Frost Family in Oklahoma and California

My gt grandmother, Eva Ida Frost McGill, (center with square neck dress) with siblings and descendants. I believe this picture was taken in Edmond Oklahoma, around early 1920s. Eva's two sisters are on the right, Kitty Frost and husband Dr. Levi Reichard, and Eliza Frost Morgan. The occasion must have been the Reichards' visit, as they lived in Stuart, NE, and such a long trip would be rare. My father, Dan Griffin, is a teenager, on back row left, behind his mother, Hattie and beside his father Charley Griffin. I love the joy in this family gathering.


A day at the beach, near Alhambra, California, during the 1930s. Two Oklahoma cousins, Mamie McGill, 2nd from left, and Evana Bunstine, far right, visit their Frost relatives near their home in California. The older man and woman would be Lew and Alice Frost. Others are children and grandchildren of Lew and Alice. Lew was the brother of my gt grandmother, Eva Frost McGill. We love to see this fully dressed family, gathering at the beach for their photo.

From Iowa, to Nebraska, to Oklahoma Territory

After leaving Iowa, the Frost families lived in Stuart, Holt County, Nebraska, from early 1883 to 1886. The town was only four years old at this time, and the country was described as "almost a dead level, without a tree or bush in sight". In October of 1881, the Fremont, Elkhorn and Missouri Valley Railroad had reached Stuart and with it, an increased number of possible settlers. I believe our family probably moved by wagons, with so many people and furnishings, supplies, etc. Johnson Lyman Frost died there in Stuart on Oct. 18, 1883, according to the family Bible. An outstanding first person account of a railroad trip in these early years is on Google Books: To and Through Nebraska," by Frances I. Sims Fulton. The book mentions that Stuart was a town with an opera house, two doctors, and a dentist. This dentist, Levi Reichard, married Elias Frost's daughter, Katherine /Kittie. Dr. Reichard's dental chair and drill are on display at Stuart's White Horse Museum. The house he built in 1883 has been moved to the grounds of the museum (photo above.)

Several of the Frost families (except for Dr. Reichard and wife Kittie) moved on west to Chadron, Dawes County, Nebraska about 1886. The railroad had just reached this county and with it, the settlers seeking land. By this time, the town boasted over 1,500 residents. Numerous businesses included five saloons, two hardware stores, four groceries, three general stores, a dance hall, a physician, a liquor store, a bakery, a furniture store, jewelry store, and a bank. Possibly Elias Frost, who had previously been proprietor of a general store, found a niche in this new town. Within a year, there were churches, two opera houses, and electricity!

After the Oklahoma Territory opened, Elias Carlos and Lucinda Frost, also came to Oklahoma and lived near Perry, OK. The extended family who came from Nebraska included Celina Frost and her son, Earl, Eliza Frost and her husband, Elmer E. Morgan, and Carrie Frost and her husband, Ed Mossman, who married in Nebraska. Carrie and Ed had a son, Harry, born in Nebraska. All these lived in Perry, OK. by 1894.

Elias Carlos Frost and Lucinda Harrington

The Biography of Audubon County lists Carlos E. Frost as Clerk of the first election of Exira Township in April 1855. He is listed as an early settler of that county. In 1860 census, their family matches the family Bible:
Carlos E. Frost , age 33, farmer b. Iowa
Lucinda age 31, housework, born NY
Luther C. Age 8 b. Iowa
Celina E. Age 7 b Iowa
Amelia age 6 b. Iowa
Eva Ida age 4 b. Audubon Co. Iowa (the first mention of our gt grandmother)
Omar age 2 b. Audubon Co. Iowa
Lyman J. 7 mo. b. Iowa
Lyman J. Frost age 66 Carpenter [Johnson Lyman Frost, b. CT]
(another child, Vesper, is listed in the family Bible born after Omar. He died as an infant.)

We know very little of the background of Lucinda Harrington. She is found as a single young lady living with a family in Iowa probably serving as a nanny. Her parents were from New York and Rhode Island. I think of her as the true pioneer woman because of her long journeys and strength as she raised her family in frontier homes. Several children of Elias and Lucinda died very young in Audubon County, Iowa between 1860 – 65. Three died in less than 30 days of one another. Amelia,6, Omar,3, and Vesper,1, are buried in the Bowen Cemetery near Exira.

Eva Ida Frost married Daniel Patrick McGill. These are our gt grandparents, and their story is found at this website. http://www.dgranna.com/McGill.html
From Audubon Co. History Book
“Carlos E. Frost came here with his father from Iowa City in 1853, and was a farmer. He lived in the Northwest quarter of section 35, Exira Township. He was a Republican and a popular gentleman. He was clerk at the first county election, April 2, 1855, county treasurer, 1864-65, and during that period lived in Exira, in the Charles Chapin house, which was on the site of the John Mertis residence, Block 16, Exira.”

A report on the county board of Audubon County 1863:
“The board of 1863 consisted of C. E. Frost, Chairman, and J.A. Halleck, Clerk. Among the acts of this board is found in records, “W. S. Carter (pauper) was to be ‘let’ to Wm. Carpenter at $1.40 a week , with $3 appropriation with which to purchase said Carter a hickory shirt and a pair of blue drilling pants.” The further work of the June session of 1863 was to make the following classification for the use of tax assessors:
Prime, wild land per acre, $2.25 tax
Improved land per acre, $4 - $10
Timber land per acre, $ 5 - $15
Town lots in Exira $5
Work cattle per head $40 – 50
Cows per head $6 - $12
Steers (3 yrs. old) per head $6 - $12
Bulls (all ages) $10 - $15
Work horses $10 - $15
Mules $40 - $70
Sheep $3 - $5
Swine (per lb.) 1 ½ cents

In 1883, Elias Carlos Frost was a merchant in Brayton, where his store was burglarized by the “Crooked Creek” gang. His son, Lew C. Frost, and son in law, Dan P. McGill, held the office of county surveyor. A narrative about this era in and near Brayton and Oakfield Iowa is found here http://www.auduboncounty.net/oakfield/OakfieldHistory.html Lucinda and Carlos moved to Stuart, NE about 1884, leaving three children buried in the Bowen Cemetery near Exira. Surviving children who traveled with the family to Nebraska were Lew C., who married Alice Hartman, Salina [Celina], Eva, who married Dan. P. McGill, Edward, Eliza, and Kittie.

"A Noted Character" Johnson Lyman Frost

The following description of our ancestor, Johnson Lyman Frost, is found in the "Biography and History of Audubon County, Iowa", H. F. Andrews, Editor... Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen & Company, 1915. I almost hate to reprint it here, but one seldom finds such a personal description of an ancestor... for good or bad. I do believe this section of the book, written in early 1900s, was written by an author who may have been of opposing political leanings. But I don't doubt that Frost was quite a character.

“J. Lyman Frost, with his son, Carlos, and Peoria I. Whitted [friend of Frost’s son-in-law D. Shafer], came from Iowa City to Audubon County in 1853. Frost was an old man, a widower, and lived alone in a shanty made of poles near his son, Carlos, in the Northwest part of section 35, Exira township. He was a contentious man and had a special faculty for stirring up the animals. He was an ardent Republican, a strong Union man, and had no use for anyone not strictly up to the highest pitch of party requirements, and he practically demonstrated his opinions on all possible occasions. He became postmaster at Hamlin’s Grove during war times. He was heartily despised by the Democrats and was not in unison with many of his own party. He was a discordant element at best. One of the patrons of his post office was one Martin Shults, whom Frost took occasion publicly to call a “copperhead”. Shults was a mild, inoffensive man, religiously inclined, and although the imputation was not wholly mis-applied from the standpoint of the times, the insult rankled in his bosom. Later, at a public gathering in Oakfield, Shults spied his quarry, removed his coat and handed it to his good old wife, “Aunt Julie”, remarking that he had a duty to perform, and then waded in and proceeded to “tan Frost’s dog skin.” That exercise performed, he proceeded to ride in haste to Exira in search of a justice to whom he might “plead guilty”. But he was pursued by the constable, John Crane, and arrested for assault and battery. It is said that Crane was so desirous of gaining popularity that he overrode and injured a fine horse in making the arrest. And it is also said that his promptness in the matter afterwards cost him an election to office.

Mr. Frost was easily a party leader locally. He held the ear of governor Kirkwood, with whom he was personally acquainted at Iowa City, and stood in with the administration in Washington. He made the weather and crop reports, etc. and received his contingent of government documents, seeds, etc. which he conscientiously distributed among the faithful. He was one of the first to raise an apple orchard and other tame fruit in the county. He was prompt and zealous in attending to party affairs and in managing the Republican party machinery in the county, being sometimes chairman of the county central committee. But after a disagreeable faction contest with the Ballards and others in a county convention at Green’s schoolhouse, in 1868, he soured on party work and never afterwards took an active part in politics.

In preparation for war, militias were organized in the county. "The names of one roll show that all the officers of Capt. Thomas’s company, except one, and fifty of the privates were Democrats, some of them emphatic anti-war men. It appears that the commissions of the officers were sent by the adjutant general to J. Lyman Frost, the then postmaster of Hamlin’s Grove, a rigid Republican, to act as mustering officer, and to deliver them to the company officers-elect upon taking the proper oaths of office; but that he declined to muster them or to deliver the commissions presumably because he knew many members of the company to be anti-war men, and of questionable loyalty or patriotism to the country.

Captain Thomas said that his commission was not delivered to him, but was found on the prairie, having evidently been thrown away. And he further says that arms were not issued to his men, as it was considered dangerous to do so, fearing that the men would fight among themselves, as the excitement was intense between the Union and anti-war men."

Johnson Lyman Frost and son Elias Carlos Frost were officers of another militia formed in the county... the Audubon Mounted Infantry. That company saw no service and became obsolete at the close of the war, the following year.