Staggs Family History

My ancestors in the United States

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      Stephen Marion Wareham (1824-1864)

      BIRTH: 1824, Blair, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, USA
      DEATH: 25 May 1864, Irwin, Venango, Pennsylvania, USA
      FATHER: John Wareham (1798–1880)
      MOTHER: Unknown)
      SPOUSE: Juliaette Hawthorne (1832–1889)

      When Stephen Marion Wareham was born in 1824, his father, John, was 25. He had four sons and one daughter with Juliaette Julia Hawthorne between 1856 and 1863. He died on May 25, 1864, in Irwin, Pennsylvania, at the age of 40, and was buried in Barkeyville, Pennsylvania.

      The Life of Stephen Marion Wareham

      Stephen Marion Wareham was born around 1824 in the wooded hills of western Pennsylvania, a region of scattered farms, rough wagon roads, and families who carved their lives out of the land. He grew up in Irwin Township, Venango County, in a household headed by John Wareham, a man born around 1810 who appears in the 1850 census with Stephen and several younger siblings. The Warehams were not wealthy, but they were landholders — a sign of stability and respectability in rural Pennsylvania.

      By the time Stephen reached adulthood, he had become a farmer in his own right. The 1850 census shows him at age twenty‑six with modest real estate holdings, living near his father and siblings. In the years that followed, he married Juliaette “Julia” Hawthorne, a young woman born in 1832 whose family had roots in Pennsylvania’s northeastern counties. Their marriage likely took place between 1851 and 1855, and by 1856 they welcomed their first child, William Hawthorne Wareham. A daughter, Sarah Elizabeth, followed in 1859.

      The 1860 census captures the Wareham family at its fullest and most hopeful moment. Stephen, age thirty‑seven, appears as a farmer with $3,200 in real estate and $452 in personal property — a substantial holding for the region. Julia, age twenty‑nine, kept the household, while six‑year‑old William and infant Sarah completed the family. Their home lay in the rolling countryside of Irwin Township, a place of quiet fields and small communities, where the rhythms of life were measured in seasons, harvests, and the steady work of maintaining a farm.

      But the peace of that world was shattered by the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.

      Civil War Service and Death

      Like many men of his generation, Stephen answered the call to serve. Pennsylvania raised more regiments than any other Union state, and Venango County contributed heavily to the war effort. Although the surviving records do not preserve every detail of Stephen’s enlistment, the evidence is clear: he entered Union service and died in 1864, one of the countless soldiers lost not to battle wounds but to the diseases that ravaged the camps and hospitals of the Civil War.

      Disease claimed far more lives than bullets — dysentery, typhoid, pneumonia, and camp fevers swept through regiments with devastating speed. Stephen’s death in 1864, at roughly forty years old, places him squarely within this tragic pattern. His passing left Julia a widow at thirty‑two, with two young children: William, age eight, and Sarah, age five.

      The war did not just take Stephen’s life; it reshaped the future of his family. Julia, like many Civil War widows, faced the challenge of raising children alone. She eventually remarried a man named Hovis, a step that provided stability but also meant that William and Sarah grew up without the father whose early death had altered the course of their lives.

      Stephen’s sacrifice — quiet, unrecorded in official histories, but deeply felt by those he left behind — places him among the thousands of ordinary Pennsylvanians whose service sustained the Union cause.

      Legacy of Stephen Marion Wareham

      Stephen Marion Wareham’s legacy is one of courage, sacrifice, and generational impact. Though his life was cut short by the Civil War, the family he built with Juliaette Hawthorne endured. His son, William Hawthorne Wareham, carried the Wareham name westward to Indiana, where he became a railroad electrician and the patriarch of a new Midwestern branch of the family. Through William’s daughter, Ella Blanche Wareham, Stephen’s bloodline continued into the Staggs family and ultimately into our own.

      Stephen’s story — from a young farmer in Venango County to a soldier who gave his life in the nation’s greatest conflict — stands as a testament to the quiet heroism of ordinary Americans. His legacy lives on not only in the records he left behind but in the generations who followed, shaped by the resilience and sacrifice of a man whose life bridged the frontier world of early Pennsylvania and the crucible of the Civil War.

      Parents

      FATHER: John Wareham (1798–1880)
      MOTHER: Unknown)

      Married

      Juliaette Hawthorne (1832–1889)

      Children

      Documents

      • Death records
        • Find a Grave > Stephen Wareham > Birth: 25 Feb 1824, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, USA; Death: 25 May 1864 (aged 40), Venango County, Pennsylvania, USA
        • Burial: Wareham Cemetery, Barkeyville, Venango County, Pennsylvania, USA
      • Census records
        • 1850 United States Federal Census > Pennsylvania > Venango > Irwin > Name: Stephen Wareham; Gender: Male; Race: White; Residence Age: 26; Birth Date: abt 1824; Birthplace: Pennsylvania; Residence Date: 1850; Home in 1850: Irwin, Venango, Pennsylvania, USA; Real Estate: $300; Line Number: 1; Dwelling Number: 77; Family Number: 77; Household members: Stephen Wareham (26), John Wareham (19), Elizabeth Wareham (20), Rebecca Smith (18), John Wareham (40)
        • 1860 United States Federal Census > Pennsylvania > Venango > Irwin > Name: Stephen Wareham; Age: 37; Birth Year: abt 1823; Gender: Male; Race: White; Birthplace: Pennsylvania; Home in 1860: Irwin, Venango, Pennsylvania; Post Office: 0; Dwelling Number: 1011; Family Number: 985; Occupation: Farmer; Real Estate Value: 3200; Personal Estate Value: 452; Inferred Spouse: Julia Wareham; Inferred Child: William Wareham; S E Wareham; Household members: Stephen Wareham (37), Julia Wareham (29), William Wareham (6), S E Wareham (10/12)
      • Other

      Relation of Stephen Marion Wareham to Steven Barry Staggs: 2nd great grandfather

      Page last updated June 23, 2026

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