Jarvis Andrew Lattin (1853-1941) sold fruits and vegetables on the Long Island Railroad in 1880. He was a sod-buster from 1882 to 1887 in Holt, Nebraska. He was deputy sheriff for Glen Cove in 1898 and started the Jarvis Lattin Company making pickles and sauerkraut by 1906. He lived on the Isle of Pines in Cuba from 1909 to 1924 then moved to Florida where he died in 1941. (b. May 29, 1853; Farmingdale, Queens County, Long Island, New York, USA - d. February 21, 1941; Lake Helen, Volusia County, Florida, USA)
Parents:
Jarvis was the son of Henry K. Lattin (1806-1894) aka Henry K. Latting, and Julia Wood (1813-1873).
Birth:
May 29, 1853 in Farmingdale, Queens County, Long Island, New York.
Siblings:
He had the following siblings: Mary E. Lattin (1833-1874) who married Charles Powell; George Lattin (1837-?); Julietta Lattin (1839-aft1850); William H. Lattin (1842-1871) who married Ella T. X; Phebe Maria Lattin (1845-?); Susannah Lattin (1848-1868) who died post partum in what became a medical scandal; Smith Lattin (1849-?); Charles G. Lattin (1850-1869); and Deborah Jane Lattin (1858-1861).
Oyster Bay, Long Island:
The family appears in the 1850 US census living in Oyster Bay.
First marriage:
Jarvis followed the railroad out to Iowa and married Mary Jane Puckett (1854-1927) on October 15, 1874 in Jasper Township, Carroll County, Iowa. Mary was the daughter of Elijah Puckett (1815-1896) and Katherine Keever (1821-1904).
Children:
Together Jarvis and Mary had the following children: Mary Esther Lattin (1875-1895) who married Richard Arlington Brush (1874-1944); Catherine Lavinia Lattin (1878-1964) who married Richard Arlington Brush (1874-1944) as his second wife, after her sister died; Julia Ann Lattin (1880-1960) who married Alfred William Poole (1881-1959); William Henry Lattin (1882) who died as an infant; Myrtle Adelia Lattin (1884-1970) who married Charles Haley Williams (1884-1960) after they met in Cuba; Deluth Andrew Lattin (1886-1887) who died as an infant; Jennie Alice Lattin (1888-1958) who married Charles Henry Pilkington (1887-1956); Charles A. Lattin (1890-1891) who died as an infant; Eva Ariel Lattin (1892-1939) who married Anton Julius Winblad II (1886-1975) after they met in Cuba; Frederick E. Lattin (1894) who died as an infant; Effie Jeanette Lattin (1895-1989) who married Josiah Barnes Pomeroy (1882-1956) after they met in Cuba; Dewey Ernest Lattin I (1898-1985) who lived in Cuba from 1909 to 1915 and married Elizabeth Henry (1903-1987); Theodore Roosevelt Lattin (1901-1980) who lived in Cuba from 1909 to 1915 and married Bertha Christina Nelson (1905-1980).
Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York:
Jarvis appears in the 1860-1870 US census under the name "Jarvis Latting" living in Oyster Bay. The family appears in the 1880 US census living in Oyster Bay and Jarvis is listed as a "market man". Living with him was his widowed father, Henry K. Lattin.
Nebraska and Black Hills of Dakota:
Jarvis moved to Nebraska as a homesteader near the Niobrara River, about 20 miles from Atkinson, Nebraska. He had bought farm implements on credit, but he wasn't successful, so he could not pay for them, and they were repossessed. He next tried prospecting for gold in the Black Hills of Dakota. He returned to Farmingdale in 1888 during the week of the blizzard. (Source: Julia Ann Lattin (1880-1960) in 1960)
Pickle and sauerkraut factory:
In 1888 he started a pickle and sauerkraut factory in Farmingdale. There were already many sauerkraut companies established in the area. He had a house built on the land next to the factory. In 1894 he may have partnered with Aaron Stern to became the "Stern and Lattin Pickle Company" that later became "Stern and Brauner". In the 1900 census Jarvis listed his business as "sauerkraut manufacturer" and in 1906 the company appears on the Farmingdale map as "Jarvis Lattin Co." In 1916: "Farmingdale, L.I., N.Y. — Stern & Brauner, Inc., 52 Tompkins Street, New York City, has purchased from Jarvis A. Lattin a tract of land here formerly a part of the old Lattin homestead. The purchasers contemplate making extensive improvements at once, which will include the erection of a plant for the manufacture of table condiments." The company may have been later listed as "Stern Pickle Products, Inc." and "Stern's Pickle Works". It was at 111 Powell Place off of Melville Road. The Stern factory lasted until 1985. (Source: Harold Lawrence McPheeters in Ancestors and Descendants of Jarvis Andrew and Mary Jane Lattin, published in 1989)
Deputy Sheriff of Farmingdale:
Harold Lawrence McPheeters (1923- ) writes: "Jarvis Lattin was for some time a Constable in Farmingdale. Someone accused him of charging too many trips to Jamaica [New York] on the Long Island Railroad, but his response was that his responsibilities included arresting 'tramps' and taking them to County headquarters in Jamaica for booking."
Constable:
Lattin's Work Censured. Not Likely that the Deputy Sheriff Will Be Paid in Full. Oyster Bay, Long Island; July 6, 1898. Town Clerk J. L. Long, Justice Walter Franklin and Justice William M. Simonson are a committee appointed at the last meeting of the Town Board to examine the bill of Deputy Sheriff Jarvis A. Lattin of Farmingdale, and cut out all items that appear to them to be illegal. Upon the report of the committee will depend the amount allowed upon the hill, which all the members of the Board agreed is excessive. The bill rendered by the deputy sheriff was $568. covering a period from November 16, 1897, to April 12, 1898. Farmingdale is a quiet place, free from disorder as a rule, and the members of the Board cannot see hew the bill could have been run up to such proportion legally. Accordingly, instead of refusing to audit it, as the Democratic members wished to do, it was voted to have a committee investigate the bill and report at the next meeting. The bill of Justice Simonson for the time between November 8, 1897, and February 28, 1898, was $355.95. It was suggested by some of the committee that his accounts be brought before the committee for. comparison with those of the deputy sheriff whose bill was considered excessive. It is claimed that Lattin has included in his bill certain charges which are entirely wrong. For instance he charges 75 cents for attending court to prefer charges against a prisoner, when the amount allowed is but 50 cents. He has charges for the hoard of prisoners when the Janitor of the village lock-up is supposed to look after that matter. It is said that in vagrancy cases, he, being the complainant, put in a claim for notifying himself. His bill, if audited at all, will be much reduced. (Source: Brooklyn Citizen of Brooklyn, New York on July 6, 1898)
Constable:
Deputy Lattin's Bill. Oyster Bay, Long Island, June 29, 1898. One of the greatest curiosities in the form of public documents at the town clerk;s office, Oyster Bay, is the bill of Jarvis A. Lattin, a deputy sheriff of Farmingdale. The bill id for less than five months services and amounts to $568. This bill came before the board for aufit and a committee, consisting of Justice Simonson and Franklin and Town Clerk Long, was appointed to cut the bill down. There is talk of calling on Justice Bausch to appear before the committee with his docket that the terms may be compared. (Source: The Brooklyn Eagle on June 29, 1898)
Lawsuits:
He was involved with at least two lawsuits: Lattin v. Town of Oyster Bay, 34 Misc. 568 (1901) was an "action by Jarvis A. Lattin against the town of Oyster Bay to recover statutory fees as constable. Complaint dismissed. Motion for new trial denied. John B. Merrill, for plaintiff. George B. Stoddard, for defendant. ..."; and Lattin v. Saitta, 116 App. Div. 926 (1907) with Jarvis A. Lattin, suing as James A. Lattin against Edith E. Saitta.
Isle of Pines, Cuba:
In October of 1909 Jarvis moved his family to Santa Barbara on the Isle of Pines in Cuba. On Tuesday, March 23, 1909; Tuesday, August 30, 1910; and Monday, June 24, 1912, Jarvis returned to New York City from Havana, Cuba. While on the island he appears to have been in conflict with a man named Grosvenor: "Esto conllevó que a través del periódico Isle of Pines Appeal el anexionista Slevin emprendiera contra el acusado una constante campaña difamatoria que tuvo su culminación en la acusación que realizara Jarvis A. Lattin de que Grosvenor ..." In 1915 his two youngest children returned to New York and lived in the Bronx. In 1924 the island was formally ceded to Cuba and he returned to the US and lived in Florida.
Letter to Isle of Pines Company:
Mr. J. D. Potts, New York, September 30, 1910. Isle of Pines Company, 225 Fifth Avenue, New York City. Dear Sir: When at the office of your company on Thursday you asked me to write you a letter setting forth my views regarding conditions, developments, etc., on the island since my residence there. As you know, I moved to West McKinley with family about one year ago to take up the development of my forty-acre plantation, which I had previously purchased from the Isle of Pines Company. When I first went to the island my tracts of land were among the very first cleared lying south of the San Rosario Springs Reservation. Now nearly all of the tracts of land lying in my section have been cleared and houses have been constructed down to the very extreme south end of the West McKinley map, and every day one will see a new house being constructed on all sides in West McKinley. There are now three saw-mills operating in West McKinley, and they am unable to supply the demand for lumber as fast as required for house construction purposes. I began planting in October of last year, a. planted something almost continuously up to the middle of April. I had a yield of about 200 bushels of Irish potatoes per acre from planting, and sold them on the ground at four to five cents per pound, amounting to $2.50 per bushel. I grew all kinds of vegetables, including strawberries, watermelon, muskmelon, etc. I also grew sorghum cane, kaffa corn and broom corn. I also planted a grapefruit grove and a pineapple garden and they are doing fine. I am returning to the island to-morrow and shipping on the same boat 200 barrels of seed potatoes. I shall plant ten acres of my land in Irish potatoes next month and in January I will dig the potatoes and shall plant the same field to oats. I expect to harvest the oats the latter part of March or the 1st of April, and will plant to same soil corn, thus taking three crops off this one ten-acre field. I should have a yield of 300 bushels of potatoes per acre this season, as I consider the second season of cultivation should produce a much larger yield than the first season. Based upon last season's figures and experience I should realize around $800 per acre from this one ten-acre tract from the product above mentioned. Besides I shall continue to increase my citrus fruit groves and plant vegetables between the trees. West McKinley is rapidly building up and the land in West McKinley is the best I have seen on the island. Mrs. Lattin and my family enjoy life in West McKinley very much. In fact, Mrs. Lattin did not care to come North on a visit, stating that she enjoys the summer climate there as well as the winter. In fact, nothing could induce us to move back to the States. The island undoubtedly has a great future. Yours, very truly, (Signed) J. A. Lattin.
Isle of Pines, Cuba:
"J. A. Lattin, from the Isle of Pines, recently arrived in Tampa on the Narwhal. Mr. Lattin is a pioneer settler of the Isle of Pines, and is a big property owner there, being a major shipper of citrus fruit. He has made his residence in Santa Barbara." (Source: The Tampa Times of Tampa, Florida on 27 December 1920)
Second marriage:
On November 13, 1928 Jarvis married Agnes M. Thornhill (1861-1937) in Hillsborough County, Florida. She was previously married to John William Dimick (1855-1907).
Lake Helen, Florida:
In 1930 Jarvis was living in Lake Helen, Volusia County, Florida with his second wife, Agnes M. Dimmock. Harold Lawrence McPheeters (1923- ) writes: "I do know that Grandpa Lattin regularly drank whiskey. He wanted an inch of whiskey a day, and much preferred that it be in a milk bottle rather than in a regular shot glass. Uncle Dewey told me that they lived near his parents in Lake Helen at that time, and they often found Jarvis quite well lubricated with a bottle of whiskey in which he had placed [a] considerable [amount of] sugar. They felt that Jarvis treated Agnes badly in that he would not buy her new clothes or shoes and expected her to shoo away the flies attracted by the spilled sugar and whiskey. Elizabeth, Dewey's wife, told me how she once embarrassed Jarvis into buying Agnes a new pair of shoes. Dewey had ... told me, 'My Father was as close to the Devil as there was, and my Mother as close to an Angel.'"
Arrest:
"Jarvis Lattin who was arrested yesterday on a charge of assault against his wife in their Lake Helen home Monday afternoon will not be tried until his health has improved considerably, ... Lattin was removed from the county jail this afternoon to the DeLand Memorial hospital on recommendation of his physician, Dr. Hugh West. The 84-year-old retired banker is reported to be suffering from acute alcoholism." (Source: The Daytona Beach Morning Journal on December 4, 1936 ) Note: I am not aware that he was ever a banker.
Death:
Jarvis died on February 21, 1941 in Lake Helen, Volusia County, Florida.
Obituary:
"Deland, Florida. Mr. Jarvis A. Lattin, 87-year-old Lake Helen resident, died in his home there at 5 o'clock Friday morning, having been in poor health for several years. Born May 29. 1853 in Farmingdale, Long Island, New York, where he spent most of his life as a pickle manufacturer, he retired and moved to West Volusia County 15 years ago. Accompanied by Mrs. Alice Fletcher of Lake Helen, the body was forwarded to Farmingdale for the funeral and burial this afternoon. The Allen-Summerhill Company had charge of local arrangements." (Source: Orlando Evening Star on February 22, 1941)
Burial:
His body was transported back to Long Island by train and he was buried in Powell Cemetery in Hempstead, Long Island.
Memories about Jarvis Lattin:
Julia Ann Lattin (1880-1960) wrote in her death-bed memoir the following: "My father was born in Farmingdale on May 29th, 1853. As a young man of 20 years he worked for a short time on the Long Island Railroad selling foodstuffs on the train. He was the youngest of eleven children and had a roaming disposition and left home to see the world. He got as far as Lake City, Iowa and a short time later met his future wife to be, a Mary Jane Puckett, who was a young school teacher at the time. After about six months, [on October 15, 1874] they were married and lived in Iowa for about one year when my oldest sister was born. Then they came back to Long Island for about three or four years where my next older sister and I was born. But my dad still had that longing for the Old West where things were rugged, so he left again and settled in Nebraska near the Niobrara River, which was 20 miles from from the nearest town called Atkinson. This was a very lonely place. Dad had bought quite a number of farm implements on time, but things were bad, so he could not pay for them, and they were taken from him. My mother had a cow and a feather bed given to her from her parents, so they could not take them for payment, and dad decided to try his luck in mining gold in the Black Hills of Dakota. That left my mother alone with the children right across the river from the Indians, but they were friendly and traded many things which were allowed them from the government. I remember especially some blankets from them. They were rather dark blue with a black border. My mother used to leave the baby [in] bed [in the] morning when she had to cross a stream on a foot-log to milk her cow. One day starting back with her milk, she saw the child starting to creep across the foot-log to meet her, and just in the middle of the stream the child fell overboard in the water. Mother sat her milk pail down and ran and jumped in after her, catching hold of her night dress. It was a puzzle to know how she got herself and the child on the foot log again, as the water was deep in places. Finally she managed to get her skirt off in the water and fastened the child with that until she climbed up herself. We only had a cook stove for heat, and when I was a little more than a year old, I was sitting in a high chair near the stove to keep warm and my mother was combing her hair with her head bent over when she heard a terrible scream. I had fallen on the stove. My sister [Catherine Lavinia Lattin], 1 1/2 years older had pushed the chair. My left eye had hit one of the galvanized balls on the stove leaving the skin on it, causing me to lose sight in that eye. The eye was almost closed. The doctor operated on it three times, but it did not improve the sight. I was seven years old the last operation, and they laid me right on the floor. We used to sleep in the trundle beds. When not in use the one is pushed under the other. ... I have two baby brothers buried out there. When my oldest sister, [Mary Esther Lattin], was seven years old [in 1882], she was bitten by a rattlesnake. It had thirteen rattles. She had a little dog with her and it killed the snake. They could not wait so long for a Dr. to come from town and my dad cut the fang out and sucked the poison till the Dr. arrived. Mother had her on a pillow for weeks with bread and milk poultices, but she carried the mark to her grave. It was a hollow spot about the size of a quarter just below the knee. When I was 8 years old we moved back to Long Island. This was just about 10 days before the blizzard in 1888 [which started March 11, 1888 and ended March 14, 1888]. I can remember my father carrying bags of coal home on his back as no trucks could get through. During the blizzard, we children were in a dark room in bed with the measles we had caught on the train coming East. In [the] year (1909) my parents moved to the Isle of Pines, just south of Cuba, which was populated at that time by 90% Americans. They had expected that the United States would take it over, but several years later it was turned over to Cuba. My parents (Jarvis Andrew Lattin and Mary Jane Puckett) celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary (on October 15, 1924) there, and my sister Eva, and I made them a surprise visit. They were so happy to see us. The boat made only two trips a week between Cuba and the island. We had our luggage inspected in Havana and spent one night there. It took about two hours to cross Cuba by train, and the boat was waiting for us. It was just an overnight trip to the Isle of Pines, and it was so calm there was hardly a ripple on the water. But we did experience a very bad hurricane while there. every one boards up their windows when they see the storm approaching. After Cuba took over the island, many of the Americans left and went back to the States as my parents did. They settled in a little town in Florida, and a few years later my mother passed away, and was brought back north to our home town for burial. Father spent most of his remaining years in Florida, but things were not the same. He also passed away at 88 years of age and was laid beside my mother [in the Powell Cemetery]."
Memories about Jarvis Lattin:
Harold Lawrence McPheeters writes in The Ancestors and Descendants of Jarvis Andrew and Mary Jane (Puckett) Lattin (1989): "Jarvis Andrew Lattin was born 29 May 1853 in Farmingdale, Queens County, New York. He married Mary Jane Puckett 15 October 1874 in Jasper Township of Carroll County, Iowa. Mary Jane Puckett was born 8 October 1854 in Randolph County, Indiana and died 29 October 1927 at Lake Helen, Volusia County, Florida. After the death of Mary Jane Puckett Lattin, Jarvis Lattin remarried to Agnes Dimmock who was a distant cousin of his. Jarvis Lattin died 21 February 1941, also at Lake Helen, Volusia County, Florida. The parents of Jarvis A. Lattin were Henry S. (or K.) Lattin and Julia Wood Lattin who lived in the small farming community that had been called "Hardscrabble" by the early settlers of that section of Long Island that lies just a mile or so across the county line from Suffolk County in the south central portion of the Town of Oyster Bay in what was then Queens County. When the new Nassau County was created in 1895, this area became part of Nassau County, and by that time the Hardscrabble area had long since become the town of Farmingdale. Nearly all of the interior portions of Long Island were originally pine barrens or plains (e.g. the Hempstead Plains and the Jamaica Plains). They were late to be settled by the colonists who preferred to make their living in fishing or commerce along the seacoasts. However, a family of Powells (Thomas Powell) had settled in the Bethpage area just north of Hardscrabble, and there established an active Quaker Monthly Meeting (Quaker Church). We do not know whether the Lattins were active in the Quaker community, but there is some evidence that they were. They are listed in Hinshaw's Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, Volume 111 (New York and Long Island), and their oldest daughter is buried in the Friends Cemetery in Bethpage. However, the New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends reports that there is no record of the Lattins ever having been members. Perhaps the confusion resulted from the fact that the Lattins graves are located in the Old Powell Cemetery north of Farmingdale, in a portion of that cemetery that lies immediately adjacent to the Quaker Burial Ground and the Quaker Meeting House. In any case, Henry Lattin was a farmer according to the 1850 and 1860 Census reports, and Jarvis was their youngest son. There was a younger daughter who died at age 3. We do not know exactly how many children were in the family of Henry and Julia Lattin. Julia Lattin Poole stated that there were 11 children, but we have been able to identify only ten. We do know from dates on gravestones that a number of these children died as young children or in their teens. We know little about the early years of Jarvis Lattin except that he attended the public schools of Farmingdale. As a young man of 20 he worked for a time selling food and sundries on the Long Island Railroad, but he cherished the idea of following Horace Greeley's advice to "Go west, young man." And so he left for the West. We do not know how he happened to stop in the west/central section of Iowa in Carroll County; perhaps he was working with the crews who were building railroads in that area at that time, but that is where he met and married Mary Jane Puckett on 15 October 1874. Mary Jane Puckett was born 8 October 1854 in Randolph County, Indiana. Her parents were Elijah and Catherine (Keever) Puckett who then lived in that portion of Eastern Indiana that lies next to Ohio and which had been inhabited by Quaker families who moved there when the states of Ohio and Indiana entered the Union with Constitutional prohibitions against slavery. The Pucketts had been devout Quakers in North Carolina, and several Puckett brothers, including Elijah's father, Zachariah Puckett, had migrated with their families to Indiana in 1817-1818. Mary Jane was third from the youngest of eight children of Elijah and Catherine Puckett. Shortly after Mary Jane was born, the family decided to move to the new state of Iowa. After a few months in central Iowa, the family settled on what was long known as the "Old Pioneer Farm" in Carroll County. It was located on a bend of the Fox River between the towns of Glidden and Lake City. Here Mary Jane Puckett grew up and attended the local school where she later decided to become a teacher. Mary Jane was known to her family as "Jennie". The school was just a short walk north of the family homestead, and it was there she was teaching when she met and married Jarvis Lattin in 1874. At that time the Pucketts were active members of the Christian Church. We know that her father, Elijah Puckett, was "disowned for lack of plainness" by the Quaker Monthly Meeting before the family left Indiana, but we do not know whether this action caused the family to permanently leave the Quaker religion or whether there simply was no Quaker group close by on the prairies of Iowa. Following their marriage, Jarvis and Mary Jane Lattin lived for a year or so in Lake City, Iowa, and their oldest daughter, Mary Esther, was born there. The young Lattin family then moved back to Farmingdale, Long Island, for about six years, and there were born the next two daughters, Catherine and Julia. The 1880 Census lists Jarvis Lattin's occupation as "Marketman" and shows that his father, Henry Lattin, age 74, was then living with Jarvis and Mary Jane. However, Jarvis Lattin still wanted to try his fortune in the West, and so the family moved West again, this time to Holt County in northeastern Nebraska. They lived in a bleak spot on the Niobrara River about 20 miles from the town of Atkinson. Here Jarvis Lattin intended to farm. However, he lost his farm equipment to creditors and then decided to seek his fortune in prospecting for gold in the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory. This required him to leave his wife and children while he went off on long prospecting trips which were never very successful. That was a difficult time for the family. For a graphic description of the conditions there, see the "Account of My Life" by Julia Lattin Poole in the section on her descendants. During this time two sons were born and died, and their fourth daughter, Myrtle, was born. Jarvis and Mary Jane Lattin returned to Farmingdale, Long Island, early in 1888, and he became active in the pickle and sauerkraut business that thrived in that area at that time. There were nearly a dozen entrepreneurs in the pickle business in Farmingdale at that time. Jarvis Lattin built a fine two-story house next door to his pickle "factory", and there the remainder of the 12 children were born. It was from this house that most of the girls were married. Meanwhile, the children were expected to share the work in the pickle factory, walking in boots through the vats of brine to assure that the cabbage and pickles were properly stirred and covered. Many of the workers in the factory were Italian immigrants, who worked long hours along with their wives and children. In summer the hours were from sun-up to sun-down, and I can recall Jarvis Lattin describing some of the labor complaints that he encountered from the workers. Later the factory was sold to Stern and operated as Stern and Lattin Pickle Company and later as Stern and Brauner, and still later as Stern's Pickle Products, Inc. For the past several years the old factory was primarily a sales place for pickles and spices rather than a factory for their manufacture. The old factory buildings were torn down in 1987. The house had been demolished 50 years earlier. In October 1909 Jarvis and Mary Jane Lattin moved to 20 acres of land he bought on Isle of Pines, Cuba. A number of U.S. citizens had gone there in anticipation that the island would become a part of the United States, but that did not occur, and so after several years, Jarvis and Mary Jane Lattin moved back to the mainland and settled in Lake Helen, Florida. Meanwhile, they had celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at Isle of Pines, Cuba, on 15 October 1924. Mary Jane Lattin died in Lake Helen, Florida, 29 October 1927, and her body was returned to Farmingdale for burial in the Powell Cemetery. Jarvis Lattin continued to live in Lake Helen with occasional trips back north to visit family members. He remarried to Agnes Dimmock, who was a distant cousin of his, and they continued to reside in Lake Helen. Agnes Dimmock Lattin predeceased her husband. He died 21 February 1941 and was also buried in the Powell Cemetery in Farmingdale. Jarvis A. Lattin was a rather rough character who felt most comfortable as an aggressive pioneer or businessman. He liked a drink of whiskey, and he regularly smoked cigars. He may have drunk too much whiskey, (He liked an inch of whiskey a day, preferably in a milk bottle), but he was not known to be an alcoholic. However, he was a crusty old man who enjoyed telling of his time prospecting in the Black Hills or of his management practices in the pickle factory. His style was rough. He was impatient and had little sympathy for do-gooders. He once said that he never ate walnuts, oranges or hard-boiled eggs because "it was too much work to hull 'em." He used strike-anywhere matches which he ignited by rubbing them briskly across the seat of his pants; then after he had lit his cigar, he whittled the end of the matchstick to a point to be inserted in the last half-inch of the cigar, so that he could smoke the cigar to the very end. In contrast, Mary Jane Lattin was a kindly, patient, and devout woman who was an excellent mother to her children and a steady helpmate to her husband. She was a Methodist most of her life, but she became a Seventh-Day Adventist in her later years."
Research:
Researched and written by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) for Findagrave starting on July 16, 2003. Updated on June 25, 2010 with information from a 1906 map. Updated on September 22, 2010 with the article on his arrest in Florida in 1936. Updated on August 2, 2013 with information from 1916 on the sale of land for pickles. Updated on July 15, 2014 with text from The Ancestors and Descendants of Jarvis Andrew and Mary Jane (Puckett) Lattin (1989). Updated on July 24, 2014 with the date of his second marriage. Updated on May 9, 2016 with the dates he was in Nebraska. Updated on July 26, 2017 with his letter from 1910. Updated on July 6, 2018 with his obituary. Updated on July 22, 2018 with the name of the river as "Niobrara River". Updated on July 26, 2019 with a second text on his time as a constable. Updated on July 29, 2019 with text on his farm in Cuba. Updated on February 6, 2020 with the text of the memories of Harold Lawrence McPheeters from The Ancestors and Descendants of Jarvis Andrew and Mary Jane (Puckett) Lattin that he wrote in 1989.
.
Parents:
Jarvis was the son of Henry K. Lattin (1806-1894) aka Henry K. Latting, and Julia Wood (1813-1873).
Birth:
May 29, 1853 in Farmingdale, Queens County, Long Island, New York.
Siblings:
He had the following siblings: Mary E. Lattin (1833-1874) who married Charles Powell; George Lattin (1837-?); Julietta Lattin (1839-aft1850); William H. Lattin (1842-1871) who married Ella T. X; Phebe Maria Lattin (1845-?); Susannah Lattin (1848-1868) who died post partum in what became a medical scandal; Smith Lattin (1849-?); Charles G. Lattin (1850-1869); and Deborah Jane Lattin (1858-1861).
Oyster Bay, Long Island:
The family appears in the 1850 US census living in Oyster Bay.
First marriage:
Jarvis followed the railroad out to Iowa and married Mary Jane Puckett (1854-1927) on October 15, 1874 in Jasper Township, Carroll County, Iowa. Mary was the daughter of Elijah Puckett (1815-1896) and Katherine Keever (1821-1904).
Children:
Together Jarvis and Mary had the following children: Mary Esther Lattin (1875-1895) who married Richard Arlington Brush (1874-1944); Catherine Lavinia Lattin (1878-1964) who married Richard Arlington Brush (1874-1944) as his second wife, after her sister died; Julia Ann Lattin (1880-1960) who married Alfred William Poole (1881-1959); William Henry Lattin (1882) who died as an infant; Myrtle Adelia Lattin (1884-1970) who married Charles Haley Williams (1884-1960) after they met in Cuba; Deluth Andrew Lattin (1886-1887) who died as an infant; Jennie Alice Lattin (1888-1958) who married Charles Henry Pilkington (1887-1956); Charles A. Lattin (1890-1891) who died as an infant; Eva Ariel Lattin (1892-1939) who married Anton Julius Winblad II (1886-1975) after they met in Cuba; Frederick E. Lattin (1894) who died as an infant; Effie Jeanette Lattin (1895-1989) who married Josiah Barnes Pomeroy (1882-1956) after they met in Cuba; Dewey Ernest Lattin I (1898-1985) who lived in Cuba from 1909 to 1915 and married Elizabeth Henry (1903-1987); Theodore Roosevelt Lattin (1901-1980) who lived in Cuba from 1909 to 1915 and married Bertha Christina Nelson (1905-1980).
Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York:
Jarvis appears in the 1860-1870 US census under the name "Jarvis Latting" living in Oyster Bay. The family appears in the 1880 US census living in Oyster Bay and Jarvis is listed as a "market man". Living with him was his widowed father, Henry K. Lattin.
Nebraska and Black Hills of Dakota:
Jarvis moved to Nebraska as a homesteader near the Niobrara River, about 20 miles from Atkinson, Nebraska. He had bought farm implements on credit, but he wasn't successful, so he could not pay for them, and they were repossessed. He next tried prospecting for gold in the Black Hills of Dakota. He returned to Farmingdale in 1888 during the week of the blizzard. (Source: Julia Ann Lattin (1880-1960) in 1960)
Pickle and sauerkraut factory:
In 1888 he started a pickle and sauerkraut factory in Farmingdale. There were already many sauerkraut companies established in the area. He had a house built on the land next to the factory. In 1894 he may have partnered with Aaron Stern to became the "Stern and Lattin Pickle Company" that later became "Stern and Brauner". In the 1900 census Jarvis listed his business as "sauerkraut manufacturer" and in 1906 the company appears on the Farmingdale map as "Jarvis Lattin Co." In 1916: "Farmingdale, L.I., N.Y. — Stern & Brauner, Inc., 52 Tompkins Street, New York City, has purchased from Jarvis A. Lattin a tract of land here formerly a part of the old Lattin homestead. The purchasers contemplate making extensive improvements at once, which will include the erection of a plant for the manufacture of table condiments." The company may have been later listed as "Stern Pickle Products, Inc." and "Stern's Pickle Works". It was at 111 Powell Place off of Melville Road. The Stern factory lasted until 1985. (Source: Harold Lawrence McPheeters in Ancestors and Descendants of Jarvis Andrew and Mary Jane Lattin, published in 1989)
Deputy Sheriff of Farmingdale:
Harold Lawrence McPheeters (1923- ) writes: "Jarvis Lattin was for some time a Constable in Farmingdale. Someone accused him of charging too many trips to Jamaica [New York] on the Long Island Railroad, but his response was that his responsibilities included arresting 'tramps' and taking them to County headquarters in Jamaica for booking."
Constable:
Lattin's Work Censured. Not Likely that the Deputy Sheriff Will Be Paid in Full. Oyster Bay, Long Island; July 6, 1898. Town Clerk J. L. Long, Justice Walter Franklin and Justice William M. Simonson are a committee appointed at the last meeting of the Town Board to examine the bill of Deputy Sheriff Jarvis A. Lattin of Farmingdale, and cut out all items that appear to them to be illegal. Upon the report of the committee will depend the amount allowed upon the hill, which all the members of the Board agreed is excessive. The bill rendered by the deputy sheriff was $568. covering a period from November 16, 1897, to April 12, 1898. Farmingdale is a quiet place, free from disorder as a rule, and the members of the Board cannot see hew the bill could have been run up to such proportion legally. Accordingly, instead of refusing to audit it, as the Democratic members wished to do, it was voted to have a committee investigate the bill and report at the next meeting. The bill of Justice Simonson for the time between November 8, 1897, and February 28, 1898, was $355.95. It was suggested by some of the committee that his accounts be brought before the committee for. comparison with those of the deputy sheriff whose bill was considered excessive. It is claimed that Lattin has included in his bill certain charges which are entirely wrong. For instance he charges 75 cents for attending court to prefer charges against a prisoner, when the amount allowed is but 50 cents. He has charges for the hoard of prisoners when the Janitor of the village lock-up is supposed to look after that matter. It is said that in vagrancy cases, he, being the complainant, put in a claim for notifying himself. His bill, if audited at all, will be much reduced. (Source: Brooklyn Citizen of Brooklyn, New York on July 6, 1898)
Constable:
Deputy Lattin's Bill. Oyster Bay, Long Island, June 29, 1898. One of the greatest curiosities in the form of public documents at the town clerk;s office, Oyster Bay, is the bill of Jarvis A. Lattin, a deputy sheriff of Farmingdale. The bill id for less than five months services and amounts to $568. This bill came before the board for aufit and a committee, consisting of Justice Simonson and Franklin and Town Clerk Long, was appointed to cut the bill down. There is talk of calling on Justice Bausch to appear before the committee with his docket that the terms may be compared. (Source: The Brooklyn Eagle on June 29, 1898)
Lawsuits:
He was involved with at least two lawsuits: Lattin v. Town of Oyster Bay, 34 Misc. 568 (1901) was an "action by Jarvis A. Lattin against the town of Oyster Bay to recover statutory fees as constable. Complaint dismissed. Motion for new trial denied. John B. Merrill, for plaintiff. George B. Stoddard, for defendant. ..."; and Lattin v. Saitta, 116 App. Div. 926 (1907) with Jarvis A. Lattin, suing as James A. Lattin against Edith E. Saitta.
Isle of Pines, Cuba:
In October of 1909 Jarvis moved his family to Santa Barbara on the Isle of Pines in Cuba. On Tuesday, March 23, 1909; Tuesday, August 30, 1910; and Monday, June 24, 1912, Jarvis returned to New York City from Havana, Cuba. While on the island he appears to have been in conflict with a man named Grosvenor: "Esto conllevó que a través del periódico Isle of Pines Appeal el anexionista Slevin emprendiera contra el acusado una constante campaña difamatoria que tuvo su culminación en la acusación que realizara Jarvis A. Lattin de que Grosvenor ..." In 1915 his two youngest children returned to New York and lived in the Bronx. In 1924 the island was formally ceded to Cuba and he returned to the US and lived in Florida.
Letter to Isle of Pines Company:
Mr. J. D. Potts, New York, September 30, 1910. Isle of Pines Company, 225 Fifth Avenue, New York City. Dear Sir: When at the office of your company on Thursday you asked me to write you a letter setting forth my views regarding conditions, developments, etc., on the island since my residence there. As you know, I moved to West McKinley with family about one year ago to take up the development of my forty-acre plantation, which I had previously purchased from the Isle of Pines Company. When I first went to the island my tracts of land were among the very first cleared lying south of the San Rosario Springs Reservation. Now nearly all of the tracts of land lying in my section have been cleared and houses have been constructed down to the very extreme south end of the West McKinley map, and every day one will see a new house being constructed on all sides in West McKinley. There are now three saw-mills operating in West McKinley, and they am unable to supply the demand for lumber as fast as required for house construction purposes. I began planting in October of last year, a. planted something almost continuously up to the middle of April. I had a yield of about 200 bushels of Irish potatoes per acre from planting, and sold them on the ground at four to five cents per pound, amounting to $2.50 per bushel. I grew all kinds of vegetables, including strawberries, watermelon, muskmelon, etc. I also grew sorghum cane, kaffa corn and broom corn. I also planted a grapefruit grove and a pineapple garden and they are doing fine. I am returning to the island to-morrow and shipping on the same boat 200 barrels of seed potatoes. I shall plant ten acres of my land in Irish potatoes next month and in January I will dig the potatoes and shall plant the same field to oats. I expect to harvest the oats the latter part of March or the 1st of April, and will plant to same soil corn, thus taking three crops off this one ten-acre field. I should have a yield of 300 bushels of potatoes per acre this season, as I consider the second season of cultivation should produce a much larger yield than the first season. Based upon last season's figures and experience I should realize around $800 per acre from this one ten-acre tract from the product above mentioned. Besides I shall continue to increase my citrus fruit groves and plant vegetables between the trees. West McKinley is rapidly building up and the land in West McKinley is the best I have seen on the island. Mrs. Lattin and my family enjoy life in West McKinley very much. In fact, Mrs. Lattin did not care to come North on a visit, stating that she enjoys the summer climate there as well as the winter. In fact, nothing could induce us to move back to the States. The island undoubtedly has a great future. Yours, very truly, (Signed) J. A. Lattin.
Isle of Pines, Cuba:
"J. A. Lattin, from the Isle of Pines, recently arrived in Tampa on the Narwhal. Mr. Lattin is a pioneer settler of the Isle of Pines, and is a big property owner there, being a major shipper of citrus fruit. He has made his residence in Santa Barbara." (Source: The Tampa Times of Tampa, Florida on 27 December 1920)
Second marriage:
On November 13, 1928 Jarvis married Agnes M. Thornhill (1861-1937) in Hillsborough County, Florida. She was previously married to John William Dimick (1855-1907).
Lake Helen, Florida:
In 1930 Jarvis was living in Lake Helen, Volusia County, Florida with his second wife, Agnes M. Dimmock. Harold Lawrence McPheeters (1923- ) writes: "I do know that Grandpa Lattin regularly drank whiskey. He wanted an inch of whiskey a day, and much preferred that it be in a milk bottle rather than in a regular shot glass. Uncle Dewey told me that they lived near his parents in Lake Helen at that time, and they often found Jarvis quite well lubricated with a bottle of whiskey in which he had placed [a] considerable [amount of] sugar. They felt that Jarvis treated Agnes badly in that he would not buy her new clothes or shoes and expected her to shoo away the flies attracted by the spilled sugar and whiskey. Elizabeth, Dewey's wife, told me how she once embarrassed Jarvis into buying Agnes a new pair of shoes. Dewey had ... told me, 'My Father was as close to the Devil as there was, and my Mother as close to an Angel.'"
Arrest:
"Jarvis Lattin who was arrested yesterday on a charge of assault against his wife in their Lake Helen home Monday afternoon will not be tried until his health has improved considerably, ... Lattin was removed from the county jail this afternoon to the DeLand Memorial hospital on recommendation of his physician, Dr. Hugh West. The 84-year-old retired banker is reported to be suffering from acute alcoholism." (Source: The Daytona Beach Morning Journal on December 4, 1936 ) Note: I am not aware that he was ever a banker.
Death:
Jarvis died on February 21, 1941 in Lake Helen, Volusia County, Florida.
Obituary:
"Deland, Florida. Mr. Jarvis A. Lattin, 87-year-old Lake Helen resident, died in his home there at 5 o'clock Friday morning, having been in poor health for several years. Born May 29. 1853 in Farmingdale, Long Island, New York, where he spent most of his life as a pickle manufacturer, he retired and moved to West Volusia County 15 years ago. Accompanied by Mrs. Alice Fletcher of Lake Helen, the body was forwarded to Farmingdale for the funeral and burial this afternoon. The Allen-Summerhill Company had charge of local arrangements." (Source: Orlando Evening Star on February 22, 1941)
Burial:
His body was transported back to Long Island by train and he was buried in Powell Cemetery in Hempstead, Long Island.
Memories about Jarvis Lattin:
Julia Ann Lattin (1880-1960) wrote in her death-bed memoir the following: "My father was born in Farmingdale on May 29th, 1853. As a young man of 20 years he worked for a short time on the Long Island Railroad selling foodstuffs on the train. He was the youngest of eleven children and had a roaming disposition and left home to see the world. He got as far as Lake City, Iowa and a short time later met his future wife to be, a Mary Jane Puckett, who was a young school teacher at the time. After about six months, [on October 15, 1874] they were married and lived in Iowa for about one year when my oldest sister was born. Then they came back to Long Island for about three or four years where my next older sister and I was born. But my dad still had that longing for the Old West where things were rugged, so he left again and settled in Nebraska near the Niobrara River, which was 20 miles from from the nearest town called Atkinson. This was a very lonely place. Dad had bought quite a number of farm implements on time, but things were bad, so he could not pay for them, and they were taken from him. My mother had a cow and a feather bed given to her from her parents, so they could not take them for payment, and dad decided to try his luck in mining gold in the Black Hills of Dakota. That left my mother alone with the children right across the river from the Indians, but they were friendly and traded many things which were allowed them from the government. I remember especially some blankets from them. They were rather dark blue with a black border. My mother used to leave the baby [in] bed [in the] morning when she had to cross a stream on a foot-log to milk her cow. One day starting back with her milk, she saw the child starting to creep across the foot-log to meet her, and just in the middle of the stream the child fell overboard in the water. Mother sat her milk pail down and ran and jumped in after her, catching hold of her night dress. It was a puzzle to know how she got herself and the child on the foot log again, as the water was deep in places. Finally she managed to get her skirt off in the water and fastened the child with that until she climbed up herself. We only had a cook stove for heat, and when I was a little more than a year old, I was sitting in a high chair near the stove to keep warm and my mother was combing her hair with her head bent over when she heard a terrible scream. I had fallen on the stove. My sister [Catherine Lavinia Lattin], 1 1/2 years older had pushed the chair. My left eye had hit one of the galvanized balls on the stove leaving the skin on it, causing me to lose sight in that eye. The eye was almost closed. The doctor operated on it three times, but it did not improve the sight. I was seven years old the last operation, and they laid me right on the floor. We used to sleep in the trundle beds. When not in use the one is pushed under the other. ... I have two baby brothers buried out there. When my oldest sister, [Mary Esther Lattin], was seven years old [in 1882], she was bitten by a rattlesnake. It had thirteen rattles. She had a little dog with her and it killed the snake. They could not wait so long for a Dr. to come from town and my dad cut the fang out and sucked the poison till the Dr. arrived. Mother had her on a pillow for weeks with bread and milk poultices, but she carried the mark to her grave. It was a hollow spot about the size of a quarter just below the knee. When I was 8 years old we moved back to Long Island. This was just about 10 days before the blizzard in 1888 [which started March 11, 1888 and ended March 14, 1888]. I can remember my father carrying bags of coal home on his back as no trucks could get through. During the blizzard, we children were in a dark room in bed with the measles we had caught on the train coming East. In [the] year (1909) my parents moved to the Isle of Pines, just south of Cuba, which was populated at that time by 90% Americans. They had expected that the United States would take it over, but several years later it was turned over to Cuba. My parents (Jarvis Andrew Lattin and Mary Jane Puckett) celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary (on October 15, 1924) there, and my sister Eva, and I made them a surprise visit. They were so happy to see us. The boat made only two trips a week between Cuba and the island. We had our luggage inspected in Havana and spent one night there. It took about two hours to cross Cuba by train, and the boat was waiting for us. It was just an overnight trip to the Isle of Pines, and it was so calm there was hardly a ripple on the water. But we did experience a very bad hurricane while there. every one boards up their windows when they see the storm approaching. After Cuba took over the island, many of the Americans left and went back to the States as my parents did. They settled in a little town in Florida, and a few years later my mother passed away, and was brought back north to our home town for burial. Father spent most of his remaining years in Florida, but things were not the same. He also passed away at 88 years of age and was laid beside my mother [in the Powell Cemetery]."
Memories about Jarvis Lattin:
Harold Lawrence McPheeters writes in The Ancestors and Descendants of Jarvis Andrew and Mary Jane (Puckett) Lattin (1989): "Jarvis Andrew Lattin was born 29 May 1853 in Farmingdale, Queens County, New York. He married Mary Jane Puckett 15 October 1874 in Jasper Township of Carroll County, Iowa. Mary Jane Puckett was born 8 October 1854 in Randolph County, Indiana and died 29 October 1927 at Lake Helen, Volusia County, Florida. After the death of Mary Jane Puckett Lattin, Jarvis Lattin remarried to Agnes Dimmock who was a distant cousin of his. Jarvis Lattin died 21 February 1941, also at Lake Helen, Volusia County, Florida. The parents of Jarvis A. Lattin were Henry S. (or K.) Lattin and Julia Wood Lattin who lived in the small farming community that had been called "Hardscrabble" by the early settlers of that section of Long Island that lies just a mile or so across the county line from Suffolk County in the south central portion of the Town of Oyster Bay in what was then Queens County. When the new Nassau County was created in 1895, this area became part of Nassau County, and by that time the Hardscrabble area had long since become the town of Farmingdale. Nearly all of the interior portions of Long Island were originally pine barrens or plains (e.g. the Hempstead Plains and the Jamaica Plains). They were late to be settled by the colonists who preferred to make their living in fishing or commerce along the seacoasts. However, a family of Powells (Thomas Powell) had settled in the Bethpage area just north of Hardscrabble, and there established an active Quaker Monthly Meeting (Quaker Church). We do not know whether the Lattins were active in the Quaker community, but there is some evidence that they were. They are listed in Hinshaw's Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, Volume 111 (New York and Long Island), and their oldest daughter is buried in the Friends Cemetery in Bethpage. However, the New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends reports that there is no record of the Lattins ever having been members. Perhaps the confusion resulted from the fact that the Lattins graves are located in the Old Powell Cemetery north of Farmingdale, in a portion of that cemetery that lies immediately adjacent to the Quaker Burial Ground and the Quaker Meeting House. In any case, Henry Lattin was a farmer according to the 1850 and 1860 Census reports, and Jarvis was their youngest son. There was a younger daughter who died at age 3. We do not know exactly how many children were in the family of Henry and Julia Lattin. Julia Lattin Poole stated that there were 11 children, but we have been able to identify only ten. We do know from dates on gravestones that a number of these children died as young children or in their teens. We know little about the early years of Jarvis Lattin except that he attended the public schools of Farmingdale. As a young man of 20 he worked for a time selling food and sundries on the Long Island Railroad, but he cherished the idea of following Horace Greeley's advice to "Go west, young man." And so he left for the West. We do not know how he happened to stop in the west/central section of Iowa in Carroll County; perhaps he was working with the crews who were building railroads in that area at that time, but that is where he met and married Mary Jane Puckett on 15 October 1874. Mary Jane Puckett was born 8 October 1854 in Randolph County, Indiana. Her parents were Elijah and Catherine (Keever) Puckett who then lived in that portion of Eastern Indiana that lies next to Ohio and which had been inhabited by Quaker families who moved there when the states of Ohio and Indiana entered the Union with Constitutional prohibitions against slavery. The Pucketts had been devout Quakers in North Carolina, and several Puckett brothers, including Elijah's father, Zachariah Puckett, had migrated with their families to Indiana in 1817-1818. Mary Jane was third from the youngest of eight children of Elijah and Catherine Puckett. Shortly after Mary Jane was born, the family decided to move to the new state of Iowa. After a few months in central Iowa, the family settled on what was long known as the "Old Pioneer Farm" in Carroll County. It was located on a bend of the Fox River between the towns of Glidden and Lake City. Here Mary Jane Puckett grew up and attended the local school where she later decided to become a teacher. Mary Jane was known to her family as "Jennie". The school was just a short walk north of the family homestead, and it was there she was teaching when she met and married Jarvis Lattin in 1874. At that time the Pucketts were active members of the Christian Church. We know that her father, Elijah Puckett, was "disowned for lack of plainness" by the Quaker Monthly Meeting before the family left Indiana, but we do not know whether this action caused the family to permanently leave the Quaker religion or whether there simply was no Quaker group close by on the prairies of Iowa. Following their marriage, Jarvis and Mary Jane Lattin lived for a year or so in Lake City, Iowa, and their oldest daughter, Mary Esther, was born there. The young Lattin family then moved back to Farmingdale, Long Island, for about six years, and there were born the next two daughters, Catherine and Julia. The 1880 Census lists Jarvis Lattin's occupation as "Marketman" and shows that his father, Henry Lattin, age 74, was then living with Jarvis and Mary Jane. However, Jarvis Lattin still wanted to try his fortune in the West, and so the family moved West again, this time to Holt County in northeastern Nebraska. They lived in a bleak spot on the Niobrara River about 20 miles from the town of Atkinson. Here Jarvis Lattin intended to farm. However, he lost his farm equipment to creditors and then decided to seek his fortune in prospecting for gold in the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory. This required him to leave his wife and children while he went off on long prospecting trips which were never very successful. That was a difficult time for the family. For a graphic description of the conditions there, see the "Account of My Life" by Julia Lattin Poole in the section on her descendants. During this time two sons were born and died, and their fourth daughter, Myrtle, was born. Jarvis and Mary Jane Lattin returned to Farmingdale, Long Island, early in 1888, and he became active in the pickle and sauerkraut business that thrived in that area at that time. There were nearly a dozen entrepreneurs in the pickle business in Farmingdale at that time. Jarvis Lattin built a fine two-story house next door to his pickle "factory", and there the remainder of the 12 children were born. It was from this house that most of the girls were married. Meanwhile, the children were expected to share the work in the pickle factory, walking in boots through the vats of brine to assure that the cabbage and pickles were properly stirred and covered. Many of the workers in the factory were Italian immigrants, who worked long hours along with their wives and children. In summer the hours were from sun-up to sun-down, and I can recall Jarvis Lattin describing some of the labor complaints that he encountered from the workers. Later the factory was sold to Stern and operated as Stern and Lattin Pickle Company and later as Stern and Brauner, and still later as Stern's Pickle Products, Inc. For the past several years the old factory was primarily a sales place for pickles and spices rather than a factory for their manufacture. The old factory buildings were torn down in 1987. The house had been demolished 50 years earlier. In October 1909 Jarvis and Mary Jane Lattin moved to 20 acres of land he bought on Isle of Pines, Cuba. A number of U.S. citizens had gone there in anticipation that the island would become a part of the United States, but that did not occur, and so after several years, Jarvis and Mary Jane Lattin moved back to the mainland and settled in Lake Helen, Florida. Meanwhile, they had celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at Isle of Pines, Cuba, on 15 October 1924. Mary Jane Lattin died in Lake Helen, Florida, 29 October 1927, and her body was returned to Farmingdale for burial in the Powell Cemetery. Jarvis Lattin continued to live in Lake Helen with occasional trips back north to visit family members. He remarried to Agnes Dimmock, who was a distant cousin of his, and they continued to reside in Lake Helen. Agnes Dimmock Lattin predeceased her husband. He died 21 February 1941 and was also buried in the Powell Cemetery in Farmingdale. Jarvis A. Lattin was a rather rough character who felt most comfortable as an aggressive pioneer or businessman. He liked a drink of whiskey, and he regularly smoked cigars. He may have drunk too much whiskey, (He liked an inch of whiskey a day, preferably in a milk bottle), but he was not known to be an alcoholic. However, he was a crusty old man who enjoyed telling of his time prospecting in the Black Hills or of his management practices in the pickle factory. His style was rough. He was impatient and had little sympathy for do-gooders. He once said that he never ate walnuts, oranges or hard-boiled eggs because "it was too much work to hull 'em." He used strike-anywhere matches which he ignited by rubbing them briskly across the seat of his pants; then after he had lit his cigar, he whittled the end of the matchstick to a point to be inserted in the last half-inch of the cigar, so that he could smoke the cigar to the very end. In contrast, Mary Jane Lattin was a kindly, patient, and devout woman who was an excellent mother to her children and a steady helpmate to her husband. She was a Methodist most of her life, but she became a Seventh-Day Adventist in her later years."
Research:
Researched and written by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) for Findagrave starting on July 16, 2003. Updated on June 25, 2010 with information from a 1906 map. Updated on September 22, 2010 with the article on his arrest in Florida in 1936. Updated on August 2, 2013 with information from 1916 on the sale of land for pickles. Updated on July 15, 2014 with text from The Ancestors and Descendants of Jarvis Andrew and Mary Jane (Puckett) Lattin (1989). Updated on July 24, 2014 with the date of his second marriage. Updated on May 9, 2016 with the dates he was in Nebraska. Updated on July 26, 2017 with his letter from 1910. Updated on July 6, 2018 with his obituary. Updated on July 22, 2018 with the name of the river as "Niobrara River". Updated on July 26, 2019 with a second text on his time as a constable. Updated on July 29, 2019 with text on his farm in Cuba. Updated on February 6, 2020 with the text of the memories of Harold Lawrence McPheeters from The Ancestors and Descendants of Jarvis Andrew and Mary Jane (Puckett) Lattin that he wrote in 1989.
.
Jarvis Andrew Lattin (1853-1941) sold fruits and vegetables on the Long Island Railroad in 1880. He was a sod-buster from 1882 to 1887 in Holt, Nebraska. He was deputy sheriff for Glen Cove in 1898 and started the Jarvis Lattin Company making pickles and sauerkraut by 1906. He lived on the Isle of Pines in Cuba from 1909 to 1924 then moved to Florida where he died in 1941. (b. May 29, 1853; Farmingdale, Queens County, Long Island, New York, USA - d. February 21, 1941; Lake Helen, Volusia County, Florida, USA)
Parents:
Jarvis was the son of Henry K. Lattin (1806-1894) aka Henry K. Latting, and Julia Wood (1813-1873).
Birth:
May 29, 1853 in Farmingdale, Queens County, Long Island, New York.
Siblings:
He had the following siblings: Mary E. Lattin (1833-1874) who married Charles Powell; George Lattin (1837-?); Julietta Lattin (1839-aft1850); William H. Lattin (1842-1871) who married Ella T. X; Phebe Maria Lattin (1845-?); Susannah Lattin (1848-1868) who died post partum in what became a medical scandal; Smith Lattin (1849-?); Charles G. Lattin (1850-1869); and Deborah Jane Lattin (1858-1861).
Oyster Bay, Long Island:
The family appears in the 1850 US census living in Oyster Bay.
First marriage:
Jarvis followed the railroad out to Iowa and married Mary Jane Puckett (1854-1927) on October 15, 1874 in Jasper Township, Carroll County, Iowa. Mary was the daughter of Elijah Puckett (1815-1896) and Katherine Keever (1821-1904).
Children:
Together Jarvis and Mary had the following children: Mary Esther Lattin (1875-1895) who married Richard Arlington Brush (1874-1944); Catherine Lavinia Lattin (1878-1964) who married Richard Arlington Brush (1874-1944) as his second wife, after her sister died; Julia Ann Lattin (1880-1960) who married Alfred William Poole (1881-1959); William Henry Lattin (1882) who died as an infant; Myrtle Adelia Lattin (1884-1970) who married Charles Haley Williams (1884-1960) after they met in Cuba; Deluth Andrew Lattin (1886-1887) who died as an infant; Jennie Alice Lattin (1888-1958) who married Charles Henry Pilkington (1887-1956); Charles A. Lattin (1890-1891) who died as an infant; Eva Ariel Lattin (1892-1939) who married Anton Julius Winblad II (1886-1975) after they met in Cuba; Frederick E. Lattin (1894) who died as an infant; Effie Jeanette Lattin (1895-1989) who married Josiah Barnes Pomeroy (1882-1956) after they met in Cuba; Dewey Ernest Lattin I (1898-1985) who lived in Cuba from 1909 to 1915 and married Elizabeth Henry (1903-1987); Theodore Roosevelt Lattin (1901-1980) who lived in Cuba from 1909 to 1915 and married Bertha Christina Nelson (1905-1980).
Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York:
Jarvis appears in the 1860-1870 US census under the name "Jarvis Latting" living in Oyster Bay. The family appears in the 1880 US census living in Oyster Bay and Jarvis is listed as a "market man". Living with him was his widowed father, Henry K. Lattin.
Nebraska and Black Hills of Dakota:
Jarvis moved to Nebraska as a homesteader near the Niobrara River, about 20 miles from Atkinson, Nebraska. He had bought farm implements on credit, but he wasn't successful, so he could not pay for them, and they were repossessed. He next tried prospecting for gold in the Black Hills of Dakota. He returned to Farmingdale in 1888 during the week of the blizzard. (Source: Julia Ann Lattin (1880-1960) in 1960)
Pickle and sauerkraut factory:
In 1888 he started a pickle and sauerkraut factory in Farmingdale. There were already many sauerkraut companies established in the area. He had a house built on the land next to the factory. In 1894 he may have partnered with Aaron Stern to became the "Stern and Lattin Pickle Company" that later became "Stern and Brauner". In the 1900 census Jarvis listed his business as "sauerkraut manufacturer" and in 1906 the company appears on the Farmingdale map as "Jarvis Lattin Co." In 1916: "Farmingdale, L.I., N.Y. — Stern & Brauner, Inc., 52 Tompkins Street, New York City, has purchased from Jarvis A. Lattin a tract of land here formerly a part of the old Lattin homestead. The purchasers contemplate making extensive improvements at once, which will include the erection of a plant for the manufacture of table condiments." The company may have been later listed as "Stern Pickle Products, Inc." and "Stern's Pickle Works". It was at 111 Powell Place off of Melville Road. The Stern factory lasted until 1985. (Source: Harold Lawrence McPheeters in Ancestors and Descendants of Jarvis Andrew and Mary Jane Lattin, published in 1989)
Deputy Sheriff of Farmingdale:
Harold Lawrence McPheeters (1923- ) writes: "Jarvis Lattin was for some time a Constable in Farmingdale. Someone accused him of charging too many trips to Jamaica [New York] on the Long Island Railroad, but his response was that his responsibilities included arresting 'tramps' and taking them to County headquarters in Jamaica for booking."
Constable:
Lattin's Work Censured. Not Likely that the Deputy Sheriff Will Be Paid in Full. Oyster Bay, Long Island; July 6, 1898. Town Clerk J. L. Long, Justice Walter Franklin and Justice William M. Simonson are a committee appointed at the last meeting of the Town Board to examine the bill of Deputy Sheriff Jarvis A. Lattin of Farmingdale, and cut out all items that appear to them to be illegal. Upon the report of the committee will depend the amount allowed upon the hill, which all the members of the Board agreed is excessive. The bill rendered by the deputy sheriff was $568. covering a period from November 16, 1897, to April 12, 1898. Farmingdale is a quiet place, free from disorder as a rule, and the members of the Board cannot see hew the bill could have been run up to such proportion legally. Accordingly, instead of refusing to audit it, as the Democratic members wished to do, it was voted to have a committee investigate the bill and report at the next meeting. The bill of Justice Simonson for the time between November 8, 1897, and February 28, 1898, was $355.95. It was suggested by some of the committee that his accounts be brought before the committee for. comparison with those of the deputy sheriff whose bill was considered excessive. It is claimed that Lattin has included in his bill certain charges which are entirely wrong. For instance he charges 75 cents for attending court to prefer charges against a prisoner, when the amount allowed is but 50 cents. He has charges for the hoard of prisoners when the Janitor of the village lock-up is supposed to look after that matter. It is said that in vagrancy cases, he, being the complainant, put in a claim for notifying himself. His bill, if audited at all, will be much reduced. (Source: Brooklyn Citizen of Brooklyn, New York on July 6, 1898)
Constable:
Deputy Lattin's Bill. Oyster Bay, Long Island, June 29, 1898. One of the greatest curiosities in the form of public documents at the town clerk;s office, Oyster Bay, is the bill of Jarvis A. Lattin, a deputy sheriff of Farmingdale. The bill id for less than five months services and amounts to $568. This bill came before the board for aufit and a committee, consisting of Justice Simonson and Franklin and Town Clerk Long, was appointed to cut the bill down. There is talk of calling on Justice Bausch to appear before the committee with his docket that the terms may be compared. (Source: The Brooklyn Eagle on June 29, 1898)
Lawsuits:
He was involved with at least two lawsuits: Lattin v. Town of Oyster Bay, 34 Misc. 568 (1901) was an "action by Jarvis A. Lattin against the town of Oyster Bay to recover statutory fees as constable. Complaint dismissed. Motion for new trial denied. John B. Merrill, for plaintiff. George B. Stoddard, for defendant. ..."; and Lattin v. Saitta, 116 App. Div. 926 (1907) with Jarvis A. Lattin, suing as James A. Lattin against Edith E. Saitta.
Isle of Pines, Cuba:
In October of 1909 Jarvis moved his family to Santa Barbara on the Isle of Pines in Cuba. On Tuesday, March 23, 1909; Tuesday, August 30, 1910; and Monday, June 24, 1912, Jarvis returned to New York City from Havana, Cuba. While on the island he appears to have been in conflict with a man named Grosvenor: "Esto conllevó que a través del periódico Isle of Pines Appeal el anexionista Slevin emprendiera contra el acusado una constante campaña difamatoria que tuvo su culminación en la acusación que realizara Jarvis A. Lattin de que Grosvenor ..." In 1915 his two youngest children returned to New York and lived in the Bronx. In 1924 the island was formally ceded to Cuba and he returned to the US and lived in Florida.
Letter to Isle of Pines Company:
Mr. J. D. Potts, New York, September 30, 1910. Isle of Pines Company, 225 Fifth Avenue, New York City. Dear Sir: When at the office of your company on Thursday you asked me to write you a letter setting forth my views regarding conditions, developments, etc., on the island since my residence there. As you know, I moved to West McKinley with family about one year ago to take up the development of my forty-acre plantation, which I had previously purchased from the Isle of Pines Company. When I first went to the island my tracts of land were among the very first cleared lying south of the San Rosario Springs Reservation. Now nearly all of the tracts of land lying in my section have been cleared and houses have been constructed down to the very extreme south end of the West McKinley map, and every day one will see a new house being constructed on all sides in West McKinley. There are now three saw-mills operating in West McKinley, and they am unable to supply the demand for lumber as fast as required for house construction purposes. I began planting in October of last year, a. planted something almost continuously up to the middle of April. I had a yield of about 200 bushels of Irish potatoes per acre from planting, and sold them on the ground at four to five cents per pound, amounting to $2.50 per bushel. I grew all kinds of vegetables, including strawberries, watermelon, muskmelon, etc. I also grew sorghum cane, kaffa corn and broom corn. I also planted a grapefruit grove and a pineapple garden and they are doing fine. I am returning to the island to-morrow and shipping on the same boat 200 barrels of seed potatoes. I shall plant ten acres of my land in Irish potatoes next month and in January I will dig the potatoes and shall plant the same field to oats. I expect to harvest the oats the latter part of March or the 1st of April, and will plant to same soil corn, thus taking three crops off this one ten-acre field. I should have a yield of 300 bushels of potatoes per acre this season, as I consider the second season of cultivation should produce a much larger yield than the first season. Based upon last season's figures and experience I should realize around $800 per acre from this one ten-acre tract from the product above mentioned. Besides I shall continue to increase my citrus fruit groves and plant vegetables between the trees. West McKinley is rapidly building up and the land in West McKinley is the best I have seen on the island. Mrs. Lattin and my family enjoy life in West McKinley very much. In fact, Mrs. Lattin did not care to come North on a visit, stating that she enjoys the summer climate there as well as the winter. In fact, nothing could induce us to move back to the States. The island undoubtedly has a great future. Yours, very truly, (Signed) J. A. Lattin.
Isle of Pines, Cuba:
"J. A. Lattin, from the Isle of Pines, recently arrived in Tampa on the Narwhal. Mr. Lattin is a pioneer settler of the Isle of Pines, and is a big property owner there, being a major shipper of citrus fruit. He has made his residence in Santa Barbara." (Source: The Tampa Times of Tampa, Florida on 27 December 1920)
Second marriage:
On November 13, 1928 Jarvis married Agnes M. Thornhill (1861-1937) in Hillsborough County, Florida. She was previously married to John William Dimick (1855-1907).
Lake Helen, Florida:
In 1930 Jarvis was living in Lake Helen, Volusia County, Florida with his second wife, Agnes M. Dimmock. Harold Lawrence McPheeters (1923- ) writes: "I do know that Grandpa Lattin regularly drank whiskey. He wanted an inch of whiskey a day, and much preferred that it be in a milk bottle rather than in a regular shot glass. Uncle Dewey told me that they lived near his parents in Lake Helen at that time, and they often found Jarvis quite well lubricated with a bottle of whiskey in which he had placed [a] considerable [amount of] sugar. They felt that Jarvis treated Agnes badly in that he would not buy her new clothes or shoes and expected her to shoo away the flies attracted by the spilled sugar and whiskey. Elizabeth, Dewey's wife, told me how she once embarrassed Jarvis into buying Agnes a new pair of shoes. Dewey had ... told me, 'My Father was as close to the Devil as there was, and my Mother as close to an Angel.'"
Arrest:
"Jarvis Lattin who was arrested yesterday on a charge of assault against his wife in their Lake Helen home Monday afternoon will not be tried until his health has improved considerably, ... Lattin was removed from the county jail this afternoon to the DeLand Memorial hospital on recommendation of his physician, Dr. Hugh West. The 84-year-old retired banker is reported to be suffering from acute alcoholism." (Source: The Daytona Beach Morning Journal on December 4, 1936 ) Note: I am not aware that he was ever a banker.
Death:
Jarvis died on February 21, 1941 in Lake Helen, Volusia County, Florida.
Obituary:
"Deland, Florida. Mr. Jarvis A. Lattin, 87-year-old Lake Helen resident, died in his home there at 5 o'clock Friday morning, having been in poor health for several years. Born May 29. 1853 in Farmingdale, Long Island, New York, where he spent most of his life as a pickle manufacturer, he retired and moved to West Volusia County 15 years ago. Accompanied by Mrs. Alice Fletcher of Lake Helen, the body was forwarded to Farmingdale for the funeral and burial this afternoon. The Allen-Summerhill Company had charge of local arrangements." (Source: Orlando Evening Star on February 22, 1941)
Burial:
His body was transported back to Long Island by train and he was buried in Powell Cemetery in Hempstead, Long Island.
Memories about Jarvis Lattin:
Julia Ann Lattin (1880-1960) wrote in her death-bed memoir the following: "My father was born in Farmingdale on May 29th, 1853. As a young man of 20 years he worked for a short time on the Long Island Railroad selling foodstuffs on the train. He was the youngest of eleven children and had a roaming disposition and left home to see the world. He got as far as Lake City, Iowa and a short time later met his future wife to be, a Mary Jane Puckett, who was a young school teacher at the time. After about six months, [on October 15, 1874] they were married and lived in Iowa for about one year when my oldest sister was born. Then they came back to Long Island for about three or four years where my next older sister and I was born. But my dad still had that longing for the Old West where things were rugged, so he left again and settled in Nebraska near the Niobrara River, which was 20 miles from from the nearest town called Atkinson. This was a very lonely place. Dad had bought quite a number of farm implements on time, but things were bad, so he could not pay for them, and they were taken from him. My mother had a cow and a feather bed given to her from her parents, so they could not take them for payment, and dad decided to try his luck in mining gold in the Black Hills of Dakota. That left my mother alone with the children right across the river from the Indians, but they were friendly and traded many things which were allowed them from the government. I remember especially some blankets from them. They were rather dark blue with a black border. My mother used to leave the baby [in] bed [in the] morning when she had to cross a stream on a foot-log to milk her cow. One day starting back with her milk, she saw the child starting to creep across the foot-log to meet her, and just in the middle of the stream the child fell overboard in the water. Mother sat her milk pail down and ran and jumped in after her, catching hold of her night dress. It was a puzzle to know how she got herself and the child on the foot log again, as the water was deep in places. Finally she managed to get her skirt off in the water and fastened the child with that until she climbed up herself. We only had a cook stove for heat, and when I was a little more than a year old, I was sitting in a high chair near the stove to keep warm and my mother was combing her hair with her head bent over when she heard a terrible scream. I had fallen on the stove. My sister [Catherine Lavinia Lattin], 1 1/2 years older had pushed the chair. My left eye had hit one of the galvanized balls on the stove leaving the skin on it, causing me to lose sight in that eye. The eye was almost closed. The doctor operated on it three times, but it did not improve the sight. I was seven years old the last operation, and they laid me right on the floor. We used to sleep in the trundle beds. When not in use the one is pushed under the other. ... I have two baby brothers buried out there. When my oldest sister, [Mary Esther Lattin], was seven years old [in 1882], she was bitten by a rattlesnake. It had thirteen rattles. She had a little dog with her and it killed the snake. They could not wait so long for a Dr. to come from town and my dad cut the fang out and sucked the poison till the Dr. arrived. Mother had her on a pillow for weeks with bread and milk poultices, but she carried the mark to her grave. It was a hollow spot about the size of a quarter just below the knee. When I was 8 years old we moved back to Long Island. This was just about 10 days before the blizzard in 1888 [which started March 11, 1888 and ended March 14, 1888]. I can remember my father carrying bags of coal home on his back as no trucks could get through. During the blizzard, we children were in a dark room in bed with the measles we had caught on the train coming East. In [the] year (1909) my parents moved to the Isle of Pines, just south of Cuba, which was populated at that time by 90% Americans. They had expected that the United States would take it over, but several years later it was turned over to Cuba. My parents (Jarvis Andrew Lattin and Mary Jane Puckett) celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary (on October 15, 1924) there, and my sister Eva, and I made them a surprise visit. They were so happy to see us. The boat made only two trips a week between Cuba and the island. We had our luggage inspected in Havana and spent one night there. It took about two hours to cross Cuba by train, and the boat was waiting for us. It was just an overnight trip to the Isle of Pines, and it was so calm there was hardly a ripple on the water. But we did experience a very bad hurricane while there. every one boards up their windows when they see the storm approaching. After Cuba took over the island, many of the Americans left and went back to the States as my parents did. They settled in a little town in Florida, and a few years later my mother passed away, and was brought back north to our home town for burial. Father spent most of his remaining years in Florida, but things were not the same. He also passed away at 88 years of age and was laid beside my mother [in the Powell Cemetery]."
Memories about Jarvis Lattin:
Harold Lawrence McPheeters writes in The Ancestors and Descendants of Jarvis Andrew and Mary Jane (Puckett) Lattin (1989): "Jarvis Andrew Lattin was born 29 May 1853 in Farmingdale, Queens County, New York. He married Mary Jane Puckett 15 October 1874 in Jasper Township of Carroll County, Iowa. Mary Jane Puckett was born 8 October 1854 in Randolph County, Indiana and died 29 October 1927 at Lake Helen, Volusia County, Florida. After the death of Mary Jane Puckett Lattin, Jarvis Lattin remarried to Agnes Dimmock who was a distant cousin of his. Jarvis Lattin died 21 February 1941, also at Lake Helen, Volusia County, Florida. The parents of Jarvis A. Lattin were Henry S. (or K.) Lattin and Julia Wood Lattin who lived in the small farming community that had been called "Hardscrabble" by the early settlers of that section of Long Island that lies just a mile or so across the county line from Suffolk County in the south central portion of the Town of Oyster Bay in what was then Queens County. When the new Nassau County was created in 1895, this area became part of Nassau County, and by that time the Hardscrabble area had long since become the town of Farmingdale. Nearly all of the interior portions of Long Island were originally pine barrens or plains (e.g. the Hempstead Plains and the Jamaica Plains). They were late to be settled by the colonists who preferred to make their living in fishing or commerce along the seacoasts. However, a family of Powells (Thomas Powell) had settled in the Bethpage area just north of Hardscrabble, and there established an active Quaker Monthly Meeting (Quaker Church). We do not know whether the Lattins were active in the Quaker community, but there is some evidence that they were. They are listed in Hinshaw's Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, Volume 111 (New York and Long Island), and their oldest daughter is buried in the Friends Cemetery in Bethpage. However, the New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends reports that there is no record of the Lattins ever having been members. Perhaps the confusion resulted from the fact that the Lattins graves are located in the Old Powell Cemetery north of Farmingdale, in a portion of that cemetery that lies immediately adjacent to the Quaker Burial Ground and the Quaker Meeting House. In any case, Henry Lattin was a farmer according to the 1850 and 1860 Census reports, and Jarvis was their youngest son. There was a younger daughter who died at age 3. We do not know exactly how many children were in the family of Henry and Julia Lattin. Julia Lattin Poole stated that there were 11 children, but we have been able to identify only ten. We do know from dates on gravestones that a number of these children died as young children or in their teens. We know little about the early years of Jarvis Lattin except that he attended the public schools of Farmingdale. As a young man of 20 he worked for a time selling food and sundries on the Long Island Railroad, but he cherished the idea of following Horace Greeley's advice to "Go west, young man." And so he left for the West. We do not know how he happened to stop in the west/central section of Iowa in Carroll County; perhaps he was working with the crews who were building railroads in that area at that time, but that is where he met and married Mary Jane Puckett on 15 October 1874. Mary Jane Puckett was born 8 October 1854 in Randolph County, Indiana. Her parents were Elijah and Catherine (Keever) Puckett who then lived in that portion of Eastern Indiana that lies next to Ohio and which had been inhabited by Quaker families who moved there when the states of Ohio and Indiana entered the Union with Constitutional prohibitions against slavery. The Pucketts had been devout Quakers in North Carolina, and several Puckett brothers, including Elijah's father, Zachariah Puckett, had migrated with their families to Indiana in 1817-1818. Mary Jane was third from the youngest of eight children of Elijah and Catherine Puckett. Shortly after Mary Jane was born, the family decided to move to the new state of Iowa. After a few months in central Iowa, the family settled on what was long known as the "Old Pioneer Farm" in Carroll County. It was located on a bend of the Fox River between the towns of Glidden and Lake City. Here Mary Jane Puckett grew up and attended the local school where she later decided to become a teacher. Mary Jane was known to her family as "Jennie". The school was just a short walk north of the family homestead, and it was there she was teaching when she met and married Jarvis Lattin in 1874. At that time the Pucketts were active members of the Christian Church. We know that her father, Elijah Puckett, was "disowned for lack of plainness" by the Quaker Monthly Meeting before the family left Indiana, but we do not know whether this action caused the family to permanently leave the Quaker religion or whether there simply was no Quaker group close by on the prairies of Iowa. Following their marriage, Jarvis and Mary Jane Lattin lived for a year or so in Lake City, Iowa, and their oldest daughter, Mary Esther, was born there. The young Lattin family then moved back to Farmingdale, Long Island, for about six years, and there were born the next two daughters, Catherine and Julia. The 1880 Census lists Jarvis Lattin's occupation as "Marketman" and shows that his father, Henry Lattin, age 74, was then living with Jarvis and Mary Jane. However, Jarvis Lattin still wanted to try his fortune in the West, and so the family moved West again, this time to Holt County in northeastern Nebraska. They lived in a bleak spot on the Niobrara River about 20 miles from the town of Atkinson. Here Jarvis Lattin intended to farm. However, he lost his farm equipment to creditors and then decided to seek his fortune in prospecting for gold in the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory. This required him to leave his wife and children while he went off on long prospecting trips which were never very successful. That was a difficult time for the family. For a graphic description of the conditions there, see the "Account of My Life" by Julia Lattin Poole in the section on her descendants. During this time two sons were born and died, and their fourth daughter, Myrtle, was born. Jarvis and Mary Jane Lattin returned to Farmingdale, Long Island, early in 1888, and he became active in the pickle and sauerkraut business that thrived in that area at that time. There were nearly a dozen entrepreneurs in the pickle business in Farmingdale at that time. Jarvis Lattin built a fine two-story house next door to his pickle "factory", and there the remainder of the 12 children were born. It was from this house that most of the girls were married. Meanwhile, the children were expected to share the work in the pickle factory, walking in boots through the vats of brine to assure that the cabbage and pickles were properly stirred and covered. Many of the workers in the factory were Italian immigrants, who worked long hours along with their wives and children. In summer the hours were from sun-up to sun-down, and I can recall Jarvis Lattin describing some of the labor complaints that he encountered from the workers. Later the factory was sold to Stern and operated as Stern and Lattin Pickle Company and later as Stern and Brauner, and still later as Stern's Pickle Products, Inc. For the past several years the old factory was primarily a sales place for pickles and spices rather than a factory for their manufacture. The old factory buildings were torn down in 1987. The house had been demolished 50 years earlier. In October 1909 Jarvis and Mary Jane Lattin moved to 20 acres of land he bought on Isle of Pines, Cuba. A number of U.S. citizens had gone there in anticipation that the island would become a part of the United States, but that did not occur, and so after several years, Jarvis and Mary Jane Lattin moved back to the mainland and settled in Lake Helen, Florida. Meanwhile, they had celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at Isle of Pines, Cuba, on 15 October 1924. Mary Jane Lattin died in Lake Helen, Florida, 29 October 1927, and her body was returned to Farmingdale for burial in the Powell Cemetery. Jarvis Lattin continued to live in Lake Helen with occasional trips back north to visit family members. He remarried to Agnes Dimmock, who was a distant cousin of his, and they continued to reside in Lake Helen. Agnes Dimmock Lattin predeceased her husband. He died 21 February 1941 and was also buried in the Powell Cemetery in Farmingdale. Jarvis A. Lattin was a rather rough character who felt most comfortable as an aggressive pioneer or businessman. He liked a drink of whiskey, and he regularly smoked cigars. He may have drunk too much whiskey, (He liked an inch of whiskey a day, preferably in a milk bottle), but he was not known to be an alcoholic. However, he was a crusty old man who enjoyed telling of his time prospecting in the Black Hills or of his management practices in the pickle factory. His style was rough. He was impatient and had little sympathy for do-gooders. He once said that he never ate walnuts, oranges or hard-boiled eggs because "it was too much work to hull 'em." He used strike-anywhere matches which he ignited by rubbing them briskly across the seat of his pants; then after he had lit his cigar, he whittled the end of the matchstick to a point to be inserted in the last half-inch of the cigar, so that he could smoke the cigar to the very end. In contrast, Mary Jane Lattin was a kindly, patient, and devout woman who was an excellent mother to her children and a steady helpmate to her husband. She was a Methodist most of her life, but she became a Seventh-Day Adventist in her later years."
Research:
Researched and written by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) for Findagrave starting on July 16, 2003. Updated on June 25, 2010 with information from a 1906 map. Updated on September 22, 2010 with the article on his arrest in Florida in 1936. Updated on August 2, 2013 with information from 1916 on the sale of land for pickles. Updated on July 15, 2014 with text from The Ancestors and Descendants of Jarvis Andrew and Mary Jane (Puckett) Lattin (1989). Updated on July 24, 2014 with the date of his second marriage. Updated on May 9, 2016 with the dates he was in Nebraska. Updated on July 26, 2017 with his letter from 1910. Updated on July 6, 2018 with his obituary. Updated on July 22, 2018 with the name of the river as "Niobrara River". Updated on July 26, 2019 with a second text on his time as a constable. Updated on July 29, 2019 with text on his farm in Cuba. Updated on February 6, 2020 with the text of the memories of Harold Lawrence McPheeters from The Ancestors and Descendants of Jarvis Andrew and Mary Jane (Puckett) Lattin that he wrote in 1989.
.
Parents:
Jarvis was the son of Henry K. Lattin (1806-1894) aka Henry K. Latting, and Julia Wood (1813-1873).
Birth:
May 29, 1853 in Farmingdale, Queens County, Long Island, New York.
Siblings:
He had the following siblings: Mary E. Lattin (1833-1874) who married Charles Powell; George Lattin (1837-?); Julietta Lattin (1839-aft1850); William H. Lattin (1842-1871) who married Ella T. X; Phebe Maria Lattin (1845-?); Susannah Lattin (1848-1868) who died post partum in what became a medical scandal; Smith Lattin (1849-?); Charles G. Lattin (1850-1869); and Deborah Jane Lattin (1858-1861).
Oyster Bay, Long Island:
The family appears in the 1850 US census living in Oyster Bay.
First marriage:
Jarvis followed the railroad out to Iowa and married Mary Jane Puckett (1854-1927) on October 15, 1874 in Jasper Township, Carroll County, Iowa. Mary was the daughter of Elijah Puckett (1815-1896) and Katherine Keever (1821-1904).
Children:
Together Jarvis and Mary had the following children: Mary Esther Lattin (1875-1895) who married Richard Arlington Brush (1874-1944); Catherine Lavinia Lattin (1878-1964) who married Richard Arlington Brush (1874-1944) as his second wife, after her sister died; Julia Ann Lattin (1880-1960) who married Alfred William Poole (1881-1959); William Henry Lattin (1882) who died as an infant; Myrtle Adelia Lattin (1884-1970) who married Charles Haley Williams (1884-1960) after they met in Cuba; Deluth Andrew Lattin (1886-1887) who died as an infant; Jennie Alice Lattin (1888-1958) who married Charles Henry Pilkington (1887-1956); Charles A. Lattin (1890-1891) who died as an infant; Eva Ariel Lattin (1892-1939) who married Anton Julius Winblad II (1886-1975) after they met in Cuba; Frederick E. Lattin (1894) who died as an infant; Effie Jeanette Lattin (1895-1989) who married Josiah Barnes Pomeroy (1882-1956) after they met in Cuba; Dewey Ernest Lattin I (1898-1985) who lived in Cuba from 1909 to 1915 and married Elizabeth Henry (1903-1987); Theodore Roosevelt Lattin (1901-1980) who lived in Cuba from 1909 to 1915 and married Bertha Christina Nelson (1905-1980).
Oyster Bay, Long Island, New York:
Jarvis appears in the 1860-1870 US census under the name "Jarvis Latting" living in Oyster Bay. The family appears in the 1880 US census living in Oyster Bay and Jarvis is listed as a "market man". Living with him was his widowed father, Henry K. Lattin.
Nebraska and Black Hills of Dakota:
Jarvis moved to Nebraska as a homesteader near the Niobrara River, about 20 miles from Atkinson, Nebraska. He had bought farm implements on credit, but he wasn't successful, so he could not pay for them, and they were repossessed. He next tried prospecting for gold in the Black Hills of Dakota. He returned to Farmingdale in 1888 during the week of the blizzard. (Source: Julia Ann Lattin (1880-1960) in 1960)
Pickle and sauerkraut factory:
In 1888 he started a pickle and sauerkraut factory in Farmingdale. There were already many sauerkraut companies established in the area. He had a house built on the land next to the factory. In 1894 he may have partnered with Aaron Stern to became the "Stern and Lattin Pickle Company" that later became "Stern and Brauner". In the 1900 census Jarvis listed his business as "sauerkraut manufacturer" and in 1906 the company appears on the Farmingdale map as "Jarvis Lattin Co." In 1916: "Farmingdale, L.I., N.Y. — Stern & Brauner, Inc., 52 Tompkins Street, New York City, has purchased from Jarvis A. Lattin a tract of land here formerly a part of the old Lattin homestead. The purchasers contemplate making extensive improvements at once, which will include the erection of a plant for the manufacture of table condiments." The company may have been later listed as "Stern Pickle Products, Inc." and "Stern's Pickle Works". It was at 111 Powell Place off of Melville Road. The Stern factory lasted until 1985. (Source: Harold Lawrence McPheeters in Ancestors and Descendants of Jarvis Andrew and Mary Jane Lattin, published in 1989)
Deputy Sheriff of Farmingdale:
Harold Lawrence McPheeters (1923- ) writes: "Jarvis Lattin was for some time a Constable in Farmingdale. Someone accused him of charging too many trips to Jamaica [New York] on the Long Island Railroad, but his response was that his responsibilities included arresting 'tramps' and taking them to County headquarters in Jamaica for booking."
Constable:
Lattin's Work Censured. Not Likely that the Deputy Sheriff Will Be Paid in Full. Oyster Bay, Long Island; July 6, 1898. Town Clerk J. L. Long, Justice Walter Franklin and Justice William M. Simonson are a committee appointed at the last meeting of the Town Board to examine the bill of Deputy Sheriff Jarvis A. Lattin of Farmingdale, and cut out all items that appear to them to be illegal. Upon the report of the committee will depend the amount allowed upon the hill, which all the members of the Board agreed is excessive. The bill rendered by the deputy sheriff was $568. covering a period from November 16, 1897, to April 12, 1898. Farmingdale is a quiet place, free from disorder as a rule, and the members of the Board cannot see hew the bill could have been run up to such proportion legally. Accordingly, instead of refusing to audit it, as the Democratic members wished to do, it was voted to have a committee investigate the bill and report at the next meeting. The bill of Justice Simonson for the time between November 8, 1897, and February 28, 1898, was $355.95. It was suggested by some of the committee that his accounts be brought before the committee for. comparison with those of the deputy sheriff whose bill was considered excessive. It is claimed that Lattin has included in his bill certain charges which are entirely wrong. For instance he charges 75 cents for attending court to prefer charges against a prisoner, when the amount allowed is but 50 cents. He has charges for the hoard of prisoners when the Janitor of the village lock-up is supposed to look after that matter. It is said that in vagrancy cases, he, being the complainant, put in a claim for notifying himself. His bill, if audited at all, will be much reduced. (Source: Brooklyn Citizen of Brooklyn, New York on July 6, 1898)
Constable:
Deputy Lattin's Bill. Oyster Bay, Long Island, June 29, 1898. One of the greatest curiosities in the form of public documents at the town clerk;s office, Oyster Bay, is the bill of Jarvis A. Lattin, a deputy sheriff of Farmingdale. The bill id for less than five months services and amounts to $568. This bill came before the board for aufit and a committee, consisting of Justice Simonson and Franklin and Town Clerk Long, was appointed to cut the bill down. There is talk of calling on Justice Bausch to appear before the committee with his docket that the terms may be compared. (Source: The Brooklyn Eagle on June 29, 1898)
Lawsuits:
He was involved with at least two lawsuits: Lattin v. Town of Oyster Bay, 34 Misc. 568 (1901) was an "action by Jarvis A. Lattin against the town of Oyster Bay to recover statutory fees as constable. Complaint dismissed. Motion for new trial denied. John B. Merrill, for plaintiff. George B. Stoddard, for defendant. ..."; and Lattin v. Saitta, 116 App. Div. 926 (1907) with Jarvis A. Lattin, suing as James A. Lattin against Edith E. Saitta.
Isle of Pines, Cuba:
In October of 1909 Jarvis moved his family to Santa Barbara on the Isle of Pines in Cuba. On Tuesday, March 23, 1909; Tuesday, August 30, 1910; and Monday, June 24, 1912, Jarvis returned to New York City from Havana, Cuba. While on the island he appears to have been in conflict with a man named Grosvenor: "Esto conllevó que a través del periódico Isle of Pines Appeal el anexionista Slevin emprendiera contra el acusado una constante campaña difamatoria que tuvo su culminación en la acusación que realizara Jarvis A. Lattin de que Grosvenor ..." In 1915 his two youngest children returned to New York and lived in the Bronx. In 1924 the island was formally ceded to Cuba and he returned to the US and lived in Florida.
Letter to Isle of Pines Company:
Mr. J. D. Potts, New York, September 30, 1910. Isle of Pines Company, 225 Fifth Avenue, New York City. Dear Sir: When at the office of your company on Thursday you asked me to write you a letter setting forth my views regarding conditions, developments, etc., on the island since my residence there. As you know, I moved to West McKinley with family about one year ago to take up the development of my forty-acre plantation, which I had previously purchased from the Isle of Pines Company. When I first went to the island my tracts of land were among the very first cleared lying south of the San Rosario Springs Reservation. Now nearly all of the tracts of land lying in my section have been cleared and houses have been constructed down to the very extreme south end of the West McKinley map, and every day one will see a new house being constructed on all sides in West McKinley. There are now three saw-mills operating in West McKinley, and they am unable to supply the demand for lumber as fast as required for house construction purposes. I began planting in October of last year, a. planted something almost continuously up to the middle of April. I had a yield of about 200 bushels of Irish potatoes per acre from planting, and sold them on the ground at four to five cents per pound, amounting to $2.50 per bushel. I grew all kinds of vegetables, including strawberries, watermelon, muskmelon, etc. I also grew sorghum cane, kaffa corn and broom corn. I also planted a grapefruit grove and a pineapple garden and they are doing fine. I am returning to the island to-morrow and shipping on the same boat 200 barrels of seed potatoes. I shall plant ten acres of my land in Irish potatoes next month and in January I will dig the potatoes and shall plant the same field to oats. I expect to harvest the oats the latter part of March or the 1st of April, and will plant to same soil corn, thus taking three crops off this one ten-acre field. I should have a yield of 300 bushels of potatoes per acre this season, as I consider the second season of cultivation should produce a much larger yield than the first season. Based upon last season's figures and experience I should realize around $800 per acre from this one ten-acre tract from the product above mentioned. Besides I shall continue to increase my citrus fruit groves and plant vegetables between the trees. West McKinley is rapidly building up and the land in West McKinley is the best I have seen on the island. Mrs. Lattin and my family enjoy life in West McKinley very much. In fact, Mrs. Lattin did not care to come North on a visit, stating that she enjoys the summer climate there as well as the winter. In fact, nothing could induce us to move back to the States. The island undoubtedly has a great future. Yours, very truly, (Signed) J. A. Lattin.
Isle of Pines, Cuba:
"J. A. Lattin, from the Isle of Pines, recently arrived in Tampa on the Narwhal. Mr. Lattin is a pioneer settler of the Isle of Pines, and is a big property owner there, being a major shipper of citrus fruit. He has made his residence in Santa Barbara." (Source: The Tampa Times of Tampa, Florida on 27 December 1920)
Second marriage:
On November 13, 1928 Jarvis married Agnes M. Thornhill (1861-1937) in Hillsborough County, Florida. She was previously married to John William Dimick (1855-1907).
Lake Helen, Florida:
In 1930 Jarvis was living in Lake Helen, Volusia County, Florida with his second wife, Agnes M. Dimmock. Harold Lawrence McPheeters (1923- ) writes: "I do know that Grandpa Lattin regularly drank whiskey. He wanted an inch of whiskey a day, and much preferred that it be in a milk bottle rather than in a regular shot glass. Uncle Dewey told me that they lived near his parents in Lake Helen at that time, and they often found Jarvis quite well lubricated with a bottle of whiskey in which he had placed [a] considerable [amount of] sugar. They felt that Jarvis treated Agnes badly in that he would not buy her new clothes or shoes and expected her to shoo away the flies attracted by the spilled sugar and whiskey. Elizabeth, Dewey's wife, told me how she once embarrassed Jarvis into buying Agnes a new pair of shoes. Dewey had ... told me, 'My Father was as close to the Devil as there was, and my Mother as close to an Angel.'"
Arrest:
"Jarvis Lattin who was arrested yesterday on a charge of assault against his wife in their Lake Helen home Monday afternoon will not be tried until his health has improved considerably, ... Lattin was removed from the county jail this afternoon to the DeLand Memorial hospital on recommendation of his physician, Dr. Hugh West. The 84-year-old retired banker is reported to be suffering from acute alcoholism." (Source: The Daytona Beach Morning Journal on December 4, 1936 ) Note: I am not aware that he was ever a banker.
Death:
Jarvis died on February 21, 1941 in Lake Helen, Volusia County, Florida.
Obituary:
"Deland, Florida. Mr. Jarvis A. Lattin, 87-year-old Lake Helen resident, died in his home there at 5 o'clock Friday morning, having been in poor health for several years. Born May 29. 1853 in Farmingdale, Long Island, New York, where he spent most of his life as a pickle manufacturer, he retired and moved to West Volusia County 15 years ago. Accompanied by Mrs. Alice Fletcher of Lake Helen, the body was forwarded to Farmingdale for the funeral and burial this afternoon. The Allen-Summerhill Company had charge of local arrangements." (Source: Orlando Evening Star on February 22, 1941)
Burial:
His body was transported back to Long Island by train and he was buried in Powell Cemetery in Hempstead, Long Island.
Memories about Jarvis Lattin:
Julia Ann Lattin (1880-1960) wrote in her death-bed memoir the following: "My father was born in Farmingdale on May 29th, 1853. As a young man of 20 years he worked for a short time on the Long Island Railroad selling foodstuffs on the train. He was the youngest of eleven children and had a roaming disposition and left home to see the world. He got as far as Lake City, Iowa and a short time later met his future wife to be, a Mary Jane Puckett, who was a young school teacher at the time. After about six months, [on October 15, 1874] they were married and lived in Iowa for about one year when my oldest sister was born. Then they came back to Long Island for about three or four years where my next older sister and I was born. But my dad still had that longing for the Old West where things were rugged, so he left again and settled in Nebraska near the Niobrara River, which was 20 miles from from the nearest town called Atkinson. This was a very lonely place. Dad had bought quite a number of farm implements on time, but things were bad, so he could not pay for them, and they were taken from him. My mother had a cow and a feather bed given to her from her parents, so they could not take them for payment, and dad decided to try his luck in mining gold in the Black Hills of Dakota. That left my mother alone with the children right across the river from the Indians, but they were friendly and traded many things which were allowed them from the government. I remember especially some blankets from them. They were rather dark blue with a black border. My mother used to leave the baby [in] bed [in the] morning when she had to cross a stream on a foot-log to milk her cow. One day starting back with her milk, she saw the child starting to creep across the foot-log to meet her, and just in the middle of the stream the child fell overboard in the water. Mother sat her milk pail down and ran and jumped in after her, catching hold of her night dress. It was a puzzle to know how she got herself and the child on the foot log again, as the water was deep in places. Finally she managed to get her skirt off in the water and fastened the child with that until she climbed up herself. We only had a cook stove for heat, and when I was a little more than a year old, I was sitting in a high chair near the stove to keep warm and my mother was combing her hair with her head bent over when she heard a terrible scream. I had fallen on the stove. My sister [Catherine Lavinia Lattin], 1 1/2 years older had pushed the chair. My left eye had hit one of the galvanized balls on the stove leaving the skin on it, causing me to lose sight in that eye. The eye was almost closed. The doctor operated on it three times, but it did not improve the sight. I was seven years old the last operation, and they laid me right on the floor. We used to sleep in the trundle beds. When not in use the one is pushed under the other. ... I have two baby brothers buried out there. When my oldest sister, [Mary Esther Lattin], was seven years old [in 1882], she was bitten by a rattlesnake. It had thirteen rattles. She had a little dog with her and it killed the snake. They could not wait so long for a Dr. to come from town and my dad cut the fang out and sucked the poison till the Dr. arrived. Mother had her on a pillow for weeks with bread and milk poultices, but she carried the mark to her grave. It was a hollow spot about the size of a quarter just below the knee. When I was 8 years old we moved back to Long Island. This was just about 10 days before the blizzard in 1888 [which started March 11, 1888 and ended March 14, 1888]. I can remember my father carrying bags of coal home on his back as no trucks could get through. During the blizzard, we children were in a dark room in bed with the measles we had caught on the train coming East. In [the] year (1909) my parents moved to the Isle of Pines, just south of Cuba, which was populated at that time by 90% Americans. They had expected that the United States would take it over, but several years later it was turned over to Cuba. My parents (Jarvis Andrew Lattin and Mary Jane Puckett) celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary (on October 15, 1924) there, and my sister Eva, and I made them a surprise visit. They were so happy to see us. The boat made only two trips a week between Cuba and the island. We had our luggage inspected in Havana and spent one night there. It took about two hours to cross Cuba by train, and the boat was waiting for us. It was just an overnight trip to the Isle of Pines, and it was so calm there was hardly a ripple on the water. But we did experience a very bad hurricane while there. every one boards up their windows when they see the storm approaching. After Cuba took over the island, many of the Americans left and went back to the States as my parents did. They settled in a little town in Florida, and a few years later my mother passed away, and was brought back north to our home town for burial. Father spent most of his remaining years in Florida, but things were not the same. He also passed away at 88 years of age and was laid beside my mother [in the Powell Cemetery]."
Memories about Jarvis Lattin:
Harold Lawrence McPheeters writes in The Ancestors and Descendants of Jarvis Andrew and Mary Jane (Puckett) Lattin (1989): "Jarvis Andrew Lattin was born 29 May 1853 in Farmingdale, Queens County, New York. He married Mary Jane Puckett 15 October 1874 in Jasper Township of Carroll County, Iowa. Mary Jane Puckett was born 8 October 1854 in Randolph County, Indiana and died 29 October 1927 at Lake Helen, Volusia County, Florida. After the death of Mary Jane Puckett Lattin, Jarvis Lattin remarried to Agnes Dimmock who was a distant cousin of his. Jarvis Lattin died 21 February 1941, also at Lake Helen, Volusia County, Florida. The parents of Jarvis A. Lattin were Henry S. (or K.) Lattin and Julia Wood Lattin who lived in the small farming community that had been called "Hardscrabble" by the early settlers of that section of Long Island that lies just a mile or so across the county line from Suffolk County in the south central portion of the Town of Oyster Bay in what was then Queens County. When the new Nassau County was created in 1895, this area became part of Nassau County, and by that time the Hardscrabble area had long since become the town of Farmingdale. Nearly all of the interior portions of Long Island were originally pine barrens or plains (e.g. the Hempstead Plains and the Jamaica Plains). They were late to be settled by the colonists who preferred to make their living in fishing or commerce along the seacoasts. However, a family of Powells (Thomas Powell) had settled in the Bethpage area just north of Hardscrabble, and there established an active Quaker Monthly Meeting (Quaker Church). We do not know whether the Lattins were active in the Quaker community, but there is some evidence that they were. They are listed in Hinshaw's Encyclopedia of American Quaker Genealogy, Volume 111 (New York and Long Island), and their oldest daughter is buried in the Friends Cemetery in Bethpage. However, the New York Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends reports that there is no record of the Lattins ever having been members. Perhaps the confusion resulted from the fact that the Lattins graves are located in the Old Powell Cemetery north of Farmingdale, in a portion of that cemetery that lies immediately adjacent to the Quaker Burial Ground and the Quaker Meeting House. In any case, Henry Lattin was a farmer according to the 1850 and 1860 Census reports, and Jarvis was their youngest son. There was a younger daughter who died at age 3. We do not know exactly how many children were in the family of Henry and Julia Lattin. Julia Lattin Poole stated that there were 11 children, but we have been able to identify only ten. We do know from dates on gravestones that a number of these children died as young children or in their teens. We know little about the early years of Jarvis Lattin except that he attended the public schools of Farmingdale. As a young man of 20 he worked for a time selling food and sundries on the Long Island Railroad, but he cherished the idea of following Horace Greeley's advice to "Go west, young man." And so he left for the West. We do not know how he happened to stop in the west/central section of Iowa in Carroll County; perhaps he was working with the crews who were building railroads in that area at that time, but that is where he met and married Mary Jane Puckett on 15 October 1874. Mary Jane Puckett was born 8 October 1854 in Randolph County, Indiana. Her parents were Elijah and Catherine (Keever) Puckett who then lived in that portion of Eastern Indiana that lies next to Ohio and which had been inhabited by Quaker families who moved there when the states of Ohio and Indiana entered the Union with Constitutional prohibitions against slavery. The Pucketts had been devout Quakers in North Carolina, and several Puckett brothers, including Elijah's father, Zachariah Puckett, had migrated with their families to Indiana in 1817-1818. Mary Jane was third from the youngest of eight children of Elijah and Catherine Puckett. Shortly after Mary Jane was born, the family decided to move to the new state of Iowa. After a few months in central Iowa, the family settled on what was long known as the "Old Pioneer Farm" in Carroll County. It was located on a bend of the Fox River between the towns of Glidden and Lake City. Here Mary Jane Puckett grew up and attended the local school where she later decided to become a teacher. Mary Jane was known to her family as "Jennie". The school was just a short walk north of the family homestead, and it was there she was teaching when she met and married Jarvis Lattin in 1874. At that time the Pucketts were active members of the Christian Church. We know that her father, Elijah Puckett, was "disowned for lack of plainness" by the Quaker Monthly Meeting before the family left Indiana, but we do not know whether this action caused the family to permanently leave the Quaker religion or whether there simply was no Quaker group close by on the prairies of Iowa. Following their marriage, Jarvis and Mary Jane Lattin lived for a year or so in Lake City, Iowa, and their oldest daughter, Mary Esther, was born there. The young Lattin family then moved back to Farmingdale, Long Island, for about six years, and there were born the next two daughters, Catherine and Julia. The 1880 Census lists Jarvis Lattin's occupation as "Marketman" and shows that his father, Henry Lattin, age 74, was then living with Jarvis and Mary Jane. However, Jarvis Lattin still wanted to try his fortune in the West, and so the family moved West again, this time to Holt County in northeastern Nebraska. They lived in a bleak spot on the Niobrara River about 20 miles from the town of Atkinson. Here Jarvis Lattin intended to farm. However, he lost his farm equipment to creditors and then decided to seek his fortune in prospecting for gold in the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory. This required him to leave his wife and children while he went off on long prospecting trips which were never very successful. That was a difficult time for the family. For a graphic description of the conditions there, see the "Account of My Life" by Julia Lattin Poole in the section on her descendants. During this time two sons were born and died, and their fourth daughter, Myrtle, was born. Jarvis and Mary Jane Lattin returned to Farmingdale, Long Island, early in 1888, and he became active in the pickle and sauerkraut business that thrived in that area at that time. There were nearly a dozen entrepreneurs in the pickle business in Farmingdale at that time. Jarvis Lattin built a fine two-story house next door to his pickle "factory", and there the remainder of the 12 children were born. It was from this house that most of the girls were married. Meanwhile, the children were expected to share the work in the pickle factory, walking in boots through the vats of brine to assure that the cabbage and pickles were properly stirred and covered. Many of the workers in the factory were Italian immigrants, who worked long hours along with their wives and children. In summer the hours were from sun-up to sun-down, and I can recall Jarvis Lattin describing some of the labor complaints that he encountered from the workers. Later the factory was sold to Stern and operated as Stern and Lattin Pickle Company and later as Stern and Brauner, and still later as Stern's Pickle Products, Inc. For the past several years the old factory was primarily a sales place for pickles and spices rather than a factory for their manufacture. The old factory buildings were torn down in 1987. The house had been demolished 50 years earlier. In October 1909 Jarvis and Mary Jane Lattin moved to 20 acres of land he bought on Isle of Pines, Cuba. A number of U.S. citizens had gone there in anticipation that the island would become a part of the United States, but that did not occur, and so after several years, Jarvis and Mary Jane Lattin moved back to the mainland and settled in Lake Helen, Florida. Meanwhile, they had celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary at Isle of Pines, Cuba, on 15 October 1924. Mary Jane Lattin died in Lake Helen, Florida, 29 October 1927, and her body was returned to Farmingdale for burial in the Powell Cemetery. Jarvis Lattin continued to live in Lake Helen with occasional trips back north to visit family members. He remarried to Agnes Dimmock, who was a distant cousin of his, and they continued to reside in Lake Helen. Agnes Dimmock Lattin predeceased her husband. He died 21 February 1941 and was also buried in the Powell Cemetery in Farmingdale. Jarvis A. Lattin was a rather rough character who felt most comfortable as an aggressive pioneer or businessman. He liked a drink of whiskey, and he regularly smoked cigars. He may have drunk too much whiskey, (He liked an inch of whiskey a day, preferably in a milk bottle), but he was not known to be an alcoholic. However, he was a crusty old man who enjoyed telling of his time prospecting in the Black Hills or of his management practices in the pickle factory. His style was rough. He was impatient and had little sympathy for do-gooders. He once said that he never ate walnuts, oranges or hard-boiled eggs because "it was too much work to hull 'em." He used strike-anywhere matches which he ignited by rubbing them briskly across the seat of his pants; then after he had lit his cigar, he whittled the end of the matchstick to a point to be inserted in the last half-inch of the cigar, so that he could smoke the cigar to the very end. In contrast, Mary Jane Lattin was a kindly, patient, and devout woman who was an excellent mother to her children and a steady helpmate to her husband. She was a Methodist most of her life, but she became a Seventh-Day Adventist in her later years."
Research:
Researched and written by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) for Findagrave starting on July 16, 2003. Updated on June 25, 2010 with information from a 1906 map. Updated on September 22, 2010 with the article on his arrest in Florida in 1936. Updated on August 2, 2013 with information from 1916 on the sale of land for pickles. Updated on July 15, 2014 with text from The Ancestors and Descendants of Jarvis Andrew and Mary Jane (Puckett) Lattin (1989). Updated on July 24, 2014 with the date of his second marriage. Updated on May 9, 2016 with the dates he was in Nebraska. Updated on July 26, 2017 with his letter from 1910. Updated on July 6, 2018 with his obituary. Updated on July 22, 2018 with the name of the river as "Niobrara River". Updated on July 26, 2019 with a second text on his time as a constable. Updated on July 29, 2019 with text on his farm in Cuba. Updated on February 6, 2020 with the text of the memories of Harold Lawrence McPheeters from The Ancestors and Descendants of Jarvis Andrew and Mary Jane (Puckett) Lattin that he wrote in 1989.
.
Family Members
Siblings
Children
-
![]()
Mary Esther Lattin Brush
1875–1895
-
![]()
Catherine Lavinia Lattin Brush
1878–1964
-
![]()
Julia Ann Lattin Poole
1880–1960
-
![]()
William Henry Lattin
1882–1882
-
![]()
Myrtle Adelia Lattin Williams
1884–1970
-
![]()
Jennie Alice Lattin Carpitella
1888–1958
-
![]()
Eva Ariel Lattin Winblad
1892–1939
-
![]()
Effie Jeanette Lattin Pomeroy
1895–1989
-
![]()
Dewey Ernest Lattin I
1898–1985
-
![]()
Theodore Roosevelt Lattin
1901–1980
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
Explore more
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
