He Was an Inventor

The Galveston and Texas History Center at the Rosenberg Library in Galveston maintains a database of the storm dead from the hurricane of 1900. There are 5,132 individuals tabulated. Estimates are that 8,000, or even as many as 12,000 were killed. Only 215 names were available to be taken from the coroner's records. It was truly "the worst of times" and so many individuals could not be identified, or were never found. We are reminded that only those who were killed during the storm are listed on the GTH Center web site: "This list does not include victims who died of illness apparently received as a direct result of the 1900 Storm, such as insanity, exposure, skull fracture, tetanus, trauma and suicide. Many deaths through the months after the 1900 Storm were a result of malarial fever, dysentery, pneumonia, and tuberculosis."

Each of the victims had a story, although many did not leave records or descendants to tell that story. Many can be found in the census of 1900 in Galveston, taken at the end of June. City directories can add details for some. Some may have arrived on the ships that came to the harbor after June, or were transient workers. The family of Samuel B. Allison is one that leaves us enough clues to stimulate further exploration.

The census tells us that they lived at 2532 35th Street in Galveston in a home they owned without a mortgage. They had also been in Galveston in 1880, living in the heart of downtown on the Strand. Samuel was 29, with his wife Mary at just 19. Their first child, Daisy, was an infant. Their next child, Walter, was also born in Texas, two years later. Sometime between 1882 and 1886 they moved to Louisiana, where their younger children were born: Clarence, Arthur, Herbert, and Alberta. Mary stated in the 1900 census that she had borne 7 children and 6 were still living. They had adopted another son, John, aged 11, who had been born in Louisiana. Mary's Texas-born brothers, Edward and Archie Reagan, were also in their household.

It is the occupation Samuel gave on the 1900 census that led to another discovery: mechanical inventor. He had applied for two patents. In 1898 and again in early 1900 he submitted applications for machines that would more efficiently separate fiber from stalks, such as flax. Both were granted in 1902 and acknowledged that he was deceased.

A few details about Samuel's appearance are found on his application for a passport in 1892: 5 feet 7 inches tall with hazel eyes and graying hair. In 1897 he can be found a the passenger list returning from a trip to Belize to New Orleans. 

When the storm came to Galveston on 8 September 1900, the Allison family had only been in residence again for a short time. Their youngest child had been born in Louisiana in August of 1898. Further research into their life in New Orleans could add more details to their narrative. A C. A. Dorrestein was acting in his behalf when the patents were granted in 1902.