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NEWDIGATE LINK WITH THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR
I have been researching the Kempshall family for 20 years and thanks to the Internet I have recently discovered what happened to one of the Newdigate Kempshall’s descendants. His ancestors had lived on the Newdigate/Rusper border since 1605.
Thomas Kempshall was born on the 2nd of February 1811 and was Baptised at St. Peters Newdigate on the 21st April 1811 son of Isaac the shoemaker and Mary (nee Tester) his wife.
Thomas (later known as John) also became a shoemaker. As Isaac was the shoemaker in Newdigate, Thomas moved to Westcott to start his own business. He married Elizabeth Risbridger on the 13th September 1835 at Dorking West Street Chapel. They had two daughters, Emily born 1836 and Ellen born 1839. Elizabeth his wife sadly died and was buried at Dorking West Street Chapel on the 24th January 1841. The 2 girls went temporarily to live with their Risbridger Grandparents in Charlwood. In the 1841 census Thomas had been recorded as John, the name he used exclusively when he went to America. Thomas married for the second time to Eliza Haben on the 18th January 1842 at Dorking West Street Chapel. They had 5 children: John born 1844, Ebenezer born 1846, Eleazer born 1848, Agnes born 1850, and William born 1854. They all Emigrated to the U.S.A. in 1854.
Thomas now known as John resided in New Haven, Connecticut, where Eliza his second wife died, as did his son William. John and his children moved to Brantford, Connecticut in 1857. Next they settled in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1859, where John married for the third time to Fanny Hempstock; they had 6 children. The family finally moved to Maroa, Illinois in 1866 where John started a Shoe shop. He died there in 1887.
Three of John alias Thomas’ sons fought in the American Civil War. Two sons, Ebenezer known later as Charles E Kempshall and Eleazer enlisted in F Company 34th Infantry Illinois Regiment Union Army. Their brother John Kempshall jnr was making shoes for the Army in Knoxville, Tennessee when war broke out, and although underage he enlisted as one of Marbury’s Grays in the Confederate States Army. He fought at Bridgeport, Alabama; Stone River, Murfreesboro; (which he called the bloodiest encounter he was in), several other battles in Kentucky and Virginia before he was captured on the 9th September 1863 at Cumberland Gap, Kentucky and confined in Camp Douglas Chicago, Illinois, alongside thousands of other Confederate Soldiers. Thousands died in the camp mostly from starvation, but many of them froze to death. The prisoners, forced by hunger, ate rats and John was one of the men who killed and ate a guard’s poodle. For this he was placed in a dungeon. A year later John snr obtained a reprieve for John jnr from President Lincoln but he would not accept it, as he would have to swear allegiance to the north, which he refused to do and said he wouldn't surrender until Robert E Lee did. In an exchange of sick prisoners he was released in March 1865 weighing only 80lbs. He was one of only 11 of his comrades to survive out of the 80 originally taken with him. He hastened to join the Confederate Army in Wytheville, Virginia, and served as cannoneer at Petersburg in March and April 1865 where he heard that Lee had surrendered. After the war he married Rueberta Ball in 1870 at Maroa and was a shoemaker until he died there in 1923.
John Kempshall Camp No. 1534, Maroa, Illinois, Sons of Confederate Veterans, is named after John jnr.
Eleazer invented many golfing accessories including the "Kempshall Flyer" a rubber cored Golf Ball for which he held the patent in many countries.