Solving a Mystery

When I was in elementary school, the three types of books I liked—and the ones I was most likely to check out of the Huff Lane School library—were horse books, biographies, and mysteries. Horse books fed my passion for horses. I'd started seriously wanting a horse when I was seven but didn't get my first one until I was thirty-two. Biographies made me realize that people—even ones who'd lived and died long ago—could lead pretty interesting lives.  Mysteries intrigued me and kept me guessing until all the clues led to a solution. I especially  liked the way the girl detectives solved mysteries: first they noticed something amiss, then they looked for clues, and the clues finally led them to a solution. I wondered if I'd ever solve a mystery.

Recently, I did. The solution revealed some secrets about someone who had lived over a century ago—my 3rd great uncle, Matthew Harvey Nace, from Buchanan, Virginia. He was the relative no one would mention—he apparently did some dastardly deed and then disappeared. Every so often, I'd Google him (his first name sometimes appeared as "Mathew") without much luck. Then, I got incredibly lucky when I found a newsletter from Richmond's Hollywood Cemetery about a Nace monument being restored—a monument that Matthew Nace built for his wife Evaline, who died in 1854 after giving birth to their fourth child. (The infant, a girl, died six weeks later.) 

Nace Monument in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, VA
Photo taken by Mike Ruble on July 28, 2018

Now I had some names and places, so I started Googling for other clues. And I found them.

Matthew and Evaline were married in Lynchburg in 1847. The 1850 census showed that 26-year-old Matthew, his wife Evaline Augusta Fuqua Christian, and daughter Fanny were living in Richmond where he was a merchant and one of his Christian in-laws lived next door.

Soon their son William (no doubt named for Matthew's father, William Nace) was born in December 1850 and their daughter Virginia Harvey in 1852. After Evaline's death, Matthew and his family moved to Brooklyn, New York. The 1855 Brooklyn census shows him living in a $10,000 stone house with his children, three Irish servants, his brother Robert, and an "L.P. Nace" who supposedly was a sister (although Matthew had no sisters). Matthew's job was "tobacco," and he was a partner in Nace & Coe—a company he was later accused of robbing and swindling. That, I concluded, was the dastardly deed.

His partner Israel Coe took out a newspaper ad after Matthew mysteriously vanished:

Matthew did write a letter to his former partner, and this letter—published Wells Vs. March case in Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Court of Appeals of the State of New York, Vol. 30, p. 346—explains a little more:

. . . and there Matthew Harvey Nace seemed to drop out of sight. But I kept Googling and occasionally checking info on Ancestry.com. I got lucky—and solved the mystery of what became of Matthew.

It turns out that Matthew didn't go directly to California—and he didn't sail. But he remarried (in Indiana), changed his name, ended up on the West coast, had a few more children, and had some interesting adventures. I've blogged about what I discovered about him on my Naces of Lithia genealogy blog. You can read what I learned about Matthew here: 

Part I: https://nacelithia.blogspot.com/2019/04/matthew-nace-mystery-part-i.html

Part II: https://nacelithia.blogspot.com/2019/04/matthew-nace-mystery-part-ii.html

Another discovery: https://nacelithia.blogspot.com/2021/02/matthew-nace-another-discovery.html

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