Today, April 1, is known as April Fool’s Day, and this look back at history is not a joke. It actually occurred and has been confirmed by archive newspaper stories and information from ancestry.com.
James Brace, a farmer from Dallas Township, walked 15 miles to the Luzerne County Courthouse on Public Square, Wilkes-Barre, to get a marriage license on March 26, 1890.
Brace, who was 65 and had lost his first wife, Hannah, on May 15, 1889, was denied because his second bride-to-be was a minor at 17 and needed consent from her parents.
Finding the parents of Edith Dymond, Brace’s neighbor, was not a problem.
A write-up in the Wilkes-Barre Record on April 4, 1890, described James Brace as a well-known resident of Dallas Township who, despite being 65, still had the vitality of a young person flowing through his veins.
Despite a 48-year age gap between Brace and Edith Dymond, her father, Asa Dymond, did not object.
The day following Brace's initial rejection at the courthouse, he and Asa Dymond went to Public Square on March 27, 1890, where Asa Dymond permitted the marriage of his teenage daughter.
According to the U.S. Census, the typical age for a bride in 1890 was 22, and for a groom, it was 26. It's evident that Brace and Edith Dymond did not conform to the usual marriage statistics of that time.
Isaac G. Leek, a justice of the peace in Dallas, presided over the marriage ceremony, which took place inside Brace’s farmhouse on April 5, 1890.
One can only imagine the astonishment of the clerks in the courthouse register’s office when Brace first appeared on March 26, 1890, and returned the next day with the teen's father.
The Wilkes-Barre Record reported, “The elderly suitor journeyed, or rather floated, from Dallas Township to Wilkes-Barre. He headed to the register’s office and requested a license. However, a complication arose in the marriage plans, which needed to be resolved before the hopeful groom's dreams could come true. The bride-to-be was underage, requiring consent from her parents before the license could be issued.”
There are no records indicating whether Brace’s 15 children from his 43-year marriage to Hannah attended his wedding to Edith Dymond.
Brace and his young wife welcomed a daughter, Jessie, on Sept. 14, 1892, according to newspaper reports and ancestry.com.
Brace didn't have a lengthy second marriage as he passed away at his farmhouse on Dec. 10, 1893, at the age of 68, while Edith was 21.
In his final will, Brace bequeathed $1,000, the farmhouse, and furniture to his young wife, $1,000 to his youngest daughter, and distributed other assets among his 15 other children, as outlined by ancestry.com.
Three years after her husband's passing, Edith married William Hill on Jan. 6, 1897, in Wilkes-Barre, and they had eight children. They resided on Prospect Street, Wilkes-Barre, for ten years before relocating to Washington, D.C., where they stayed for five years before settling near Sayre, Bradford County.
