Wylie married in 1908 to Lestia A Piatt, daughter of Benjamin Dickey Piatt and Mary A McHarg who was born June 26, 1875, in Adams County, Ohio and who died November 3, 1854 [Year can’t be right. MCP] in West Union, Adams County, Ohio. This was said to be his second wife.
According to Laverne Ingram Piatt, “While most of the Piatts may descend from the immigrant Rene Piatt who died in NJ in 1705, those descendants have separated into distinct branches over the years. The Piatts of Boone County, Kentucky who owned slaves were not closely related to the Piatts of Adams County, Ohio. The separation of those branches would have occurred in the late 1600s, each descending from a separate grandson of Rene Piatt (sons of Jacob Piatt). Even the Piatts of Adams County, Ohio were of two branches and it is yet to be determined if these two branches were distantly related. Some Adams County Piatts think the two branches were NOT related. One branch of the Adams County Piatts was founded by Jacob Piatt (sometimes called Jacob IV) and his brother Benjamin Piatt whose family had traveled across Pennsylvania. The other branch was founded by Revolutionary War veteran Lewis Piatt who served from Westchester County, New York. Whether Lewis descended from a third son of Rene is yet to be decided. Wylie Piatt (a descendant of Lewis Piatt) married Lestia Piatt (a descendant of Benjamin Piatt).
Wylie and Lestia had the following known children:
In 1930 Wylie H Piatt, aged 55, was renting a place on Brush Creek Road in Tiffin Township, Adams County, Ohio. Lestia, 53, was living on State Route 125 in Tiffin Township, Adams County, Ohio, at the home of her brother Bennie D (Benjamin Dickey) Piatt (Jr). With her were her children Bernice E 20 and Harlan B 19. Although the original image of this census clearly shows the name to be Piatt, Ancestry has indexed all four individuals as Pratt.
According to jen72603 on Ancestry.com, her husband's grandmother was Patricia Ann Gault Thomas and his great-grandfather, Wylie, was a Professional Baseball Pitcher in the late 1800's/ early 1900's.
A posting by cbyrne159 on March 31, 2009, on Ancestry.com states “Wylie/Wiley Piatt is Wylie Harold Piatt. In baseball records he is listed under both names (Wiley/Wylie). He was buried in Kentucky until recently. His body was taken back to Adams County [Ohio] by relatives. You can contact Cooperstown and have them send you a pictures of him; handsome fellow. They charge about 15-20 bucks. He is listed in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Evelyn Gault's mother was his second wife. Wylie at times didn't have the best baseball career (near the end he could just not strike anyone out) though he did a wonderful job coaching. You should try talking to Evelyn, she lives in Cincinnati under the name Evelyn Stent and is in no better mood than what she's been in most her life. Evelyn doesn't like to talk about the Piatt's too much (the other Gault family members don't talk about them too much either). The Piatt's owned slaves that they ferried back and forth across the Ohio River before the Commonwealth of Kentucky fell to the Union during the Civil War. They used the slaves on their tobacco farms. Evelyn does not like this known because there are biracial Piatts' out there, so you can guess what I'm getting at... Also Wylie, after he left Evelyn's mother, took up with a black woman from Kentucky. She is the one who buried him in Kentucky after he died. There are still Piatt's buried in Stone Chapel and the graveyard has been weeded out so you can see the stones. Wylie left behind a biracial family in Ashland, Kentucky and they have traced the Piatt family back to biracial ancestors.”
In response, Laverne Ingram Piatt, posted the following “The Piatts of Boone County, Kentucky indeed owned slaves before the Civil War. One African American Jacob Piatt who lived in Butler County, Ohio after the Civil War traces his ancestry back to Boone County, Kentucky. However, this Jacob Piatt had served in the Civil War in a unit of US Colored Troops and his pension file clearly states that he entered service as Jacob Ryal (Ryle) and was discharged as Jacob Piatt. Why he changed his name is not known. The Ryle families owned large farms in Boone County, Kentucky and were neighbors of the Piatts there. Often, but not always, freed slave families adopted the surname of their former owners. While there are many instances of mingling of European and African blood, adoption of a surname is not a guarantee of that event. A note about Kentucky in the Civil War: Kentucky did not "fall to the Union." Kentucky was a slave state that remained within the Union. Known as a "border state" Kentucky supplied soldiers to both the Union and Confederate causes. The Home Guard was also mobilized for the purpose of keeping both armies out of the state.”
I will add that a Civil War researcher told me that it was part of the law just after the Civil War that slaves without a surname were to take the name of the family that owned them and that it is why they took that name and is not proof that they were biracial.
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