When WAS William B. Dawson, Jr. born?

I never knew my grandfather, William B. Dawson, Jr. (known as Willie).  He died in 1972 before I was born.  My father and his siblings always celebrated his birthday on August 14.  That date seemed to be backed up by a birth announcement in the Jacksonville newspaper but it was ALSO on August 14, 1894.

1894 is also the year on his gravestone (although he is erroneously noted as William B. Sr. instead of Jr.)

However, when I started doing my genealogical research, I found new potential birthdates cited in his passport applications.  There is a certified copy of a birth certificate attached to his passport application in 1918 that shows a birth date of an unnamed male child to be March, 15, 1896.  The copy of this birth certificate was certified as of November 1917.

But in October 1917, Willie’s mother, Anita provides a sworn statement regarding Willie’s birthdate to support Willie’s passport application in 1917. Here, she indicates it is also August 14, but this time, the year is 1896!

Also, in his father’s letter dated February 4, 1908 to Willie, WB states “you are now nearly 11 years old…”… which would suggest a birthdate sometime in 1897.

The true date of his birth became more confusing when I came across a series of articles in the Jacksonville, FL newspapers in July of 1917 in which Willie is accused of being a “slacker” for not registering for the draft for World War I. One of these articles references the birth certificate for the unnamed male child attached to the 1918 passport application.

Willie’s mother, Anita, writes to the paper that “He has not yet passed his twentieth birthday, his birthday being August 14…There were four sons born unto Mr. Dawson and myself, two of whom lived only a few hours and the other five years, and the birth certificate referred to in the newspaper articles referred to one of my dead babies and not this sole surviving son.”  This would suggest that his birthday was August 14, 1897, although it appears that when Willie registered, he gave his birthdate as August 14, 1896.

Anita’s statement in her letter to the paper defending “slacker” Willie raises other questions about him and his male siblings.  Family trees and lore only identify three sons, not four.  The first, Joseph Dawson, is cited as having been born in 1886 and died the same year.  He would likely have been born and died in Kingston, New Mexico.  I’ve not been able to find any records or newspaper mentions documenting either his birth or death.  The second indication of a son being born is the August 14, 1894 newspaper article shown above. There is no newspaper mention to support the March 15, 1896 birth certificate for the unnamed male child, but perhaps this is the “missing” fourth son. 

The last evidence of a son being born was a newspaper birth announcement on May 1, 1897 referencing that a son was born “yesterday” which would have been April 30, 1897.  This would likely be Ovid Tristan Dawson.  Ovid’s gravestone indicates a birthdate of April 15, 1897 and a death date just shy of his third birthday on April 4, 1900.  The Florida Times-Union printed a notice of Ovid’s death on April 5, 1900 noting that he was 3 years old (it also names him incorrectly as Ovid Christian Dawson).  Ovid is also mentioned in his father’s obituary in 1916 as having “died ten years ago at the age of 5 and is buried in Evergreen Cemetery.” I’ve not yet been able to obtain a birth or death certificate for Ovid.

So when WAS Willie born? 

Could his father have been off by one year in his 1908 letter, meaning that Willie was the son born in March 1896?  Possibly.  But off by three years?  That would have meant Willie really was a “slacker” in 1917 if he was born in 1894.  But how could his father have thought he was 10 instead of 13? I had the notion that one of the male children born earlier – either in 1894 (based on the newspaper announcement) or 1896 (the unnamed son’s birth certificate) was originally named William B. Dawson, Jr. and the son born in 1897 was originally named Ovid. But then the older son died in 1900 and was closer to being five years old as noted by Anita in her letter to the newspaper in 1917.  Could they have then passed along the William B. Dawson name to the surviving son and recorded the name of the dead son as Ovid?  I have read other stories about this happening in some families to carry on the father’s name, but honestly have no real evidence to support this idea, although an April 1897 birthdate would fit the age in the letter from WB to his son in 1908. This theory would also better support Anita’s representation that there were four sons and they could have the following birthdates: Joseph in 1886 (family lore), August 14, 1894 (newspaper), March 15, 1896 (birth certificate with no name) and April 15 or 30, 1897 (gravestone/newspaper).

August 14, 1894? March 15, 1896? August 14, 1896? Sometime after February 8 in 1897? April 15, 1897? April 30, 1897? All of these birthdates for male children of WB Dawson are supported by statements, documents, objects or articles that I’ve come across in my research and several of them are attributable to Willie Jr. as a potential birthdate in one place or another.

Unfortunately, Willie’s true birthdate will likely remain a mystery as anyone who could corroborate the truth is long gone. In any event, it has spawned some interesting stories and theorycrafting about the truth. What do YOU think is the most likely option?

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