employed for
8 months.
His mother
Catherine did her best to care for Tim herself, but by the following February a
tiny paragraph in the local newspaper noted that the Jeffersonville jailor had
taken Tim Lyon to the Central Hospital for the Insane located in Indianapolis,
IN. I am still searching for his records from that hospital, but so far have
only obtained information from the hospital admissions book, which indicates he
was admitted on February 21, 1901 and remained until December 31, 1902 (nearly
two years!) when he was “removed by friends”. A note states “Meloncholia,
chronic caused by malarial fever. Spansh American War veteran and was confined
in Government Hospital in Washington DC during service”.
Timothy R.
Stites was laid to rest back in his hometown of Jeffersonville, IN. He is
buried in St. Anthony Cemetery, and has a flat military stone marking his
grave, which was ordered by his niece Elizabeth.
By all
accounts, Tim as a young man was strong, healthy and hardworking; he
voluntarily served his country in the Army, although he missed out on the brief
action he had apparently hoped to see in Cuba. A terrible stroke of bad luck
condemned him to a life of poor health and mental illness in a time when
healthcare was not equipped to care properly for his condition. His loving
family cared for him as long as they were able, but his physical health caused
him to outlive most of them. In his mother’s hospital file from Central State
Hospital, it was noted that her son was also a “mental case” and was
institutionalized, but noted that he was “perfectly harmless” and lost his mind
while in service. Family members and townfolk who knew him remembered him as a
kind, gentle soul who wouldn’t hurt a fly, and was often seen pulling a small
wagon through town full of the driftwood he would collect along the riverbank
and then try to sell.
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