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Individual Page


Family
Marriage: Children:
  1. Elizabeth Ann Downing: Birth: in Vernon Township, Waukesha County, WI.

  2. Person Not Viewable


Sources
1. Source:   Waukesha County Courthouse

Notes
a. Note:   In a sworn affidavit of Feb 7, 1913, he states: " My father died when I was a varry [sic] small boy and I was obliged to work out for a living". He left Plymouth, England in March 1857, and landed in Quebec, Canada. From there he went directly to Waukesha County, Wisconsin.
  In the 1860 Federal Census, Walter Downing is enumerated with Richard Wilton in the Town of Eagle, Waukesha County, WI, and is listed as a farm laborer.
  Again he writes " I enlisted at Milwaukee on Sept 15, 1861 and was mustered in on October 4, 1861". He claims that his mother told him he was born July 5, 1839 while she visited him. She stayed for two weeks then died about a year after she returned (no date given). Other sources indicate he was born in 1842.
  He doesn't know if he was baptised. His family was very poor and had no record of his birth.
  He was in the Union army during the American Civil War. Private Downing enlisted in the army on September 6, 1861. He served in the 7th Wisconsin Light Artillery, which saw service in the Memphis, TN area during the duration of the war, and, on a few occasions, had a run in the Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest (notably at the battle of Parker's Crossroads, TN December 31, 1862 and Memphis, TN August 21, 1864). He mustered out of the army on July 20, 1865 with the rank of private.
  He claims to have lived in Milwaukee after his discharge, in Waukesha County from then until 1869, in Holly, Oakland County, Michigan to 1879, and in Walworth County, Wisconsin from then until 1878 (obvious error) then in Antelope, Nebraska in 1886. He may have also lived later in Des Moines, IA, Wichita, KS and Taloga, Dewey County, Oklahoma. Army pension reports indicate he died March 20, 1913 (probably in Oklahoma, since his last correspondence that I have is Feb 1913 from Taloga, Oklahoma).
  When he changed his name to Walter Greenlyn is unknown.


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