Ira Charles Waste was the eldest son of Bezaleel Waste, Jr. and Diadama Waste.

During the War of 1812, Ira served in the 23 Regiment (Cook's) of the New York Milita in the rank of private. Ira's uncle Uri Waste served in the same regiment.

Ira married Jane M. Hogle in New York State in 1816. The 1820 census lists Ira as a resident of Westport, Essex Co., New York. Together they had four sons, all born in New York state but the exact locations are not yet known. We do know that their third son, Bezaleel, was born on Nov. 7, 1822 in Utica, Oneida County, New York.

Later, in Ohio, Ira married Irish-born Nancy Ann Donahue in 1836. He already had four sons at that point. Ira had four more sons with Nancy but the last one died. In 1846, Ira and Nancy Waste moved their family to Grant County, Wisconsin. Later, many of their sons served in the Union Army during the Civil War.

One important exception was Ira and Nancy's first son, who grew up and traveled overland to California during the Gold Rush. He was my great-great-grandfather John Jackson Waste who left home in 1851 and became a California pioneer. As far as I can tell, his brothers all survived the terrible conditions of the Civil War but James was badly injured.

Ira Charles Waste died on Nov. 6, 1873 in Ohio.

"Ira Charles Waste was born on January 25, 1795, at Somerset, Windham County, Vermont. But he spent much of his early childhood in Hague, New York, on the shores of Lake George. 

"Ira served through the War of 1812-1814, and in the Mexican War," Thomas Waste said of his father in 1899 in Iowa.

In 1812 he was 17 and fought in several battles in upstate New York, including the decisive Battle of Lake Champlain. He returned to his home nearby after the War.

At the age of 21, he married his first wife, JANE M. HOGLE, on January 1, 1816. She was born in New York State and died there on November 9, 1835. From 1822 to 1835 they lived in both Utica and Hague, N.Y. His wife's death left him a widower with 4 young sons. He had to be both a father and mother to them until he could find the right woman to be his wife and to raise his boys.

Besides school work and farm chores, his sons Ira Jr., aged 17, and Bezaleel, aged 13, had to help him with the care and feeding of brother Francis, who was 8, and baby John Jackson Waste, who was only 8 months old. Then, into this broken home, came NANCY ANN DONAHUE.

He married his second wife on May 26, 1836, six month after his first wife died. And by 1840, they were in Warren, Trumbull County, Ohio. They were living in Millville, Grant County, Wisconsin in 1859, when he wrote a letter to his 24-year-old son John Jackson Waste and his wife living in Princeton, California. This letter was dated September 20, 1859, when he was 64.

"Dear Children: It is with pleasure that I take my pen in hand to let you know that we are all well . . . We want to see you & and Margaret very much, but we never can unless you come home & see us, for we are getting to be old . . .If you can sell out there, come home to stay . . . Our prayer to God is that we may have the happiness of seeing you before we leave this world. We remain, your affectionate father and mother until death."

Profound sorrow, as well as loneliness, seeped from between the lines of Ira Charles' next letter to his son in California. It was written in ink by a shaky hand on July 3, 1860:

"Dear Children: It is with an aching heart that I sit down to inform you of your step-mother's death. She (Nancy) died the first day of May, last. And I was taken sick the same night & for about 6 weeks the doctor did not know how it would go with me. But thru the goodness of God, I am able to write you once more & I hope these few lines may find you enjoying good health & the blessing of God . . . James says that he will come and live with you if you will send him money to come with . . . I never expect to see you here again. No more at present, only I remain, your affectionate father till death. Ira C. Waste."

After his wife died, he traveled and visited some of his 6 children. He died at the home of his son Bezaleel in Hartsgrove, Ashtabula County, Ohio, on November 6, 1873. He was then 78 years old.

NANCY ANN DONAHUE was born in County Sligo, Ireland, and she came to America in 1824 with a half-brother. She died on May 1, 1860 in Millville, Wisconsin. She was a hard-working, loveable, happy-hearted Irish lass. With loving kindness, she raised Jane Hogle's sons and gave birth to 3 sons of her own. And she taught them well. She proved to be a truly wonderful mother.

Utica, Oneida County, New York (pop. 101,600) lies 238 miles northwest of New York City, near the center of the State, at the foot of the Adirondack Mountains. This milltown is located where the Mohawk River and the N.Y. Barge Canal meet. It stands at 415 feet elevation. Among the products it manufactures are heating equipment and textiles. Incorporated as a hamlet in 1798, it was chartered in 1832. It was named after the Biblical city in Africa.

Warren, Trumbull County, Ohio (pop. 58,000), "the steel center", lies 50 miles southeast of Cleveland and 13 miles north of Youngstown, near Lake Erie and the Pennsylvania border. Nearby are the small towns of Mayfield, Willoughby and Hartsgrove where other Wastes lived. It has coal and iron mines, linen mills, farming and dairies.

Warren manufactures lamps, steel products, bottles, rubber, and lumber. The town, standing at 900 feet in elevation, was first settled in 1798 when Pennsylvania pioneers built grist-mills and sawmills on the banks of the Mahoning River. But it wasn't incorporated until 1834. It honors Moses Warren, a local surveyor from Connecticut, and is the birthplace of the famed automobile tycoon, John Packard."

Francis H. Waste, born Nov. 7, 1827 in New York. He married Helen Jenkins on Jan. 13, 1851 in Grant Co., Wisconsin. They had a daughter named Mary Isadore Waste, born Jan. 4, 1852 in Platteville,Wisconsin. Francis fought for the Union in the Civil War. He was a private in the Third Cavalry, Iowa, Company C. He died on March 30, 1914.

Here is a page about Mary Isadore Waste. She went way out West.

John Jackson Waste, born March 29, 1835 in Hague, Warren Co., New York. He traveled overland to California and settled there. He married three times. John died on May 3, 1882 in Chico, Butte Co., California.

James Richard Waste, born Dec. 15, 1840 in Trumbull, Ashtabula County, Ohio. He married Clarissa Catherine Hobart. As a resident of Sparta, Grant County, Wisconsin, James served in the Union Army during the Civil War with the 3rd Wisconsin Cavalry. After the war James and Clarissa had two children, Charles Edward Waste (born Nov. 23, 1865) and Katie Fidelia Waste (born Jan. 1, 1870). Their family lived in Fairchild, Eau Claire Co., Wisconsin. James died on Sept. 20, 1903 while visiting his daughter in Pelican Lake, Otter Tail County, Minnesota.

Thomas L. Waste, born Dec. 17, 1842 in Ohio. Thomas fought for the Union in the Civil War. He began as a private serving in Company A of the 3rd Wisconsin Cavalry. By the end of the war, he was a corporal. His brother James Richard Waste also served in Company A of the 3rd Wisconsin Cavalry. Click here to learn what his regiment did during the Civil War.

Thomas married Mary R. Gates on Feb. 9, 1867. Their son, Mason S. C. Waste, was born in 1867 in Oneida, Verona Co., New York but died in 1871, at only four years old. He was buried in Oneida. Later in 1871, their daughter Laura E. Waste was born in Iowa. The 1880 census listed the family as residents of Fayette, Fayette Co., Indiana. He died in 1924 at the age of 100. Thomas was buried at Grandview Cemetery in Fayette.