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Surnames: CASTLEMAN
Classification: Query
Message Board URL:
http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/RFI.2ACIB/215.1
Message Board Post:
I do not know if this is the same CASTLEMAN, but my step-father Ashley Barbee Castleman
born August 01, 1898 in Tennessee told me the story of his father (sorry do not remember
his name) that had sold a horse to an Englishman. He was scheduled to take the horse to
England and the Englishman had arranged for him to work his passage back on this wonderful
new ship, considered a real pip of a job back then, but Ashley's father changed his
mind at the last minute and they had to get someone else to take his place.(either his
wife was pregnant, or had just had a baby, and it would have meant his being away from
home for up to 6 months and he did not want to leave his family alone for that long) It
is possible that if it was all done at a last minute, that the other poor soul went over
under his name, and did the same coming back. I did not ever hear that a relative had
taken his place, and I am sure that Ashley would have mentioned that fact.
The really odd thing was that when news of the disaster filtered thru to the
Castleman's, of course they felt as if someone had been guarding over this man. A
week or two after the titanic sank, some neighbors saw the father driving a buckboard and
waved to him as he came over a hill and he waved back. For a few second he disappeared
from site at the road dipped, and when the buckboard came back into view, he was no longer
sitting up on top.
They ran to him, but he had simply dropped dead to the ground and was already gone by the
time they reached him.
If it is possible that this is the relative you are looking for, we might be able to give
you additional information on the family or connect you up with someone who can. Ashley
was one of I believe 14 children, and some are still living I believe. They came from
very hardy stock.