THE COUNTIES OF IOWA
By: J. Cheston Whitney
Our home is in Iowa,
Westward toward the setting sun,
Just between two mighty rivers,
Where the flowing waters run;
It has towns and it has cities,
It has many noble streams,
It has ninety-nine counties,
And we'll join to sing their names.
Lyon, Osceola, Dickinson,
Where the Spirit Lake we see;
Emmet, Kossuth, Winnebago,
Worth, with its Lake Albert Lea;
Mitchell, Howard, Winneshiek,
And Allamakee so fine,
Make eleven northern counties
On the Minnesota line.
Clayton, Dubuque, Jackson, Clinton,
Together with Scott and Muscatine,
Lee, Louisa and Des Moines,
On the eastern line is seen;
Van Buren, Davis, Appanoose,
Decatur, Ringgold, Wayne, we spy;
Taylor, Page and Fremont, that
On Missouri's border lie.
Pottawattamie, Harrison, Mills,
Monona, Woodbury, Plymouth, Sioux,
Are all the counties that around
The border of our State we view.
Next we point you to O'Brien,
Palo Alto too, and Clay,
Hancock, Cerro Gordo, Floyd,
Now see Chickasaw, I pray.
Fayette, Bremer, Butler, Franklin,
Next upon the map we see;
Wright and Humboldt, Pocahontas,
Buena Vista, Cherokee,
Ida, Sac, Calhoun and Webster,
Hamilton, with names so rare;
Next is Hardin, Grundy, Black Hawk,
And Buchanan, Delaware.
Jones, Linn, Benton, Tama, Marshall,
Story, Crawford, Carroll, Boone,
(Let us not your patience weary,
We shall have them all told soon,)
Cedar, Greene, Johnson, Iowa,
With Powesheik by the same;
Here is Jasper, Polk and Dallas,
Names of Presidential fame.
Guthrie, Audubon and Shelby,
Cass and Madison, Adair,
Warren, Marion and Mahaska,
And Keokuk, too, is there:
Henry, Jefferson and Wapello,
Monroe, Washington we missed;
Lucas, Clarke, Union, Adams.
And Montgomery fills the list.
(Source: History of Floyd County, Iowa, 1882)
GENEALOGY JEWELS Genealogy is for everyone. I would like to share some tips and lots of family history with you.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Life In Motion
Life is a circular motion of happiness, sorrow, joy, disappointment and if you are very lucky contentment.
Laura Schnabel
Laura Schnabel
As Elisabeth Kübler-Ross stated,
"It is only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it were the only one we had."
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Lovell, Wyoming
Lovell is the home of my husband, Bob Schnabel, and several generations of his family
Ely
Ely's famous inhabitants include Oliver Cromwell & Hereward the Wake
A Cathedral City founded in 673 when Princess Etheldreda, daughter of the Anglo-Saxon King Anna adopted Christianity & formed a Coven/Convent one mile north of the Saxon village of Cratendune, an act that later ensured her elevation to Saint Etheldreda. However, Ely dates back much further as recent Archeological excavations have unearthed Roman graves and the discovery of the remnants of Iron Age Round Houses imply truly ancient peoples had built farms & communities at the edge of Ely's un-natural hill...
I had a great visit today with an Ely relative, John Ely. It was a very informative talk. John told me about his trip to the UK and the origin of the name Ely.
Sweds in Illinois
My Swedish gt gt grandfather Olaf Johnson chose not to be a part of the community. Family folklore tells how Olaf came to America to be an American!
Doorway to Illinois
Bishop Hill: Sweden's Doorway into Illinois
Mark Wyman
Historical Research and Narrative
A strange procession could be seen making its way across the Henry County landscape on late-summer evenings in the late 1840s and 1850s. The event was perhaps out of place on the American frontier, where yeoman farmers and their families usually struggled to survive with little help beyond the sporadic aid of a few neighbors or relatives. But at Bishop Hill it was different:
Two by two, in a long procession a couple of hundred strong, the harvesters wended their homeward way, first the men carrying their cradle-scythes over their shoulders, then the women with their handrakes, and, finally, the children, all singing some merry harvest-song of their native country, while keeping step to the music.
Harvesting the fields
The harvesters belonged to the Swedish religious colony at Bishop Hill, a group often studied today for its religious theology, its struggles with the Swedish Lutheran Church, its importance as a Utopian settlement on the American frontier, and for the dramatic events surrounding its founder's murder in 1850. But the colony also merits attention because it marked the initial foray into Illinois of a Swedish immigration stream that quickly increased from the 1,123 Swedes counted in the 1850 state census, to 6,460 in Illinois by 1860, then exploded. By 1900 Illinois had almost 100,000 Swedes � second only to Minnesota's 115,476 in the United States. And this was but a small part of the total exodus from Sweden. By 1930 only Ireland and Norway had lost more citizens per capita than Sweden to emigration. By that year, the United States had 1.5 million Swedish-born residents, and one in five Swedes resided in America. Historians of immigration agree that much of the Swedish exodus to Illinois and the United States can be traced to the impact of the flight of followers of Eric Jansson to Bishop Hill in 1846.
They came from a land torn in the1830s and 1840s by religious and economic strife. The state Lutheran church had grown so rigid and doctrinaire that critics called it "a magnificent ice palace." Challenges were mounting against the church's heavy-handed control, and groups called lasare � "readers" � held secret meetings to discuss the Bible, free of the clergy's dictates. A religious revival gained momentum, powered by attacks on drinking, card playing, dancing, and above all on the state church.
One of the leaders emerging from this emotional firestorm was Eric Jansson, born in 1808 in the Swedish parish of Biskopskulla ("bishop hill"). After a religious conversion in 1830 he began preaching for perfection in personal conduct. Those truly converted to Christ were free from sin, Jansson argued; if an individual had sin, that in itself was evidence that the person was not truly a Christian. Jansson's preaching took a more aggressive tone after he visited the Uppsala market in 1840 and was repelled by the activities he witnessed there. Soon he and his followers were burning
2
piles of religious books, challenging Swedish laws, and occasionally being thrown into jail.
At that moment in Swedish history, when large numbers of citizens were frustrated by the controls of both church and state, reports began to arrive from across the ocean that pictured both America and Illinois as a paradise, a Utopia. Letters from the few early Swedish pioneers who had ventured into the Midwest extolled the Mississippi Valley's soils and America's religious and political freedoms. These and several newly published travelers' accounts often were quoted in Swedish newspapers and by street-corner speakers making attacks on the government.
Bishop Hill as a communal society
These developments churned in the mind of Eric Jansson, who in 1845 sent Olof Olsson to scout out Midwestern property for settlement by Jansson and his followers. Although Olsson initially planned to visit Minnesota and Wisconsin, a Swede in New York recommended the neighborhood around Victoria, Illinois, where his brother was happily farming the rich prairie. Olsson traveled to west-central Illinois and liked what he saw, eventually selecting a site in Henry County. It had running water and a grove of trees, but most of all it possessed rich soil unencumbered with rocks.
Not only dissenters from Sweden were attracted to this region. Half of America's ninety-nine communitarian colonies in the1800-1850 period were founded on the Middle Western frontier, most originating not among local residents but from movements in the East or Europe. The Mormons at Nauvoo, and the later Icarians there, were typical of such groups, which featured common ownership of land and buildings; equal pay for all labor was also usual. Somewhat similar to these were several planned communities. Henry County attracted five New England planned colonies in the 1830s � eventually the communities of Andover, Wethersfield (later Kewanee), LaGrange, Morristown, and Geneseo. The Swedish group was scarcely unusual, then, as it headed for the Illinois frontier to launch a new society.
Janson � he dropped the second s from his name upon reaching America-arrived at New York City in June 1846 with148 others including his wife and two children. Some facets of Janson's theology had already begun to unravel: the prophet had said that his followers would not get sick en route; they would immediately be able to speak English when stepping on American soil. Neither prediction proved accurate. Ten members abandoned the group in New York, twenty-seven in Chicago.
When they reached Bishop Hill � so named by the prophet after his birth place � the Swedish travelers may have found a paradise of Nature, but Nature had made no provisions for human habitation. During their first winter, they lived in dugouts gouged from the sides of ravines. The colony's church served as housing after its construction in 1848, as new immigrants further boosted the population. Such crowding aided the spread of cholera, which hit Illinois with virulence in 1849 and killed 143 Jansonists in three months. The population that had grown to 800 in 1847 fell to only 406 for the 1850 census. Land purchases continued, however, and the 1,420 acres owned by the colony in 1850 grew to 12,000 acres by 1860.
Bishop Hill quickly became a communal society. "[W]e have contributed all our belongings to this commonly owned property ..." a colonist explained. And so they lived and worked together, following a course they believed was taken by the early Christians. This attracted attention around the area, and Bishop Hill began to draw visitors. One observer told of seeing fifty men cultivating a two-mile-long cornfield, and fifty milkmaids milking 200 cows. Not all labored in the fields. Others followed such trades as shoemaking, or brickmaking, marketing, or buying. The daughter of a colonist later recalled that "Certain tasks were for those in the prime of their strength. Other tasks were for the aged or feeble, or for the boys and girls." But everyone had a job.
A writer who studied the colony soon after its decline concluded that the Jansonists had more comfort and security than the pioneers settling around them. This drew attention, and a colony member explained, "The Americans come in droves to see how we have it, and it surprises them that we can live together like this."
Although criticism from Americans was occasionally heard � none as harsh as that known in Sweden, however � the fall of Eric Janson and the eventual dissolution of his colony had internal origins. Janson allowed no negative comments about Bishop Hill. "I have acted consistently with my preaching. Those who are dissatisfied are
deceived by the devil, " he told one challenger, who promptly left to join a group of defectors at nearby Andover; many others went to Galesburg, Victoria, Lafayette, and Chicago.
This refusal by Janson to accept any challenge to his leadership ran into severe trouble in the case of John Root, a Swedish wanderer who had married Janson's cousin Charlotta Louisa at Bishop Hill in November 1849. Root left to resume his wandering, returning later to urge Charlotta and their baby boy to flee the continuing cholera epidemic. She refused, setting off a complex series of events as she and the child tried to hide and flee, aided by Janson. During a recess in the resulting lawsuit, Root fatally shot Janson. Root received only a two-year prison term, and Governor Joel Matteson soon yielded to popular sympathy and pardoned him. Charlotta obtained a divorce in 1853.
Rather than being destroyed by these events, the colony at Bishop Hill began its period of greatest prosperity as the communal system adapted to varied economic endeavors. A Swedish engineer who visited in 1856 admitted that "Erik Jansson ... was possibly a great prophet but certainly no economist...." He noted that under new leadership the colony grew until it had hundreds of horses, mules, oxen, and cows � "I have never seen so many pigs in one place as I have here" � plus a thriving broomcorn project that brought $36,000 in broom sales in 1854. Flax thrived on the prairie, and the colony annually produced thousands of yards of linen cloth and carpeting. Carriages, wagons, and bricks were manufactured for outside sale. Within the colony a dozen substantial brick buildings were erected, including "Big Brick," a dining and residence hall hailed as the largest building in America west of Chicago, and the area's only hospital. Food was abundant for the colonists.
But it was not to last. First came the nationwide financial panic of 1857, which left strings of bankruptcies across Illinois and devastated Bishop Hill, which had over extended credit to purchasers of its products. Several members had been expelled over the years, but now dissension increased sharply. Some called it "Bishop Hell," and began agitating for a division of the community's assets.
Illinois Map
Dissolution occurred in 1861, and many residents now settled on their own farm plots carved from the colony's extensive holdings, or on town lots in nearby Galva, Some continued to live in apartments at Bishop Hill. Many joined the Methodist, Baptist, Second Adventist, or Swedish Mission churches. Over the years clusters of Bishop Hill folk moved west to Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. Many gave up the communal system reluctantly and gradually, and did not criticize it.
The Bishop Hill settlers had established a beachhead for Swedes in Illinois. Their letters detailing the advantages of both prairie soil and American freedom stimulated new rounds of Swedish emigration. The Illinois Central Railroad quickly saw Swedes as potential purchasers of its lands in the 1850s and 1860s, publishing thousands of Swedish advertising pamphlets and even dispatching an immigrant back to the homeland to recruit buyers. The railroad eventually helped Augustana College develop at Paxton. (Later it was moved to Rock Island).
Although life became less harsh within Sweden as reforms were instituted, emigration had become an accepted activity and was no longer a subject of scorn. A severe famine in the late 1860s further encouraged the exodus, and the resulting "swarming of the Swedes" helped many Illinois communities boom, including "Swedish Town" on Chicago's north side. By 1890 Swedes formed close to 10 per cent of Chicago's foreign-born. By that time there were many heavily Swedish towns across the state. Swedes had become an important part of Illinois' population, due in part to the initial thrust onto the prairie of a small group of religious dissenters.
Doorway to Illinois
Bishop Hill: Sweden's Doorway into Illinois
Mark Wyman
Historical Research and Narrative
A strange procession could be seen making its way across the Henry County landscape on late-summer evenings in the late 1840s and 1850s. The event was perhaps out of place on the American frontier, where yeoman farmers and their families usually struggled to survive with little help beyond the sporadic aid of a few neighbors or relatives. But at Bishop Hill it was different:
Two by two, in a long procession a couple of hundred strong, the harvesters wended their homeward way, first the men carrying their cradle-scythes over their shoulders, then the women with their handrakes, and, finally, the children, all singing some merry harvest-song of their native country, while keeping step to the music.
Harvesting the fields
The harvesters belonged to the Swedish religious colony at Bishop Hill, a group often studied today for its religious theology, its struggles with the Swedish Lutheran Church, its importance as a Utopian settlement on the American frontier, and for the dramatic events surrounding its founder's murder in 1850. But the colony also merits attention because it marked the initial foray into Illinois of a Swedish immigration stream that quickly increased from the 1,123 Swedes counted in the 1850 state census, to 6,460 in Illinois by 1860, then exploded. By 1900 Illinois had almost 100,000 Swedes � second only to Minnesota's 115,476 in the United States. And this was but a small part of the total exodus from Sweden. By 1930 only Ireland and Norway had lost more citizens per capita than Sweden to emigration. By that year, the United States had 1.5 million Swedish-born residents, and one in five Swedes resided in America. Historians of immigration agree that much of the Swedish exodus to Illinois and the United States can be traced to the impact of the flight of followers of Eric Jansson to Bishop Hill in 1846.
They came from a land torn in the1830s and 1840s by religious and economic strife. The state Lutheran church had grown so rigid and doctrinaire that critics called it "a magnificent ice palace." Challenges were mounting against the church's heavy-handed control, and groups called lasare � "readers" � held secret meetings to discuss the Bible, free of the clergy's dictates. A religious revival gained momentum, powered by attacks on drinking, card playing, dancing, and above all on the state church.
One of the leaders emerging from this emotional firestorm was Eric Jansson, born in 1808 in the Swedish parish of Biskopskulla ("bishop hill"). After a religious conversion in 1830 he began preaching for perfection in personal conduct. Those truly converted to Christ were free from sin, Jansson argued; if an individual had sin, that in itself was evidence that the person was not truly a Christian. Jansson's preaching took a more aggressive tone after he visited the Uppsala market in 1840 and was repelled by the activities he witnessed there. Soon he and his followers were burning
2
piles of religious books, challenging Swedish laws, and occasionally being thrown into jail.
At that moment in Swedish history, when large numbers of citizens were frustrated by the controls of both church and state, reports began to arrive from across the ocean that pictured both America and Illinois as a paradise, a Utopia. Letters from the few early Swedish pioneers who had ventured into the Midwest extolled the Mississippi Valley's soils and America's religious and political freedoms. These and several newly published travelers' accounts often were quoted in Swedish newspapers and by street-corner speakers making attacks on the government.
Bishop Hill as a communal society
These developments churned in the mind of Eric Jansson, who in 1845 sent Olof Olsson to scout out Midwestern property for settlement by Jansson and his followers. Although Olsson initially planned to visit Minnesota and Wisconsin, a Swede in New York recommended the neighborhood around Victoria, Illinois, where his brother was happily farming the rich prairie. Olsson traveled to west-central Illinois and liked what he saw, eventually selecting a site in Henry County. It had running water and a grove of trees, but most of all it possessed rich soil unencumbered with rocks.
Not only dissenters from Sweden were attracted to this region. Half of America's ninety-nine communitarian colonies in the1800-1850 period were founded on the Middle Western frontier, most originating not among local residents but from movements in the East or Europe. The Mormons at Nauvoo, and the later Icarians there, were typical of such groups, which featured common ownership of land and buildings; equal pay for all labor was also usual. Somewhat similar to these were several planned communities. Henry County attracted five New England planned colonies in the 1830s � eventually the communities of Andover, Wethersfield (later Kewanee), LaGrange, Morristown, and Geneseo. The Swedish group was scarcely unusual, then, as it headed for the Illinois frontier to launch a new society.
Janson � he dropped the second s from his name upon reaching America-arrived at New York City in June 1846 with148 others including his wife and two children. Some facets of Janson's theology had already begun to unravel: the prophet had said that his followers would not get sick en route; they would immediately be able to speak English when stepping on American soil. Neither prediction proved accurate. Ten members abandoned the group in New York, twenty-seven in Chicago.
When they reached Bishop Hill � so named by the prophet after his birth place � the Swedish travelers may have found a paradise of Nature, but Nature had made no provisions for human habitation. During their first winter, they lived in dugouts gouged from the sides of ravines. The colony's church served as housing after its construction in 1848, as new immigrants further boosted the population. Such crowding aided the spread of cholera, which hit Illinois with virulence in 1849 and killed 143 Jansonists in three months. The population that had grown to 800 in 1847 fell to only 406 for the 1850 census. Land purchases continued, however, and the 1,420 acres owned by the colony in 1850 grew to 12,000 acres by 1860.
Bishop Hill quickly became a communal society. "[W]e have contributed all our belongings to this commonly owned property ..." a colonist explained. And so they lived and worked together, following a course they believed was taken by the early Christians. This attracted attention around the area, and Bishop Hill began to draw visitors. One observer told of seeing fifty men cultivating a two-mile-long cornfield, and fifty milkmaids milking 200 cows. Not all labored in the fields. Others followed such trades as shoemaking, or brickmaking, marketing, or buying. The daughter of a colonist later recalled that "Certain tasks were for those in the prime of their strength. Other tasks were for the aged or feeble, or for the boys and girls." But everyone had a job.
A writer who studied the colony soon after its decline concluded that the Jansonists had more comfort and security than the pioneers settling around them. This drew attention, and a colony member explained, "The Americans come in droves to see how we have it, and it surprises them that we can live together like this."
Although criticism from Americans was occasionally heard � none as harsh as that known in Sweden, however � the fall of Eric Janson and the eventual dissolution of his colony had internal origins. Janson allowed no negative comments about Bishop Hill. "I have acted consistently with my preaching. Those who are dissatisfied are
deceived by the devil, " he told one challenger, who promptly left to join a group of defectors at nearby Andover; many others went to Galesburg, Victoria, Lafayette, and Chicago.
This refusal by Janson to accept any challenge to his leadership ran into severe trouble in the case of John Root, a Swedish wanderer who had married Janson's cousin Charlotta Louisa at Bishop Hill in November 1849. Root left to resume his wandering, returning later to urge Charlotta and their baby boy to flee the continuing cholera epidemic. She refused, setting off a complex series of events as she and the child tried to hide and flee, aided by Janson. During a recess in the resulting lawsuit, Root fatally shot Janson. Root received only a two-year prison term, and Governor Joel Matteson soon yielded to popular sympathy and pardoned him. Charlotta obtained a divorce in 1853.
Rather than being destroyed by these events, the colony at Bishop Hill began its period of greatest prosperity as the communal system adapted to varied economic endeavors. A Swedish engineer who visited in 1856 admitted that "Erik Jansson ... was possibly a great prophet but certainly no economist...." He noted that under new leadership the colony grew until it had hundreds of horses, mules, oxen, and cows � "I have never seen so many pigs in one place as I have here" � plus a thriving broomcorn project that brought $36,000 in broom sales in 1854. Flax thrived on the prairie, and the colony annually produced thousands of yards of linen cloth and carpeting. Carriages, wagons, and bricks were manufactured for outside sale. Within the colony a dozen substantial brick buildings were erected, including "Big Brick," a dining and residence hall hailed as the largest building in America west of Chicago, and the area's only hospital. Food was abundant for the colonists.
But it was not to last. First came the nationwide financial panic of 1857, which left strings of bankruptcies across Illinois and devastated Bishop Hill, which had over extended credit to purchasers of its products. Several members had been expelled over the years, but now dissension increased sharply. Some called it "Bishop Hell," and began agitating for a division of the community's assets.
Illinois Map
Dissolution occurred in 1861, and many residents now settled on their own farm plots carved from the colony's extensive holdings, or on town lots in nearby Galva, Some continued to live in apartments at Bishop Hill. Many joined the Methodist, Baptist, Second Adventist, or Swedish Mission churches. Over the years clusters of Bishop Hill folk moved west to Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa. Many gave up the communal system reluctantly and gradually, and did not criticize it.
The Bishop Hill settlers had established a beachhead for Swedes in Illinois. Their letters detailing the advantages of both prairie soil and American freedom stimulated new rounds of Swedish emigration. The Illinois Central Railroad quickly saw Swedes as potential purchasers of its lands in the 1850s and 1860s, publishing thousands of Swedish advertising pamphlets and even dispatching an immigrant back to the homeland to recruit buyers. The railroad eventually helped Augustana College develop at Paxton. (Later it was moved to Rock Island).
Although life became less harsh within Sweden as reforms were instituted, emigration had become an accepted activity and was no longer a subject of scorn. A severe famine in the late 1860s further encouraged the exodus, and the resulting "swarming of the Swedes" helped many Illinois communities boom, including "Swedish Town" on Chicago's north side. By 1890 Swedes formed close to 10 per cent of Chicago's foreign-born. By that time there were many heavily Swedish towns across the state. Swedes had become an important part of Illinois' population, due in part to the initial thrust onto the prairie of a small group of religious dissenters.
Chimney Rock, NE
Chimney Rock near Scottsbluff, NE
- on Oregon trail
The Chimney Rock National Historic Site and Visitors Center is about 5 miles SE of Jct of Nebraska Hwy 92 & US Hwy 26 near Bayard, NE --approximately 25 miles SE of Scottsbluff on Hwy 92. The popular Historic Chimney Rock Attraction is visible from some distance - the most recognized landmark on the Oregon Trail. The spire of Chimney Rock was measured at about 500 feet above the river in 1890. It is estimated that a total of about 30 feet have been lost to a 1992 lightning hit that knocked off 4 feet plus the effects of weather over the last 110+ years.
The Mormon Trail
Location:The Mormon Pioneer Trail
The trail from Nauvoo, Illinois, to the Great Salt Lake Valley was approximately 1,300 miles long and would ultimately lead 70,000 pioneers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the West. Take the journey with them. Stop along the trail and read their own accounts of what happened.
Nauvoo, Illinois: 1839-1846
As the Latter-day Saints fled Missouri during the winter of 1838–1839, having been threatened by the governor of that state with extermination, they crossed into Illinois and settled in a swampy area along the Mississippi River that they named Nauvoo. Over the next few years, an estimated 16,000 Latter-day Saints took up residence in the city and its surrounding communities. It became one of the largest cities in Illinois at the time and an important commercial center on the upper Mississippi.
Many in the surrounding communities continued to harass the Latter-day Saints, and on 27 June 1844, a painted mob shot to death the Latter-day prophet, Joseph Smith, and his brother Hyrum. Despite the rapidly escalating tension in the area, the Latter-day Saints continued at great sacrifice to complete a temple in the city, even while they prepared for a mass exodus to the West. Between February and September 1846, most of the Latter-day Saints took up their march to the West, leaving their homes, their city, and their temple to the hands of those who had not built and the hearts of those who did not care.
Today Nauvoo is a significant historic district, with many of the buildings in the original townsite rebuilt or restored and open for the public to visit.
Cities Abandoned
In all of United States history, few people have suffered for their religious convictions as did the early Latter-day Saints. Because of the rapid growth of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and what many contemporary religionists viewed as the heretical doctrine of living prophets and modern revelation, many outsiders viewed Latter-day Saints with suspicion and contempt. During the first two decades of the Church's existence, Latter-day Saints repeatedly experienced the cycle of migration, settlement (including purchasing the lands they settled in), and expulsion. Within the span of 17 years, the fast-growing body of Latter-day Saints moved en masse from the Finger Lakes region of western New York state (1830-1831), to Kirtland, Ohio (1831-1838), Jackson County, Missouri (1831-1839) and Commerce/Nauvoo, Illinois (1839-1848), where their prophet, Joseph Smith, was murdered by a mob. In the dead of winter 1846, the Latter-day Saints once again abandoned their homes and began the long, hard trek to the Rocky Mountains, where they would at last find welcome refuge.
Extermination Order
Following eight years of convergence and settlement by thousands of Latter-day Saint converts in northern Missouri, tensions with neighboring communities reached a climax. On 27 October 1838, Missouri Governor Lilburn W. Boggs signed one of the most heinous documents in American history, his Mormon "extermination order," declaring, "The Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated, or driven from the State, if necessary for the public peace" (quoted in History of the Church, 3:175). This military directive called for the forced mid-winter exodus from Missouri of approximately 10,000 men, women and children from their own farms, homes, and lands.
On 25 June 1976, Missouri Governor Christopher S. Bond issued an executive order rescinding the Extermination Order, noting its legal invalidity and formally apologizing in behalf of the state of Missouri for the suffering it had caused the Latter-day Saints.
Nauvoo, Illinois: From Ecstasy to Exodus
In all of Church history, perhaps nothing symbolizes the pragmatic nature of Latter-day Saint religion as does the city of Nauvoo. On the very hem of the western frontier, the Latter-day Saints drained the swamps, wrote an ambitious city charter, established a university, mounted a city militia, and built a temple.
To Nauvoo and its vicinity came the great majority of all Latter-day Saint converts for the next seven years, swelling the population to about 20,000 by 1846. At its height it rivaled Chicago as the largest city in the state. A vibrant, culturally eclectic place, it came to be known as "Nauvoo, the Beautiful."
Death of Joseph Smith
The relative peace and prosperity of the Nauvoo period was short-lived. Political maneuvering for the "Mormon vote" at the state level had granted the municipality perhaps the most liberal city charter in the state, and Nauvoo was seen as both a political and economic threat by many in the older, neighboring communities. At the height of tensions, a local opposition newspaper called for mob action against the Saints, to which the city council responded by destroying the offending printing press. Amidst growing regional clamor for, once again, the Saints' extermination, Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were jailed. On 27 June 1844, a mob stormed Carthage jail and shot the brothers to death in their prison cell.
The American Exodus
Following the death of Joseph Smith in 1844, ire against the Saints rose rapidly. In 1845, the repeal of the Nauvoo City charter, which among other things granted the Latter-day Saints the right to keep a standing militia for their own protection, signaled the effective end of their sojourn in Illinois. These events, however, merely catalyzed a move contemplated by Church leaders for a number of years. As early as 1840 Joseph Smith had taught there was "a place of safety preparing for [the Saints] away towards the Rocky Mountains" (quoted in Ronald K. Esplin, "'A Place Prepared': Joseph, Brigham and the Quest for Promised Refuge in the West," Journal of Mormon History vol.9 [1982], 90). By the fall of 1845, preparations for the exodus were well under way; the proposed departure date would be, in the words of Brigham Young, "as soon as the grass grows" (quoted in Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion: The Story of the Mormon Trail, [1964], 38) in the following spring. But the mobs wouldn't rest. On 4 February 1846, in the heart of a Midwestern winter so cold and bitter the Mississippi River froze over, the Latter-day Saints were driven from their homes and lands down a street which came to be known as the "Street of Tears" and into the unknown mystery of the western frontier.
Religious Freedom
Although the body of Latter-day Saints grew rapidly, swelling the population of a number of frontier communities, the Saints were no theocratic usurpers: "We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may" (Articles of Faith 1:11). But as they gathered converts, they gathered enemies, leaving themselves, ultimately, no choice but departure. In a letter addressed to U.S. President James K. Polk in 1846, Brigham Young gave notice of the farewell:
"We would esteem a territorial government of our own as one of the richest boons of earth, and while we appreciate the Constitution of the United States as the most precious among the nations, we feel that we had rather retreat to the deserts, islands or mountain caves than consent to be ruled by governors and judges whose hands are drenched in the blood of innocence and virtue, who delight in injustice and oppression." Thus, they walked (quoted in B.H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church, 3:89-90).
Value of the Exodus
"For Brigham Young and his associates, the 1846 exodus from Nauvoo, far from being a disaster imposed by enemies, was foretold and foreordained—a key to understanding LDS history and a necessary prelude for greater things to come. From a later perspective too, scholars of the Mormon experience have come to see the exodus and colonization of the Great Basin as the single most important influence in molding the Latter-day Saints into a distinctive people" (Reed C. Durham Jr., "Westward Migration, Planning and Prophecy," in Daniel H. Ludlow, ed., Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 5 vols. [1992], 4:1563).
Mississippi River Crossing
From February through September of 1846, thousands of Latter-day Saints abandoned Nauvoo, fleeing to the West in barges and ferries across the Mississippi River. Some of those who crossed in late February did so on ice, as the wide river froze solid in sub-zero temperatures. A number of diarists refer to the freezing as a miracle, even though, notes one commentator, "it was a miracle that nearly froze a couple of thousand Saints" (Wallace Stegner, The Gathering of Zion, 44). The majority, some 7,000 or more, left between March and May. By September only six or seven hundred remained in Nauvoo. Known as the "poor Saints," they were either physically or financially incapable of traveling west by themselves to join the main body of the Saints now near the western edge of Iowa. Mobs forced this last group from the city in mid-September, 1846, in what came to be known as "the battle of Nauvoo."
Iowa: Bitter Beginning
Of the entire trek to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, it was the first 300 miles across Iowa that most tried the stamina and courage of the Latter-day Saint pioneers. Mere weeks into the journey—through sleet, blizzard, and mud—it became apparent to Brigham Young that his people would never reach the Rocky Mountains in the time or in the manner that most had hoped for. So throughout the spring of 1846, thousands of refugees trudged across the windswept Iowa prairies, preparing the way for those yet to come: building bridges, erecting cabins, planting and fencing crops. By mid-June, nearly 12,000 Saints were still scattered across Iowa. The Rocky Mountain entry would be postponed.
Joseph Smith
"The place was literally a wilderness. The land was mostly covered with trees and bushes, and much of it was so wet that it was with the utmost difficulty that a footman could get through, and totally impossible for teams. Commerce was unhealthy, very few could live there; but believing that it might become a healthy place by the blessing of heaven to the saints, and no more eligible place presenting itself, I considered it wisdom to make an attempt to build up a city" (Joseph Smith quoted in B.H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church, 2:9).
Brigham Young
1846
In a letter addressed to U.S. President James K. Polk, Brigham Young gave notice of the Latter-day Saints' farewell:
"We would esteem a territorial government of our own as one of the richest boons of earth, and while we appreciate the Constitution of the United States as the most precious among the nations, we feel that we had rather retreat to the deserts, islands or mountain caves than consent to be ruled by governors and judges whose hands are drenched in the blood of innocence and virtue, who delight in injustice and oppression" (B.H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church, 3:89–90.)
Thomas Bullock
September 1846
"Dear Father,
"I have been shaking every day for the last month and can scarce write any—I received yours of Aug. 14 while shaking at ten or twelve knots an hour—and as you told me not to perform any impossibilities—I have hitherto found it an impossibility to sell my house and lot—but the very next morning I wrought [a] miracle, in giving it away for one hundred dollars. The only obstacle in the successful termination of my miracle is, I have not yet got the hay—you may rest assured I have done, and will do my best to come I have a very kind neighbor, who, as quick as he heard I had bargained for the disposal of my place, began to run it down, and has caused Mr. Bolander to waver about completing his purchase. May the Lord reward him for it, and a few other vagaries.
"I have also received yours of the 24th Aug—brought from the Trustees Office to the Temple &c &c &c with the seal broken open—in order to find out the nature of our communications—I have written about seven letters to you—which I verily believe have been waylaid—and I was getting much disappointed in not receiving one reply—but I am very thankful for these two.
"Even my little boy says 'dadda I wish we were out of this country, for when I've done shaking I can get nothing to eat—we have all been 'shake, shake, shaking' more or less for the last five weeks. A fortnight ago, I, Henrietta, & Thomas Henry were not expected to live thro the day—I sent to the Trustees for something to cure us or we might be dead before the morrow—Heywood & Fulmer ordered Whitehead to come up & see us, & learn what I needed—but he has never been yet—and if it had not been for a little Charity—and Henrietta selling her clothes we should all have died of starvation—it will almost be a miracle if you see little Willard alive for he has fallen away dreadful this week—and if you was to see me and my family at this moment, you would say we had either been whitewashed or had risen out of our graves—we have not the least idea where our next meal is to come from. I do not write these things to harass your mind—but to tell you my situation, and to shew you that I am really desirous to come to you and again go at the history. At this moment my two eldest boys are shaking.
"Yesterday I exerted all my strength to go & see Benson, & Lucy. She went home about a fortnight ago sick. She is also confined to her bed with fever—Benson looks a skeleton—they subsist by selling their clothes for food—when he gets better, he talks of selling his cow and going down to New Orleans to obtain employment—he says it is impossible for him to get teams or food for his journey to the West—Ann is nearly dead, she is almost reduced to shadow—she first commenced with chills and fever, and is now afflicted with canker in her inside.
"John Rushton is Steam boating and I understand is very well his wife & child were well the last time we heard—Jane Hall is down at St. Louis—and I have just heard that Susannah Lippot started for St. Louis & expect she is there.
"Before I was taken sick—while hunting the oxen—I accendentally found out brother Longstrath's house. I called. Sister Nanny was very well. bro & sis Longstrath were down at St. Louis. I understood that you had written three letters to him and which were sent down to him—but there had been no reply.
"There have been a many Saints who were preparing as fast as they could to go to the west—who have gone to the grave. Many literally dying for want—whole families are sick—and not one to help the other—two or three dying in a house—great difficulty in getting coffins and then to be buried by strangers—there is not one house in this neighborhood, but there has been sickness in it—there appears to me to be more sick now than when Nauvoo was crowded with Saints.
"In addition to all this, the Mob is within five miles—close to Wilcox house—about 5 or 600 Strong & with 8 cannon—those Saints who are well are in the woods this side of Joseph's farm—the Cannon were roaring about 5 P.M. yesterday but I have not yet heard of any casualties on our side.
"We should have crossed the River this day, sick as we are—to secure your Cattle & Waggon & my few cloths but cannot pay the Ferryman, the Mob threaten if they get in the city to kill man woman & child & they have invited men from all the counties to join them—promising them that they shall share in the plunder of the city. Rest assured I keep as strict a look out after your cattle as if they were my own—they cost 125.00 & Waggon 80. I have spent scores of days looking after them and shall bring all safe to you, if possible.
"I am in hopes that I shall cross the river in a few days and shall move on to Bonaparte where I shall have to stay for the flour that Mr. Bolander has promised me.
"There is another utter impossibility—and that is, to expect the Trustees to let me have two more yoke of oxen, or a fit out, (altho' both have been promised me) and that is the reason why I contracted to let Mr. Bolander have my property so very cheap.
"The South West Pillar of the Belfry was struck with the Lightning last Su[nday] [paper torn off] was done—some persons seem to be scared about it.
"Hyrum Smith's Widow &c &c crossed the River last Tuesday. & I have [paper torn off] has exchanged the Mansion for a Farm in Burlington—to which place she is [paper torn off]
"Henrietta joins me in love to you and yours—and we pray that [paper torn off]
"I remain Dear Father
"Your very affectionately
"Thomas Bullock
"Please tell William Cook Mitchell that his mother died last Tuesday morning 10 September 184[6]" (Thomas Bullock to Willard Richards, Sept. 1846, Brigham Young office files, Family and Church History Department Archives, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)
Thomas L. Kane, Nauvoo
"Here, among the docks and rushes, sheltered only by the darkness, without roof between them and the sky, I came upon a crowd of several hundred human creatures, whom my movements roused from uneasy slumber upon the ground. . . .
"Dreadful, indeed, was the suffering of these forsaken beings. Bowed and cramped by cold and sunburn, alternating as each weary day and night dragged on, they were, almost all of them, the crippled victims of disease. They were there because they had no homes, nor hospital, nor poor-house nor friends to offer them any. They could not satisfy the feeble cravings of their sick: they had not bread to quiet the fractious hunger cries of their children. Mothers and babes, daughters and grandparents, all of them alike, were bivouacked in tatters, wanting even covering to comfort those whom the sick shiver of fever was searching to the marrow.
"These were Mormons, famishing, in Lee county, Iowa, in the fourth week of the month of September, in the year of our Lord 1846. . . .
"They were, all told, not more than six hundred and forty persons who were thus lying on the river flats. But the Mormons in Nauvoo and its dependencies had been numbered the year before at over twenty thousand. Where were they? They had last been seen, carrying in mournful trains their sick and wounded, halt and blind, to disappear behind the western horizon, pursuing the phantom of another home" (Thomas L. Kane, The Mormons: A Discourse Delivered Before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, March 26, 1850 [Family and Church History jDepartment Library, The Church of Jesus Christ or Latter-day Saints, 1850], microfilm, 8–11).
Gilbert Belnap
"The western shore of the Mississippi was covered with the canvass of the Saints, drawn over a wagon and well formed tent or the thread bare sheet stretched over a few poles covering the invalid form of the more unfortunate.
"Many is the time while keeping the watchmans post in the darkness of night when the rains descended as if the windows of heaven were open, have I wept over the distressed situation of the Saints. Towards the dim light of many and flickering lamps has directed my eyes to the crying of children, the restless movements of the aged and infirm, the mournfull groan of many a fevered brain, had made an impression on my mind that can never be forgotten" (Gilbert Belnap, Centennial Issue in Honor of Utah Poineer Gilbert Belnap, 1850–1950, comp. Della A. Belnap, Historical Department Archives, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, n.d., 32).
Juliet Courier
Correspondent to the Juliet Courier describing Nauvoo (ca. June 1841)
"I have been at Nauvoo, on the Mississippi, in Hancock county, Illinois, and have seen the manner in which things are conducted among the Mormons. In the first place, I cannot help noticing the plain hospitality of the Prophet Smith, to all strangers visiting the town, aided as he is, in making the stranger comfortable by his excellent wife, a woman of superior ability. The people of the town appear to be honest and industrious, engaged in their usual vocations of building up a town, and making all things around them comfortable. On Sunday I attended one of their meetings, in front of the temple [they are] now building, and one of the largest buildings in the state. There could not have been less than 2,500 people present, and as well appearing as any number that could be found in this or any state. Mr. Smith preached in the morning, and one could have readily learned, then, the magic by which he had built up this society, because, as we say in Illinois, 'they believe in him,' and in his honesty. It has been a matter of astonishment to me, after seeing the Prophet, as he is called, Elder Rigdon, and many other gentlemanly men any one may see at Nauvoo, who will visit there—why it is, that so many professing christianity, and so many professing to reverence the sacred principles of our Constitution (which gives free religious toleration to all), have slandered and persecuted this sect of Christians" (Unknown correspondent for the Juliet Courier [ca. June 1841], as quoted in B.H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church, 2:82).
The Odd Fellow newspaper (31 December 1845)
"One of the most interesting, and it may be, remarkable events of our day, is the proposed removal of the Mormons from their city of Nauvoo, across the continent, to the Pacific. They will go, not as ordinary emigrants, but as a distinct people. . . . [Mormonism] has grown as no other sect has in the history of the world, and, so far from dying out, as it was predicted it would, with the death of the Smiths, it has grown more vigorously. . . . Next spring will witness their flitting. The Mormons propose going in bodies as large as can find sustenance, and the broad prairies of the West will be covered with their long processions of men, women, and children, their flocks, [and] their herds" ("The Mormon Heritage," Odd Fellow, 31 Dec. 1845, 108).
Times and Seasons
"To see such a large body of men, women and children, compelled by the inefficiency of the law, and potency of mobocracy, to leave a great city in the month of February, for the sake of the enjoyment of pure religion, fills the soul with astonishment, and gives the world a sample of fidelity and faith, brilliant as the sun, and forcible as a tempest, and as enduring as eternity.
May God continue the spirit of fleeing from false freedom, and false dignity, till every Saint is removed to where he 'can sit under his own vine and fig tree' without having any to molest or make afraid. Let us go—let us go" ("February," Times and Seasons, 1 Feb. 1846, 1114).
Prairie Trails Museum of Wayne County
The Mormon Trail
Many visitors come to the Prairie Trails Museum of Wayne County each year to view the story of the Mormon Trail.
Prairie Trails Museum Prairie Trails Museum
A special exhibit commemorating the Mormon Trail can be found in the Pioneer Trails gallery.
The exhibit depicts the hardships of the pioneers as they traveled on their westward journey. The hymn "Come, Come Ye Saints" was written by William Clayton on the banks of Locust Creek in southwestern Wayne County as the Mormon pioneers traveled across the area.
Check out these sites
Genealogy Websites
* FamilySearch Genealogy Service
* Iowa Genealogical Society
* RootsWeb
* The USGen Web Project
* WorldGen Web Project
* FamilySearch Genealogy Service
* Iowa Genealogical Society
* RootsWeb
* The USGen Web Project
* WorldGen Web Project
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Sarah Goode Marshall
Ensign » 2006 » July
Some Must Push and Some Must Pull
Compiled by Linda Dekker, Church Magazines
Linda Dekker, “Some Must Push and Some Must Pull,” Ensign, Jul 2006, 38–47
June 9, 2006, marked the 150th anniversary of the first handcart company to leave Iowa City, Iowa, for the Salt Lake Valley. Imagine what it was like to travel with one of the 10 handcart companies from 1856 through 1860 as you read the journal entries of those who did.
Sarah Goode Marshall had no formal education as a youth in Abenhall, England. However, she was a devoted reader of the Bible. “There is more in the Bible than the ministers understand,” she often remarked. After she learned of the gospel, she walked 20 miles with her baby in her arms to hear the missionaries. But her husband, Tom, was strongly opposed to her new beliefs and her desire to join the Saints.
In the summer of 1854 her husband died, leaving her penniless with six small children. She was baptized and worked for two years as a “lady’s maid” during the day and made kid gloves at night to earn enough money to emigrate.
The night before she left England with her children, all under the age of 12, her extended family and friends gathered to say good-bye. Some of the presiding elders of the British Mission were also invited. During the gathering Sarah’s family begged her not to leave, telling her that she and her children would die. One of the elders heard the discouraging remarks. He rose to his feet and, by the power of God, promised her that she would complete the journey successfully and not lose one of her children on the way. (The elder’s promise was fulfilled.) 1
On Saturday, April 19, 1856, Sarah and her young family boarded the ship Samuel Curling and sailed from Liverpool, England. After five weeks they arrived in Boston, Massachusetts, where they went by train to Iowa City, Iowa. Here they became part of the Ellsworth company, the first handcart company to cross the plains to the Salt Lake Valley.
Sarah Goode Marshall’s story is similar to those of hundreds of emigrants from England, Wales, and other parts of Europe, who made up the majority of the 10 handcart companies that crossed the plains from 1856 through 1860. Eight of the 10 companies traveled with little mishap, but the Willie and Martin companies were caught in early snowstorms in 1856 that led to the deaths of more than 200 Saints.
What follows is a sampling of events involving the handcart companies as they traveled to the Salt Lake Valley.
On the Trail in Iowa
1856: Mr. Charles Good, a store owner in Des Moines, Iowa, was compassionate toward children. A life sketch says that “he could not see them in want or suffering.”
On July 31, 1856, the Willie handcart company passed through downtown Des Moines, likely within a block or two of Mr. Good’s store. Apparently Mr. Good’s decision to donate 15 pairs of children’s boots from his store shelves to the handcart company came from his seeing the pioneer children as they passed through town that morning.
Of the 500 members of the Willie handcart company, at least 84 were children between the ages of 3 and 12. No doubt some were barefoot. Charles knew they had a long walk ahead of them and that many of those small feet would need protection sooner or later. So he went to where they were camped and offered the boots to children who needed them. 2
1856: Priscilla M. Evans, a woman from Wales, traveled with the Bunker handcart company. Her words reflect the optimism felt by the handcart pioneers, even amid their many hardships: “People made fun of us as we walked, pulling our carts, but the weather was fine and the roads were excellent and although I was sick and we were very tired at night, still we thought it was a glorious way to go to Zion.” 3
On the Trail in Nebraska
1860: Six-year-old Mary Ann Stucki from Switzerland traveled with the Stoddard company. She remembers the mosquitoes that gave them a “hearty welcome” the first night out from Florence, Nebraska. Weeks later it was the rain that affected them. She wrote: “A cover on the handcart shielded the … younger children [from the rain]. … At night, when the handcarts were drawn up in a circle and the fires were lighted, the camp looked quite happy. Singing, music, and speeches by the leaders cheered everyone.” 4
1856: Ellen Perks was nearly 12 years old when her father sent her ahead to the Salt Lake Valley alone with the Bunker handcart company. One day she and two other girls “took a handcart and filled it with little children, too small to walk.” When they became tired of pulling through the sand, they moved off the trail to rest with the handcart full of children and missed the rest of the company. “We traveled until dusk, then seeing the campfires down near the river, found they had had supper and that a few men were ready to start out to hunt for us. We were very tired and received a lecture never to be forgotten.” 5
1856: One evening at about 11:00 p.m., Sarah Goode Marshall of the Ellsworth company was preparing her rations for the next day. She was “in a very lonely state,” listening “to the strange cries of prowling beasts and birds.” She was startled from her thoughts by a young man from their company who asked her for something to eat. She shared her limited rations with him, but “he was found dead in his bed the next morning.” Sarah told her granddaughter that she thanked the Lord many times that she had shared her food with this young man. “Should I not have done so,” Sarah said, “my conscience would have condemned me the rest of my days.” 6
1857: The cycle of life continued unbroken on the trek west. Anna Marie Sorenson, from Scandinavia, was with the Christiansen company in 1857. At Wood River, Nebraska, she “retired from the camp, and under some willows gave birth to a baby girl. In the morning she appeared with the baby in her apron. … The baby survived, as well as the mother.” 7
James and Honor Welch Reeder traveled with the Evans company in 1857. After James died, Honor “plodded on with her [five-year-old] son and cart. Six weeks after arrival in the Valley she gave birth to a baby girl who lived to maturity.” 8
1860: If food became scarce, the pioneers suffered. John Stucki from Switzerland was nine years old when he traveled with his family in the Stoddard company. At one point, the company was placed on half rations. When a buffalo was shot, the meat was divided. John’s father put their small share in the back of the cart. John later wrote: “I was so very hungry all the time, and the meat smelled so good … and having a little pocketknife, I could not resist, but had to cut off a piece or two each half day.” When his father brought out what was left of the meat on Sunday, “instead of giving me the severe scolding … he did not say a word but started to wipe the tears from his eyes.” 9
On the Trail in Wyoming
1857: A little known fact is that handcart companies sometimes received help from others traveling west who were not Latter-day Saints.
In August 1857, as the Christiansen company passed by Fort Laramie, Wyoming, they met a detachment of the army going west to impose federal control on the Saints. An ox belonging to the soldiers became “disabled when a heavy wagon ran over and crushed its foot. The military captain came over to the hungry [immigrants] and said: ‘You may have the ox, I guess you need it.’ The fresh meat was gratefully devoured.” 10
1856: On Wednesday, November 5, 1856, James Bleak of the Martin handcart company wrote: “No travelling. Weather very severe. … Our ration of flour was reduced to 4 oz and 2 oz for the children making 1 lb a day for the 6 of us. Through the blessing of our Father we felt as contented as when we had 1 lb per head.” 11
1859: Helena Roseberry, her husband, and twins traveled with the Rowley company. “I had to walk and carry one of my babies and help to pull the cart for many weeks until my feet began to swell up so I had to ride some [in the wagon]. … I cannot tell all I suffered on that journey, but the Lord knows it. One day they tipped the wagon over and injured my hip so they had to carry me to the tent every night and there I lay on the ground with a few things under my head and a baby on each arm.” At Green River “an old woman that rode in the wagon … saw I was nearly dead and she took my babies from me and [cared for] them. … This enabled me to live.” 12
1856: As Elder Parley P. Pratt of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles traveled to his mission to the eastern states in September 1856, he met a handcart company coming west at Green River. “They had travelled [for some 1,200 miles] twenty miles a day and sometimes more. Their faces were much sunburnt and their lips parched; but cheerfulness reigned in every heart, and joy seemed to beam on every countenance. The company gathered around us and I tried to address them, … but my utterance was choked, and I [tried three times] before I could overcome my emotions.” 13
1859: A well-provided party of wagons going west to Colorado, which was a part of the big “Pike’s Peak or Bust” gold rush, passed a caravan of handcarts and killed a big buffalo. They took one-fourth of it, covered the remaining three-fourths with the hide, and put up a notice that read, “This is for the handcarts.” This was the only fresh meat the Rowley company had. 14
1860: Daniel Robinson, captain of the ninth handcart company, wrote of a time when “arriving at the Sweetwater River we found the bottom of the river covered with fish. Everyone had all they could eat, which was a treat after having to eat salty bacon from the time we started until now.” 15
Little Mountain, Utah
1856: After three months and 17 days of pulling her handcart, Sarah Goode Marshall was camped with her six children and the Ellsworth and McArthur handcart companies. All were ready to enter the Salt Lake Valley the next day. Sarah asked Captain Ellsworth if she and her children could start out ahead of the company. Permission was granted, and early on the morning of September 26, 1856, Sarah and her six children left.
Meanwhile, the news had spread in the Salt Lake Valley that the first two handcart companies were arriving on the 26th. Preparations were made to meet them and celebrate their arrival.
As Sarah and her children headed toward the valley, they encountered the men on horseback. Some of the men (with Sarah’s permission) scooped up her children on horseback and galloped back to the valley. Sarah was now free to pull the handcart the rest of the way. 16
President Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball and many citizens, with a military detachment of the Lancers (a cavalry unit carrying lances) and brass bands, went out to meet the companies and escort them into the city. They met the two handcart companies at the foot of Little Mountain.
Elder Wilford Woodruff wrote of the joyous occasion: “After the meeting and salutations were over, amid feelings which no one can describe, the escort was formed, a party of Lancers leading the advance, followed by the bands, the Presidency, the Marshal, and citizens; then came the companies of handcarts, another party of Lancers bringing up the rear. … I must say my feelings were inexpressible to behold a company of men, women, and children, many of them aged and infirm, enter the city of the Great Salt Lake, drawing 100 handcarts, (led by Brother Ellsworth, who assisted in drawing the first handcart) with which they had travelled … and to see them dance with joy as they travelled through the streets. … This sight filled our hearts with joy and thanksgiving to God.” 17
Handcart Companies
John Boice
BIOGRAPHY OF JOHN BOICE
(this piece was found in my grandmother Leta Boice Boutwell’s Family Record book - he is my great great
great grandfather – Linda Fretwell Duchaine – December 2007)
Written by his granddaughter Rachel Boyce Olson at the request of her brother John. To be read at the family
reunion on the seventh day of April 1931 at Lovell, Wyoming.
John Boice was a man of great honor and integrity. He was a perfect specimen of physical manhood, which
enabled him to stand great hardships encountered in his strenuous work of pioneering.
He was born February twentieth, 1814 at Fredricksburg, Upper Canada. He was the son of Benjamin Boice
and Margaret Hartly and was the youngest of a family of six: he married Jane Hearns on June seventh 1835
and this same year he and his wife were led into the waters of baptism. Through this ordinance they were
ushered into the rays of living light and their descendants were made heirs to great blessings.
Shortly after he embraced the gospel, he had a dream. He dreamed he saw the Temple in place, and Joseph
Smith, the prophet, dressed in a long white robe, standing with bowed head at the Temple, his hands and feet
were clear as glass. Looking up and gazing at the Temple he said, “Brethren, the set time has come to favor
Zion, and Jackson County is ours. I will take with me fifteen hundred men, and there will not be a man to make
afraid nor a dog to bark.”
He then awoke because of the dream. In the year 1837, he with his family migrated to Kirtland, Ohio, and the
following year they started for Missouri but were driven back by a mob and stopped at Barry Pike County,
Illinois. Two years later, they went back to Ohio on business. After their interests had been transacted, they
started for Kirtland. While on the journey, his wife was taken very ill in the town of Hudson. During her illness
she was permitted to see beyond the veil, and for twenty-four hours appeared as dead, after which she
regained consciousness. She related the following story: That angelic spirits had declared to her that Joseph
Smith was the great Prophet raised up to open this last dispensation.
And she bore a strong testimony of this Latter Day work. She said she had only come back to stay four days
as she had promised a certain woman that she was willing she should rear her three little children. But not that
her husband should rear two of them, as she was going to take one of them with her.
In the evening of the fourth day at eight o’clock at the same hour that she became unconscious, she passed
peacefully away on February fourteenth, 1840. After the services and the body had been laid to rest,
grandfather, returning home found his healthiest son, Thomas, in a dying condition, not from any perceivable
sickness and soon passed away. Thus her words were fulfilled.
He resumed his journey and met the Saints at Quincy, Illinois who were gathering to hold their first conference
after being driven from Missouri.
While in company with Brother Maddock, grandfather related his dream while in Canada. Brother Haddock
answered, “Well, you can test the truth of that dream today, for if it was Brother Joseph, you will know him
when you see him.” Soon after, grandfather looked up and saw a group of men conversing among themselves.
As he beheld the sight of one of the men’s faces, he said, pointing, “There is the man I saw.” “Yes”, said
Brother Haddock, “that is Joseph Smith.”
After arriving in Kirtland, he met Marry Ann Barzee, and they were married May seventy, 1840. In June 1841,
they sailed by boat to Nauvoo. Here they were being mobbed and driven from place to place.
Their first son, Chester, was born at Chester, Ohio, April twelfth 1842 and died at Crooked Creek, Illinois.
Martin Calvin born at Crooked Creak, April seventy, 1844 on Sunday at dusk. John Jr. was born at McDonah
County, Illinois, May twenty-fourth, 1846. David was born February eighteenth, 1848, Jo Davis County, Illinois.
Elizabeth Ann was born November twenty-seventy (no year mentioned) at Jo Davis County, Sand Prarrie,
Illinois.
At the time of the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph and Hyrum, grandfather’s family was living ______ miles
from Carthage. He with others was called in haste to Nauvoo by the Prophet as he was going to prison and he
desired to talk to them. They heard his (Joseph Smith) instructions to the people from time to time, “Brethren, I
have great sorrow in my heart for fear that I may be taken away from the earth with the keys of the Kingdom of
God upon me, without sealing them upon the heads of men. God has sealed upon my head all the keys of the
Kingdom of God necessary to the organizing and building up of the Church of Zion and the Kingdom of God
upon the earth, and to prepare the Saints for the coming of man. Now brethren, I thank God that I have lived to
see the day that I have been enabled to give you your endowments, and that I have sealed upon your heads
all the posers of the priesthood and apostleship with all the keys and powers of which God has sealed upon
me. And I now roll all of the labor, burden, and care of this Church and Kingdom of God upon your shoulders. I
now command you in the dame of the Lord Jesus to round up your shoulders and bare of this Church and
Kingdom of God before heaven and earth, and before God and angels and man, and if you do not do it, you
will be lamed.”
After the Prophet and Patriarch were slain, most of the apostles were on missions. Sidney Bigdon seemed
much concerned and expressed the idea that a guardian must be appointed to lead the church on. When the
apostles came home, the people met in a large gathering in the forenoon to consider who should be the
president of the church. It was not decided and another gathering was called in the afternoon. In this
gathering, Brigham Young arose to speak, and by the Spirit of the Holy Ghost, which brings things past, things
present, and things to come, fell with such power upon the people that Brigham Young was transfigured before
them in the likeness of Joseph in looks and speech, the vote was unanimous in favor of Brigham Young.
In the spring of 1852, grandfather with his family left Kirtland, Ohio with others and started across the plains by
ox team, arriving in Salt Lake.
They were (sent) to Spanish Fork to assist in building a fort. While there, they met a friendly band of Indians.
The chief asked if they would build him a house inside the fort, which was also done. Donations were given to
the Indians and grandfather was chosen to deliver these donations to the chief who in turn distributed them
among his tribe.
Grandmother succeeded in learning the Indian language and was appointed Indian interpreter. One day, a
young Indian came to her home with his three-month old baby, saying he would give it to her and never take it
away, as his squaw had died. She answered him, saying she would let him know in a little while after talking the
matter over with grandfather, he advised her to go to their bishop for council. She related the circumstances to
the bishop telling him she had a family of five children and could not see her way through, but he said, “By all
means Sister Boice, take the baby for you don’t know what good it will bring.” So she took the baby and when it
was about a year old, it took seriously ill, all was done for its recovery, taking it to a doctor in Provo, Utah, but
finally the baby died and was buried as if it was their own. The father of the baby was a frequent visitor during
its sickness and death. This was in the year 1955.
Like all colonizers in a new country, their time was devoted to building and farming. While the women provided
clothing by spinning wool and weaving cloth. He remained in Spanish Fork until the year 1857 when he was
called with others to make a settlement forth miles south east of Salt Lake. When they arrived there, they were
met by a bunch of hostile Indians. Grandfather offered to shake hands with them, but they refused. Waiting for
the word of command, when one of the Indians jumped from his horse and went to the chief telling him how
grandmother cared for his baby during its sickness and death. The chief listened to the story, then began to
talk telling the Indians that it was their hunting grounds and when the whites came, their game and fish
disappeared. Grandmother understood their conversation, telling grandfather what they said. He told her to
tell the chief they would not hunt or fish. The chief replied, they will scare them all away. However, through the
pleading of the young Indian, his heart was softened and the chief said, “If they would make a treaty to give
them a beef, they would not molest them”, which was agreed upon. Grandmother said, “Oh, how glad I am that
he listened to our bishop and took his council.” Grandfather immediately rode to Salt Lake on horseback and
reported to President Young, and he advised them to move out.
They then went to Parleys Park and remained there that winter being shut in with the depth of snow. This was
the winter of 1858 and has been recorded as the hardest winter in the history of Utah. When spring came,
they were destitute, broken up in body and wind for they were nearly famished from hunger and cold, being
deprived of the comforts of life. From here, they migrated north as far as Farmington where another son Elija
was born. Here they remained until 1863 at which time they moved to Smithfield, living there a few years,
another son Elisha Lorenzo was born.
In the year 1865, they went north as far as Oxford, Idaho, where his son John, age nineteen and his brother-in-
law, George Barzee, age twenty-three were frozen to death one-mile from Franklin, Idaho. Here his health
began to fail him, and he devoted his time to church work. He, with grandmother, was called to work the Logan
Temple. After spending two months there, they were called to the deathbed of their son David. They returned
to the Temple, but he continued to fail in health and President John Taylor called him to the office of patriarch
and advised him to travel and bless the people, and many of the sacred prophesies and promises, which he
made the people, are recorded in grandmother’s diary.
He led a life of prayer and honesty. He governed his family according to the requirements of the priesthood.
While on his deathbed, his tribute to grandmother, “Ma, you have been faithful with me in rearing out large
family and you have done well, may you always keep the presence of mind and God will bless you forever.”
They reared a large family who are co-workers in the great cause of Zion.
His mortal activities have been recorded in the annals of Church history. Surely, the rewards for faithfulness is
recognized in the numerous posterity which carry on the good teaching and example give them by such a
worthy progenitor. He passed peacefully away on March thirty-first, 1886, and his mortal remains were laid to
rest in the Oxford Cemetery.
Finis
Rachel Boice Olson
Castle Gate, Utah
1931
Any information provided below is from the internet in 2007 - nothing has been verified but will be researched.
___________________________________________________
Information regarding the Nauvoo Settlement can be found here:
http://earlylds.com/settlement_nauvoo.html
Information on the settlement at Oxford, Idaho and John Boice can be found here:
http://www.southeastida.com/franklincounty/index.html
___________________________________________________
From an online discussion forum:
Mary A. Barzee Boyce tells another version:
Emma went upstairs and pulled Eliza R. Snow downstairs by the hair of her head as she was staying there.
Although she had consented to give him [Joseph] one or more women in the beginning. It was rumored while I,
M. A. Barzee Boyce, was in Nauvoo that she tot [sic, got?] in such a rage about it that she left home and went
down to Quincy but came back again while I was there (Reminiscences of Mary A. Barzee Boice, in John Boice
Blessing Book, MS 8129, Church Archives, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
Salt Lake City).
___________________________________________________
From an online link:
http://www.ethospublishing.com/www/family/janets/janets3.htm
Wheelers and Boice Overview:
From Janet’s matriarchal line we have the Wheelers and the Boyce (Boice) folks. To study these lines is to
study Mormon History from its beginnings. Wheelers and Boyce relatives were with the Prophet Joseph Smith
almost from the beginning. And from a genealogical point of view, there were a number of plural marriages and
that’s always a challenge to keep track of. The Wheeler line is another true-blue American History family that
has been on American shores since the 1600’s and the first settlers and Pilgrims. Wheelers continue back to
England, and go back to the late 1400’s A.D. This is a family that is rich in history and information, and we
hardly do them any justice here in this collection. It is entirely possible that the collection of information on
Wheelers alone could exceed the size of everything we have collected to date.
___________________________________________________
John Boice was a bodyguard to the Prophet Joseph Smith at Nauvoo, Illinois. He was also one of the early
Patriarchs in the Church.
The Nauvoo Settlement
(this piece was found in my grandmother Leta Boice Boutwell’s Family Record book - he is my great great
great grandfather – Linda Fretwell Duchaine – December 2007)
Written by his granddaughter Rachel Boyce Olson at the request of her brother John. To be read at the family
reunion on the seventh day of April 1931 at Lovell, Wyoming.
John Boice was a man of great honor and integrity. He was a perfect specimen of physical manhood, which
enabled him to stand great hardships encountered in his strenuous work of pioneering.
He was born February twentieth, 1814 at Fredricksburg, Upper Canada. He was the son of Benjamin Boice
and Margaret Hartly and was the youngest of a family of six: he married Jane Hearns on June seventh 1835
and this same year he and his wife were led into the waters of baptism. Through this ordinance they were
ushered into the rays of living light and their descendants were made heirs to great blessings.
Shortly after he embraced the gospel, he had a dream. He dreamed he saw the Temple in place, and Joseph
Smith, the prophet, dressed in a long white robe, standing with bowed head at the Temple, his hands and feet
were clear as glass. Looking up and gazing at the Temple he said, “Brethren, the set time has come to favor
Zion, and Jackson County is ours. I will take with me fifteen hundred men, and there will not be a man to make
afraid nor a dog to bark.”
He then awoke because of the dream. In the year 1837, he with his family migrated to Kirtland, Ohio, and the
following year they started for Missouri but were driven back by a mob and stopped at Barry Pike County,
Illinois. Two years later, they went back to Ohio on business. After their interests had been transacted, they
started for Kirtland. While on the journey, his wife was taken very ill in the town of Hudson. During her illness
she was permitted to see beyond the veil, and for twenty-four hours appeared as dead, after which she
regained consciousness. She related the following story: That angelic spirits had declared to her that Joseph
Smith was the great Prophet raised up to open this last dispensation.
And she bore a strong testimony of this Latter Day work. She said she had only come back to stay four days
as she had promised a certain woman that she was willing she should rear her three little children. But not that
her husband should rear two of them, as she was going to take one of them with her.
In the evening of the fourth day at eight o’clock at the same hour that she became unconscious, she passed
peacefully away on February fourteenth, 1840. After the services and the body had been laid to rest,
grandfather, returning home found his healthiest son, Thomas, in a dying condition, not from any perceivable
sickness and soon passed away. Thus her words were fulfilled.
He resumed his journey and met the Saints at Quincy, Illinois who were gathering to hold their first conference
after being driven from Missouri.
While in company with Brother Maddock, grandfather related his dream while in Canada. Brother Haddock
answered, “Well, you can test the truth of that dream today, for if it was Brother Joseph, you will know him
when you see him.” Soon after, grandfather looked up and saw a group of men conversing among themselves.
As he beheld the sight of one of the men’s faces, he said, pointing, “There is the man I saw.” “Yes”, said
Brother Haddock, “that is Joseph Smith.”
After arriving in Kirtland, he met Marry Ann Barzee, and they were married May seventy, 1840. In June 1841,
they sailed by boat to Nauvoo. Here they were being mobbed and driven from place to place.
Their first son, Chester, was born at Chester, Ohio, April twelfth 1842 and died at Crooked Creek, Illinois.
Martin Calvin born at Crooked Creak, April seventy, 1844 on Sunday at dusk. John Jr. was born at McDonah
County, Illinois, May twenty-fourth, 1846. David was born February eighteenth, 1848, Jo Davis County, Illinois.
Elizabeth Ann was born November twenty-seventy (no year mentioned) at Jo Davis County, Sand Prarrie,
Illinois.
At the time of the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph and Hyrum, grandfather’s family was living ______ miles
from Carthage. He with others was called in haste to Nauvoo by the Prophet as he was going to prison and he
desired to talk to them. They heard his (Joseph Smith) instructions to the people from time to time, “Brethren, I
have great sorrow in my heart for fear that I may be taken away from the earth with the keys of the Kingdom of
God upon me, without sealing them upon the heads of men. God has sealed upon my head all the keys of the
Kingdom of God necessary to the organizing and building up of the Church of Zion and the Kingdom of God
upon the earth, and to prepare the Saints for the coming of man. Now brethren, I thank God that I have lived to
see the day that I have been enabled to give you your endowments, and that I have sealed upon your heads
all the posers of the priesthood and apostleship with all the keys and powers of which God has sealed upon
me. And I now roll all of the labor, burden, and care of this Church and Kingdom of God upon your shoulders. I
now command you in the dame of the Lord Jesus to round up your shoulders and bare of this Church and
Kingdom of God before heaven and earth, and before God and angels and man, and if you do not do it, you
will be lamed.”
After the Prophet and Patriarch were slain, most of the apostles were on missions. Sidney Bigdon seemed
much concerned and expressed the idea that a guardian must be appointed to lead the church on. When the
apostles came home, the people met in a large gathering in the forenoon to consider who should be the
president of the church. It was not decided and another gathering was called in the afternoon. In this
gathering, Brigham Young arose to speak, and by the Spirit of the Holy Ghost, which brings things past, things
present, and things to come, fell with such power upon the people that Brigham Young was transfigured before
them in the likeness of Joseph in looks and speech, the vote was unanimous in favor of Brigham Young.
In the spring of 1852, grandfather with his family left Kirtland, Ohio with others and started across the plains by
ox team, arriving in Salt Lake.
They were (sent) to Spanish Fork to assist in building a fort. While there, they met a friendly band of Indians.
The chief asked if they would build him a house inside the fort, which was also done. Donations were given to
the Indians and grandfather was chosen to deliver these donations to the chief who in turn distributed them
among his tribe.
Grandmother succeeded in learning the Indian language and was appointed Indian interpreter. One day, a
young Indian came to her home with his three-month old baby, saying he would give it to her and never take it
away, as his squaw had died. She answered him, saying she would let him know in a little while after talking the
matter over with grandfather, he advised her to go to their bishop for council. She related the circumstances to
the bishop telling him she had a family of five children and could not see her way through, but he said, “By all
means Sister Boice, take the baby for you don’t know what good it will bring.” So she took the baby and when it
was about a year old, it took seriously ill, all was done for its recovery, taking it to a doctor in Provo, Utah, but
finally the baby died and was buried as if it was their own. The father of the baby was a frequent visitor during
its sickness and death. This was in the year 1955.
Like all colonizers in a new country, their time was devoted to building and farming. While the women provided
clothing by spinning wool and weaving cloth. He remained in Spanish Fork until the year 1857 when he was
called with others to make a settlement forth miles south east of Salt Lake. When they arrived there, they were
met by a bunch of hostile Indians. Grandfather offered to shake hands with them, but they refused. Waiting for
the word of command, when one of the Indians jumped from his horse and went to the chief telling him how
grandmother cared for his baby during its sickness and death. The chief listened to the story, then began to
talk telling the Indians that it was their hunting grounds and when the whites came, their game and fish
disappeared. Grandmother understood their conversation, telling grandfather what they said. He told her to
tell the chief they would not hunt or fish. The chief replied, they will scare them all away. However, through the
pleading of the young Indian, his heart was softened and the chief said, “If they would make a treaty to give
them a beef, they would not molest them”, which was agreed upon. Grandmother said, “Oh, how glad I am that
he listened to our bishop and took his council.” Grandfather immediately rode to Salt Lake on horseback and
reported to President Young, and he advised them to move out.
They then went to Parleys Park and remained there that winter being shut in with the depth of snow. This was
the winter of 1858 and has been recorded as the hardest winter in the history of Utah. When spring came,
they were destitute, broken up in body and wind for they were nearly famished from hunger and cold, being
deprived of the comforts of life. From here, they migrated north as far as Farmington where another son Elija
was born. Here they remained until 1863 at which time they moved to Smithfield, living there a few years,
another son Elisha Lorenzo was born.
In the year 1865, they went north as far as Oxford, Idaho, where his son John, age nineteen and his brother-in-
law, George Barzee, age twenty-three were frozen to death one-mile from Franklin, Idaho. Here his health
began to fail him, and he devoted his time to church work. He, with grandmother, was called to work the Logan
Temple. After spending two months there, they were called to the deathbed of their son David. They returned
to the Temple, but he continued to fail in health and President John Taylor called him to the office of patriarch
and advised him to travel and bless the people, and many of the sacred prophesies and promises, which he
made the people, are recorded in grandmother’s diary.
He led a life of prayer and honesty. He governed his family according to the requirements of the priesthood.
While on his deathbed, his tribute to grandmother, “Ma, you have been faithful with me in rearing out large
family and you have done well, may you always keep the presence of mind and God will bless you forever.”
They reared a large family who are co-workers in the great cause of Zion.
His mortal activities have been recorded in the annals of Church history. Surely, the rewards for faithfulness is
recognized in the numerous posterity which carry on the good teaching and example give them by such a
worthy progenitor. He passed peacefully away on March thirty-first, 1886, and his mortal remains were laid to
rest in the Oxford Cemetery.
Finis
Rachel Boice Olson
Castle Gate, Utah
1931
Any information provided below is from the internet in 2007 - nothing has been verified but will be researched.
___________________________________________________
Information regarding the Nauvoo Settlement can be found here:
http://earlylds.com/settlement_nauvoo.html
Information on the settlement at Oxford, Idaho and John Boice can be found here:
http://www.southeastida.com/franklincounty/index.html
___________________________________________________
From an online discussion forum:
Mary A. Barzee Boyce tells another version:
Emma went upstairs and pulled Eliza R. Snow downstairs by the hair of her head as she was staying there.
Although she had consented to give him [Joseph] one or more women in the beginning. It was rumored while I,
M. A. Barzee Boyce, was in Nauvoo that she tot [sic, got?] in such a rage about it that she left home and went
down to Quincy but came back again while I was there (Reminiscences of Mary A. Barzee Boice, in John Boice
Blessing Book, MS 8129, Church Archives, Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
Salt Lake City).
___________________________________________________
From an online link:
http://www.ethospublishing.com/www/family/janets/janets3.htm
Wheelers and Boice Overview:
From Janet’s matriarchal line we have the Wheelers and the Boyce (Boice) folks. To study these lines is to
study Mormon History from its beginnings. Wheelers and Boyce relatives were with the Prophet Joseph Smith
almost from the beginning. And from a genealogical point of view, there were a number of plural marriages and
that’s always a challenge to keep track of. The Wheeler line is another true-blue American History family that
has been on American shores since the 1600’s and the first settlers and Pilgrims. Wheelers continue back to
England, and go back to the late 1400’s A.D. This is a family that is rich in history and information, and we
hardly do them any justice here in this collection. It is entirely possible that the collection of information on
Wheelers alone could exceed the size of everything we have collected to date.
___________________________________________________
John Boice was a bodyguard to the Prophet Joseph Smith at Nauvoo, Illinois. He was also one of the early
Patriarchs in the Church.
The Nauvoo Settlement
Thursday, October 22, 2009
John Wilcoxson, St Albans, England
#
The family of Sylvia May Wilcox Hoover in it's beginnings. Much more information can be found on Ancestry.com, The Family of Laura Evans.
John Wilcoxson
#
17 Feb 1596
St Albans, , Hert, England
#
28 Nov 1652
St Albans, Hertfordshire, , England
The family of Sylvia May Wilcox Hoover in it's beginnings. Much more information can be found on Ancestry.com, The Family of Laura Evans.
John Wilcoxson
#
17 Feb 1596
St Albans, , Hert, England
#
28 Nov 1652
St Albans, Hertfordshire, , England
Children of Nancy and Ozial Wilcos
Children of Ozial and Nancy Wilcox
*
*
* Joel Wilcox
1801 –
Amelia Wilcox
1803 –
*
* Ermina Wilcox
1804 –
*
*
Ozial Wilcox
1806 – 1889
*
*
Olive Wilcox
1810 – 1846
*
*
Mehitable Wilcox
1810 –
*
*
Nancy Ann Wilcox
1813 – 1893
*
Asa Wilcox
1815 – 1881
*
Joseph Ruggles Wilcox
1819 – 1874
*
*
Emeline Annis Wilcox
1821 –
*
*
John Austin Wilcox
1824 – 1879
*
*
Jerusha Wilcox
1825 – 1897
*
*
James Franklin Wilcox
1830 – 1899
*
*
* Joel Wilcox
1801 –
Amelia Wilcox
1803 –
*
* Ermina Wilcox
1804 –
*
*
Ozial Wilcox
1806 – 1889
*
*
Olive Wilcox
1810 – 1846
*
*
Mehitable Wilcox
1810 –
*
*
Nancy Ann Wilcox
1813 – 1893
*
Asa Wilcox
1815 – 1881
*
Joseph Ruggles Wilcox
1819 – 1874
*
*
Emeline Annis Wilcox
1821 –
*
*
John Austin Wilcox
1824 – 1879
*
*
Jerusha Wilcox
1825 – 1897
*
*
James Franklin Wilcox
1830 – 1899
Nancy Ann Paine
Nancy Ann Paine Marriage to Ozial Wilcox
lauraschnabel22added this on 2 Oct 2009
Julie Callahanoriginally submitted this to Robbins Wilcox 2009-02-22 on 26 Feb 2009
This is an excerpt from a letter written by my Uncle, William Wilcox, to the town of Arlington, Vermont, regarding the History of Arlington.
"Nancy Wilcox was formerly Nancy Paine. The Paines were influential wealthy people. The story is that Nancy was asked by Quincy Adams, later President of the United States, to marry him. She turned him down and married Ozial Wilcox much to the distress of the Paine family, who disowned her. Nancy was a beautiful woman."
Ozial Wilcox (1)
908. Ozial Wilcox (1267) (photo) was born in Feb 1774 in Killingworth, Middlesex Co., CT. He died on 15 Mar 1856 in Sandgate, Bennington Co., VT. He resided in Colerain, Franklin Co., MA. Born probably before the family moved to Conway, MA- note also that the name was spelled with an "a" not an "e" This couple removed to Sandgate, Bennington County, Vermont. In a local cemetery are two stones, one marked Ozial Wilcox, died 1856, age 82, and Nancy, died 1858 age 78. By this, Ozial is positively identified as the individual who married Nancy Paine and came from Conway, MA.
He was married to Nancy Ann Paine (daughter of Joseph Ruggles Paine and Mehitable Giddings). (1268) Intention of marriage recorded at Ashfield, Massachusetts, April 1801. Nancy Ann Paine (1269) (photo) was born in 1780 in Ashfield, Franklin Co., MA. She died in 1858 in Sandgate, Bennington Co., VT. Ozial Wilcox and Nancy Ann Paine had the following children:
+1706 i. Joel Wilcox.
+1707 ii. Amelia Wilcox.
+1708 iii. Ermina Wilcox.
+1709 iv. Ozial Wilcox.
+1710 v. Mehitable Wilcox.
1711 vi. John Wilcox(1270). Died in infancy
+1712 vii. Nancy Ann Wilcox.
+1713 viii. Asa Wilcox.
+1714 ix. Joseph Ruggles Wilcox.
1715 x. Emeline Annis Wilcox was born on 6 Feb 1821. She died on 20 Sep 1890. She was buried in Ira Allen Cemetery, Sunderland, Bennington Co., VT.
+1716 xi. John Austin Wilcox.
+1717 xii. James Franklin Wilcox.
He was married to Nancy Ann Paine (daughter of Joseph Ruggles Paine and Mehitable Giddings). (1268) Intention of marriage recorded at Ashfield, Massachusetts, April 1801. Nancy Ann Paine (1269) (photo) was born in 1780 in Ashfield, Franklin Co., MA. She died in 1858 in Sandgate, Bennington Co., VT. Ozial Wilcox and Nancy Ann Paine had the following children:
+1706 i. Joel Wilcox.
+1707 ii. Amelia Wilcox.
+1708 iii. Ermina Wilcox.
+1709 iv. Ozial Wilcox.
+1710 v. Mehitable Wilcox.
1711 vi. John Wilcox(1270). Died in infancy
+1712 vii. Nancy Ann Wilcox.
+1713 viii. Asa Wilcox.
+1714 ix. Joseph Ruggles Wilcox.
1715 x. Emeline Annis Wilcox was born on 6 Feb 1821. She died on 20 Sep 1890. She was buried in Ira Allen Cemetery, Sunderland, Bennington Co., VT.
+1716 xi. John Austin Wilcox.
+1717 xii. James Franklin Wilcox.
Ozial Wilcox
Ozial Wilcox
Ozial Z. Wilcox & Sylvia Stevens
Generation No. 4
Franklin James Wilcox, born 1834 in New York; died 14 Sep 1892. He was the son of Ozial Z. Wilcox and Sylvia Stevens. He married Charlotte Georgianna Ballentine 02 Feb 1880 in Zumbrota, Minnesota.
Charlotte Georgianna Ballentine, born Abt. 14 Jul 1863 in Massachusettes; died 17 Mar 1910 in Manhattan, NY. She was the daughter of Rev. George Demille Ballentine and Charlotte Everett Fisher.
Franklin took a homestead in Minnesota. Died at a railroad crossing in 1891.
Carpenter and Ranch Owner. Went west when he was 21 years old and took up 1/4 section or 160 acres, the government was giving it away. He bought others land and had over 2000 acres.
It is said he built over 200 homes in Zumbrota, MN
Franklin James was killed at age 60 going across a train track with a buggy
Left home at age 21.
Wilcox, Franklin 37 M W Farmer 3000 (Value of Real Estate) 490 (Value of Personal Estate) New York (place of birth)
Wilcox, Marcia 37 F W Keeping House New York (place of birth)
Wilcox, Herbert 7 M W Minnesota
Wilcox, Eugene 4 M W Minnesota
Wilcox, Frank 2 M W Minnesota
Wilcox, Jenny 5 month F W Minnesota December
Ward, Samuel 40 M W Farm Laborer New York
Billings, Mary 16 F W Domestic Servant Maine
___________________________________________________________________
19 19 Wilcocks, Franklin W M 46 Husband Married Farming Born in New York; Father born in ?? (N.J. or V.T. or U.T.??) Mother born in (N.J. or V.T. or U.T.??)??
Wilcocks, Georgie W F 22 Wife Married Keeping House born in Minnesota, Father born in Maine, mother born in Canada
Wilcocks, Herbert D W M 16 son Single At Home attended school within the census year born in Minnesota, Father born in New York, Mother born in Minnesota (??)
Wilcocks, Eugene W M 14 Son Single At School attended school within the census year born in Minnesota, Father born in New York, Mother born on New York
WIlcocks, Frank W M 11 Son Single At School attended school within the census year, born in Minnesota, Father born in New York, Mother born in New York
Wilcocks, Jennie M W F 10 Daughter Single attended school within the census year, born in Minnesota, Father born in New York, Mother born in New York
Ballentine, George D. W M 54 Father-in-law Married Baptist Clergyman Born in New Brunswick, Father born in England, Mother born in England
Ballentine, Charlot E. W F 47 Mother-in-law Married Keeping House Born in New Brunswick, Father born in England, Mother born in England
Earnist, Carry W F 20 Servant Single Domestic Servant Born in Norway, Father Born in Norway, Mother born in Norway
Frank Wilcox purchased a Cemetery plot for Mrs. Marchia A. Wilcox; in the Zumbrota Cemetary, Section H 35 9; date of Death Dec 21, 1879; age 46 years, 9 months 3 days (so date of birth would have been March 18, 1833)
the Martha Osborne book lists the following on Franklin Wilcox.
FRANKLIN - b 1834 NY s/OZIAL Jr & SYLVIA (STEVENS) WILCOX of Georgetown, Madison Co NY; Ref 1850
Census Georgetown NY p387 Dw#208.
Database: Minnesota County History Name Index
Given Name: FRANKLIN J.
Surname: WILCOX
Book: GOODHUE COUNTY ATLAS
Year: 1877
Town: MINNEOLA
Section: 13
Source Information:
Dalby, John. Name Index of County Histories. Orem, Utah: Ancestry, Inc., 1999. Original data:
Residence 1: 1870, Minneola, Goodhue, Minnesota
Residence 2: 1850, Georgetown, Madison, New York
(Huron, SD Newspaper -DyH, Sa 13 March 1886; p. 4, col. 1)
Mrs. Wilcox of Cavour, sister of the late Mrs. Vanscoy, came on to-day's train to attend her sister's funeral.
This places Charlotte in Cavour within a year after the birth of James.
More About Charlotte Georgianna Ballentine:
Burial: 11 Mar 1911, Mt. Olivet Cemetery, Maspeth, NY, Grave 2141, plot Oakwood
Marriage Notes for Franklin Wilcox and Charlotte Ballentine:
Marriage witnessed by Ira Warren and Delia Warren. Minister was Minister of the Gospel G.D. Ballentine. Pastor of the Baptist Church of Zumbrota, MN.
Children of Franklin Wilcox and Charlotte Ballentine are:
i. Clarence Richard Wilcox, born 01 Apr 1881 in Zumbrota, Minnesota, Goodhue Co.; died 25 Sep 1956; married (1) Beatrice Ethel Natalie Young 03 Apr 1906 in Salem, MA; died 1912 in Orlando, Florida; married (2) Stella Matilda Josephine Dale 30 Dec 1914 in Morganton, NC; born 07 Oct 1888 in Marion, NC; died 14 Apr 1972.
ii. Florence Wilcox, born 21 Nov 1882 in Zumbrota, Minn; died Abt. 1905.
iii. Israel Knight Wilcox, born 03 Jun 1885 in Huron, South Dakota or Cavour, South Dakota.
Notes for Israel Knight Wilcox:
Went west and never heard from - His family (siblings) thought he was killed in the earthquake in California. Great Uncle John tried to find him and wrote an article in Cosmopolitan in about 1942.
Good singer, handsome, worked for Jordan Marsh as accountant in Boston. Asked for a transfer because his sister Grace charged so much, it was embarrassing and he asked for a transfer to San Francisco. No one ever heard from his after this.
Family history states he was killed in the Earthquake April 18, 1906
TWIN to James Clement Wilcox
iv. James Clement Wilcox, born 03 Jun 1885 in Cavour, Beadle County, South Dakota; died 02 Mar 1963 in Monroe, Washington; married Greta Malena Isakdatter Nygård 31 Oct 1906.
v. Everett Wilcox, born 06 Mar 1888 in Junious, NY.
vi. Grace Wilcox, born 06 Mar 1888 in Junious, NY; married W.S. Marshall.
Grace lived in Maine
vii. John Jay Wilcox, born 24 Dec 1892.
He was a nurse in World War I
Burial: Arlington Cemetery
Generation No. 5
Ozial Z. Wilcox, born 13 Mar 1806 in Vermont; died 26 May 1889 in Nelson, New York. He was the son of Ozial Wilcox and Nancy Ann Payne. He married Sylvia Stevens Bef. 1831.
Sylvia Stevens, born 22 Mar 1809 in Manchester, Bennington Co., VT; died 24 Oct 1865 in Erieville, NY.
Cemetery, Erieville, Madison County, NY; Where Ozial Z. Wilcox b: 3-13-1806 d: May 26, 1889 and Silvia, wife of Ozial b: 3-22-1809 d: 10-24-1865.
Dwelling # 2574 Family 2548
Ozial Wilcox 53 M Farmer 3000
Silva Wilcox 52 F
Nelson Wilcox 30 M
Austin Wilcox 23 M
Lyman Wilcox 21 M
Warren Wilcox 17 M
Julia Wilcox 15 F
Caleb Wilcox 13 M
Sarah Wilcox 11 F
James Wilcox 9 M
Adella Wilcox 7 F
At the bottom of the page is
Dwelling #2578 Family 2552
Franklin Wilcox 27 M Farmer 2000
He was married to Sylvia Stevens. Sylvia Stevens was born in 1809 in Manchester, Bennington Co., VT. She died on 24 Oct 1865 in Erieville, Madison Co., NY. Ozial Wilcox and Sylvia Stevens had the following children:
i. Nelson Ozial Wilcox was born about 1830. He died on 8 Jul 1917.
ii. Franklin Wilcox was born in 1834. He resided in Lyon, NY.
iii. Nancy Wilcox was born in 1836. She died on 6 Aug 1911.
iv. Austin Wilcox.
v. Lyman Wilcox was born in 1840. He resided in 1889 in Big Bend, Pennington Co., SD.
vi. Warren Wilcox was born in 1843. He died after 1917. He resided in Bonne, IA.
vii. Julia A. Wilcox.
viii. Caleb Wilcox.
ix. Sarah Ann Wilcox.
x. Shubel Wilcox was born in 1850.
xi. James Wilcox.
xii. Adelia Wilcox.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------http://www.rootsweb.co m/~nyccazen/Cemeteries/Nelson/ErievilleCem.html#WWilcox, (maiden name), see Emma Wilcox Andrews.
Erieville Cemetery, c.1915 list, Town of Nelson, Madison County, NY
Wilcox, Oziol Z., born March 13, 1806, died May 26, 1889, (age not given), (on monument with Orlow Z. Nourse).
Wilcox, Silva, wife of Oziol Z. Wilcox, born March 20, 1809, died October 24, 1865, (age not given).
Children of Ozial Wilcox and Sylvia Stevens are:
i. Nelson Ozial Wilcox, born 1831 in Georgetown, Madison County, New York; died 08 Jul 1917.
ii. Franklin James Wilcox, born 1834 in New York; died 14 Sep 1892; married (1) Marcia A. Ward; married (2) Charlotte Georgianna Ballentine 02 Feb 1880 in Zumbrota, Minnesota.
iii. Nancy Wilcox, born 1836; died 06 Aug 1911.
iv. Austin J. Wilcox, born 1837 in Sandgate, Bennington Co VT; died 1894; married Hattie Worral ; born 24 Dec 1839 in Union Co.,SD; died 26 Oct 1921 in Akron, IA.
v. Lyman Wilcox, born 1840 in Sandgate, Bennington Co VT.
vi. Warren Wilcox, born 1843; died Aft. 1917.
vii. Julia A Wilcox, born 05 Apr 1847 in Georgetown, New York; died 30 May 1897; married Orlow Z Nourse WFT Est. 1861-1887; born WFT Est. 1830-1850; died WFT Est. 1864-1936.
viii. Caleb Wilcox, born 12 Nov 1848 in Georgetown, New York; married (1) Evelina N. Moore; born Abt. 1845; died Abt. 17 Aug 1886; married (2) Jennie B Bassett
Notes for Evelina N. Moore:
Died either 8-17-1866 or 8-17-1899 - age 41 year, 8 months 23 days.
Burial: Erieville, NY
ix. Sarah C. Wilcox, born 1849 in Georgetown, NY; died 01 May 1906; married Clark Adelbert Homes 29 Nov 1865
More About Sarah C. Wilcox:
Burial: Evergreen Cemetery, Cazenovia, NY
x. James Wilcox, born 1851 in Sandgate, Bennington Co VT;; married Annette Kinney
Notes for James Wilcox:
Lived in Fenner, New York
xi. Adelia Wilcox, born 26 Mar 1852 in Nelson, NY; died 08 Jul 1917; married George Morris 16 Jul 1847
Notes for Adelia Wilcox:
Lived in Madison, New York
xii. Shubel Wilcox, born 1853; died WFT Est. 1851-1944.
Generation No. 6
Ozial Wilcox, born 1774 in Massachusettes; died 15 Mar 1856 in Sandgate, Vermont. He was the son of Oziel Wilcox and Louis Goodrich. He married Nancy Ann Payne Apr 1801 in Ashfield, Massachusetts.
Nancy Ann Payne, born 1780 in Ashfield, Franklin Co., MA; died 1858 in Sandgate, Vermont. She was the daughter of Joseph Ruggles Paine and Mehitable Gillings.
Notes for Ozial Wilcox:
Oziel Wilcox - Lived in Ashfield or Colerain, Massachusetts
____________________________________________________________
Ozial was probably born before the family west of Conway. Note that he spells Ozial with an "a" and not with an "e" like the other Oziel, the son of Peter Wilcox. After his marriage, they removed to Sangate, Bennington County, Vermont and some of his descendants continue to live there today. In a local cemetery are two headstones, one marked "Ozial Wilcox, died 1856, age 82" the other says "Nancy Wilcox, died 1858, age 78"
Dwelling house 649 - Family 664
Ozial Wilcox 76 M Farmer - Born Maryland
Nancy 70 F - Born Maryland
Franklyn 26 M - Born New York
He was married to Nancy Ann Paine (daughter of Joseph Ruggles Paine and Mehitable Giddings). Intention of marriage recorded at Ashfield, Massachusetts, April 1801. Nancy Ann Paine was born in 1780 in Ashfield, Franklin Co., MA. She died in 1858 in Sandgate, Bennington Co., VT. Ozial Wilcox and Nancy Ann Paine had the following children:
i. Joel Wilcox.
ii. Amelia Wilcox.
iii. Ermina Wilcox.
iv. Ozial Wilcox.
v. Mehitable Wilcox.
vi. John Wilcox(1270). Died in infancy
vii. Nancy Ann Wilcox.
viii. Asa Wilcox.
ix. Joseph Ruggles Wilcox.
x. Emeline Annis Wilcox was born on 6 Feb 1821. She died on 20 Sep 1890. She was buried in Ira Allen Cemetery, Sunderland, Bennington Co., VT.
xi. John Austin Wilcox.
xii. James Franklin Wilcox.
Marriage Notes for Ozial Wilcox and Nancy Payne:
Intention of marriage recorded at Ashfield, Massachusetts, April 1801.
Marriage: Apr 1801, Ashfield, Massachusetts
Children of Ozial Wilcox and Nancy Payne are:
i. Ozial Z. Wilcox, born 13 Mar 1806 in Vermont; died 26 May 1889 in Nelson, New York; married Sylvia Stevens Bef. 1831.
ii. Asa Wilcox, born 25 Mar 1815 in Vermont; died 18 Sep 1881 in Georgetown, NY; married Harriet Stevens Abt. 1836; born 29 Jul 1814 in Manchester, Bennington Co.,VT; died 17 Oct 1889.
Notes for Asa Wilcox:
The 1860 census found this family living in Hamilton twp. Madison County, New York. The listing states "Asa, age 45, Born in Vermont"
Burial: Erieville, NY
More About Harriet Stevens:
Burial: Erieville, NY
iii. James Franklin Wilcox, born 01 Jun 1830; died 26 May 1899 in Arlington, Bennington Co.,VT; married Mary Elizabeth Nichols Bef. 1852; born 01 Jun 1829; died 06 Feb 1915 in Arlington, Bennington Co.,VT.
Notes for James Franklin Wilcox:
James Franklin Wilcox served about three years in the Civil War. Both he and his wife Mary Elizabeth are buried at Arlington, Vermont
iv. William West Wilcox, born 26 Mar 1832; married Ellen S. Mack.
* Ozial Wilcox (1806 - 1889)
Ozial Z. Wilcox & Sylvia Stevens
Generation No. 4
Franklin James Wilcox, born 1834 in New York; died 14 Sep 1892. He was the son of Ozial Z. Wilcox and Sylvia Stevens. He married Charlotte Georgianna Ballentine 02 Feb 1880 in Zumbrota, Minnesota.
Charlotte Georgianna Ballentine, born Abt. 14 Jul 1863 in Massachusettes; died 17 Mar 1910 in Manhattan, NY. She was the daughter of Rev. George Demille Ballentine and Charlotte Everett Fisher.
Franklin took a homestead in Minnesota. Died at a railroad crossing in 1891.
Carpenter and Ranch Owner. Went west when he was 21 years old and took up 1/4 section or 160 acres, the government was giving it away. He bought others land and had over 2000 acres.
It is said he built over 200 homes in Zumbrota, MN
Franklin James was killed at age 60 going across a train track with a buggy
Left home at age 21.
Wilcox, Franklin 37 M W Farmer 3000 (Value of Real Estate) 490 (Value of Personal Estate) New York (place of birth)
Wilcox, Marcia 37 F W Keeping House New York (place of birth)
Wilcox, Herbert 7 M W Minnesota
Wilcox, Eugene 4 M W Minnesota
Wilcox, Frank 2 M W Minnesota
Wilcox, Jenny 5 month F W Minnesota December
Ward, Samuel 40 M W Farm Laborer New York
Billings, Mary 16 F W Domestic Servant Maine
___________________________________________________________________
19 19 Wilcocks, Franklin W M 46 Husband Married Farming Born in New York; Father born in ?? (N.J. or V.T. or U.T.??) Mother born in (N.J. or V.T. or U.T.??)??
Wilcocks, Georgie W F 22 Wife Married Keeping House born in Minnesota, Father born in Maine, mother born in Canada
Wilcocks, Herbert D W M 16 son Single At Home attended school within the census year born in Minnesota, Father born in New York, Mother born in Minnesota (??)
Wilcocks, Eugene W M 14 Son Single At School attended school within the census year born in Minnesota, Father born in New York, Mother born on New York
WIlcocks, Frank W M 11 Son Single At School attended school within the census year, born in Minnesota, Father born in New York, Mother born in New York
Wilcocks, Jennie M W F 10 Daughter Single attended school within the census year, born in Minnesota, Father born in New York, Mother born in New York
Ballentine, George D. W M 54 Father-in-law Married Baptist Clergyman Born in New Brunswick, Father born in England, Mother born in England
Ballentine, Charlot E. W F 47 Mother-in-law Married Keeping House Born in New Brunswick, Father born in England, Mother born in England
Earnist, Carry W F 20 Servant Single Domestic Servant Born in Norway, Father Born in Norway, Mother born in Norway
Frank Wilcox purchased a Cemetery plot for Mrs. Marchia A. Wilcox; in the Zumbrota Cemetary, Section H 35 9; date of Death Dec 21, 1879; age 46 years, 9 months 3 days (so date of birth would have been March 18, 1833)
the Martha Osborne book lists the following on Franklin Wilcox.
FRANKLIN - b 1834 NY s/OZIAL Jr & SYLVIA (STEVENS) WILCOX of Georgetown, Madison Co NY; Ref 1850
Census Georgetown NY p387 Dw#208.
Database: Minnesota County History Name Index
Given Name: FRANKLIN J.
Surname: WILCOX
Book: GOODHUE COUNTY ATLAS
Year: 1877
Town: MINNEOLA
Section: 13
Source Information:
Dalby, John. Name Index of County Histories. Orem, Utah: Ancestry, Inc., 1999. Original data:
Residence 1: 1870, Minneola, Goodhue, Minnesota
Residence 2: 1850, Georgetown, Madison, New York
(Huron, SD Newspaper -DyH, Sa 13 March 1886; p. 4, col. 1)
Mrs. Wilcox of Cavour, sister of the late Mrs. Vanscoy, came on to-day's train to attend her sister's funeral.
This places Charlotte in Cavour within a year after the birth of James.
More About Charlotte Georgianna Ballentine:
Burial: 11 Mar 1911, Mt. Olivet Cemetery, Maspeth, NY, Grave 2141, plot Oakwood
Marriage Notes for Franklin Wilcox and Charlotte Ballentine:
Marriage witnessed by Ira Warren and Delia Warren. Minister was Minister of the Gospel G.D. Ballentine. Pastor of the Baptist Church of Zumbrota, MN.
Children of Franklin Wilcox and Charlotte Ballentine are:
i. Clarence Richard Wilcox, born 01 Apr 1881 in Zumbrota, Minnesota, Goodhue Co.; died 25 Sep 1956; married (1) Beatrice Ethel Natalie Young 03 Apr 1906 in Salem, MA; died 1912 in Orlando, Florida; married (2) Stella Matilda Josephine Dale 30 Dec 1914 in Morganton, NC; born 07 Oct 1888 in Marion, NC; died 14 Apr 1972.
ii. Florence Wilcox, born 21 Nov 1882 in Zumbrota, Minn; died Abt. 1905.
iii. Israel Knight Wilcox, born 03 Jun 1885 in Huron, South Dakota or Cavour, South Dakota.
Notes for Israel Knight Wilcox:
Went west and never heard from - His family (siblings) thought he was killed in the earthquake in California. Great Uncle John tried to find him and wrote an article in Cosmopolitan in about 1942.
Good singer, handsome, worked for Jordan Marsh as accountant in Boston. Asked for a transfer because his sister Grace charged so much, it was embarrassing and he asked for a transfer to San Francisco. No one ever heard from his after this.
Family history states he was killed in the Earthquake April 18, 1906
TWIN to James Clement Wilcox
iv. James Clement Wilcox, born 03 Jun 1885 in Cavour, Beadle County, South Dakota; died 02 Mar 1963 in Monroe, Washington; married Greta Malena Isakdatter Nygård 31 Oct 1906.
v. Everett Wilcox, born 06 Mar 1888 in Junious, NY.
vi. Grace Wilcox, born 06 Mar 1888 in Junious, NY; married W.S. Marshall.
Grace lived in Maine
vii. John Jay Wilcox, born 24 Dec 1892.
He was a nurse in World War I
Burial: Arlington Cemetery
Generation No. 5
Ozial Z. Wilcox, born 13 Mar 1806 in Vermont; died 26 May 1889 in Nelson, New York. He was the son of Ozial Wilcox and Nancy Ann Payne. He married Sylvia Stevens Bef. 1831.
Sylvia Stevens, born 22 Mar 1809 in Manchester, Bennington Co., VT; died 24 Oct 1865 in Erieville, NY.
Cemetery, Erieville, Madison County, NY; Where Ozial Z. Wilcox b: 3-13-1806 d: May 26, 1889 and Silvia, wife of Ozial b: 3-22-1809 d: 10-24-1865.
Dwelling # 2574 Family 2548
Ozial Wilcox 53 M Farmer 3000
Silva Wilcox 52 F
Nelson Wilcox 30 M
Austin Wilcox 23 M
Lyman Wilcox 21 M
Warren Wilcox 17 M
Julia Wilcox 15 F
Caleb Wilcox 13 M
Sarah Wilcox 11 F
James Wilcox 9 M
Adella Wilcox 7 F
At the bottom of the page is
Dwelling #2578 Family 2552
Franklin Wilcox 27 M Farmer 2000
He was married to Sylvia Stevens. Sylvia Stevens was born in 1809 in Manchester, Bennington Co., VT. She died on 24 Oct 1865 in Erieville, Madison Co., NY. Ozial Wilcox and Sylvia Stevens had the following children:
i. Nelson Ozial Wilcox was born about 1830. He died on 8 Jul 1917.
ii. Franklin Wilcox was born in 1834. He resided in Lyon, NY.
iii. Nancy Wilcox was born in 1836. She died on 6 Aug 1911.
iv. Austin Wilcox.
v. Lyman Wilcox was born in 1840. He resided in 1889 in Big Bend, Pennington Co., SD.
vi. Warren Wilcox was born in 1843. He died after 1917. He resided in Bonne, IA.
vii. Julia A. Wilcox.
viii. Caleb Wilcox.
ix. Sarah Ann Wilcox.
x. Shubel Wilcox was born in 1850.
xi. James Wilcox.
xii. Adelia Wilcox.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------http://www.rootsweb.co m/~nyccazen/Cemeteries/Nelson/ErievilleCem.html#WWilcox, (maiden name), see Emma Wilcox Andrews.
Erieville Cemetery, c.1915 list, Town of Nelson, Madison County, NY
Wilcox, Oziol Z., born March 13, 1806, died May 26, 1889, (age not given), (on monument with Orlow Z. Nourse).
Wilcox, Silva, wife of Oziol Z. Wilcox, born March 20, 1809, died October 24, 1865, (age not given).
Children of Ozial Wilcox and Sylvia Stevens are:
i. Nelson Ozial Wilcox, born 1831 in Georgetown, Madison County, New York; died 08 Jul 1917.
ii. Franklin James Wilcox, born 1834 in New York; died 14 Sep 1892; married (1) Marcia A. Ward; married (2) Charlotte Georgianna Ballentine 02 Feb 1880 in Zumbrota, Minnesota.
iii. Nancy Wilcox, born 1836; died 06 Aug 1911.
iv. Austin J. Wilcox, born 1837 in Sandgate, Bennington Co VT; died 1894; married Hattie Worral ; born 24 Dec 1839 in Union Co.,SD; died 26 Oct 1921 in Akron, IA.
v. Lyman Wilcox, born 1840 in Sandgate, Bennington Co VT.
vi. Warren Wilcox, born 1843; died Aft. 1917.
vii. Julia A Wilcox, born 05 Apr 1847 in Georgetown, New York; died 30 May 1897; married Orlow Z Nourse WFT Est. 1861-1887; born WFT Est. 1830-1850; died WFT Est. 1864-1936.
viii. Caleb Wilcox, born 12 Nov 1848 in Georgetown, New York; married (1) Evelina N. Moore; born Abt. 1845; died Abt. 17 Aug 1886; married (2) Jennie B Bassett
Notes for Evelina N. Moore:
Died either 8-17-1866 or 8-17-1899 - age 41 year, 8 months 23 days.
Burial: Erieville, NY
ix. Sarah C. Wilcox, born 1849 in Georgetown, NY; died 01 May 1906; married Clark Adelbert Homes 29 Nov 1865
More About Sarah C. Wilcox:
Burial: Evergreen Cemetery, Cazenovia, NY
x. James Wilcox, born 1851 in Sandgate, Bennington Co VT;; married Annette Kinney
Notes for James Wilcox:
Lived in Fenner, New York
xi. Adelia Wilcox, born 26 Mar 1852 in Nelson, NY; died 08 Jul 1917; married George Morris 16 Jul 1847
Notes for Adelia Wilcox:
Lived in Madison, New York
xii. Shubel Wilcox, born 1853; died WFT Est. 1851-1944.
Generation No. 6
Ozial Wilcox, born 1774 in Massachusettes; died 15 Mar 1856 in Sandgate, Vermont. He was the son of Oziel Wilcox and Louis Goodrich. He married Nancy Ann Payne Apr 1801 in Ashfield, Massachusetts.
Nancy Ann Payne, born 1780 in Ashfield, Franklin Co., MA; died 1858 in Sandgate, Vermont. She was the daughter of Joseph Ruggles Paine and Mehitable Gillings.
Notes for Ozial Wilcox:
Oziel Wilcox - Lived in Ashfield or Colerain, Massachusetts
____________________________________________________________
Ozial was probably born before the family west of Conway. Note that he spells Ozial with an "a" and not with an "e" like the other Oziel, the son of Peter Wilcox. After his marriage, they removed to Sangate, Bennington County, Vermont and some of his descendants continue to live there today. In a local cemetery are two headstones, one marked "Ozial Wilcox, died 1856, age 82" the other says "Nancy Wilcox, died 1858, age 78"
Dwelling house 649 - Family 664
Ozial Wilcox 76 M Farmer - Born Maryland
Nancy 70 F - Born Maryland
Franklyn 26 M - Born New York
He was married to Nancy Ann Paine (daughter of Joseph Ruggles Paine and Mehitable Giddings). Intention of marriage recorded at Ashfield, Massachusetts, April 1801. Nancy Ann Paine was born in 1780 in Ashfield, Franklin Co., MA. She died in 1858 in Sandgate, Bennington Co., VT. Ozial Wilcox and Nancy Ann Paine had the following children:
i. Joel Wilcox.
ii. Amelia Wilcox.
iii. Ermina Wilcox.
iv. Ozial Wilcox.
v. Mehitable Wilcox.
vi. John Wilcox(1270). Died in infancy
vii. Nancy Ann Wilcox.
viii. Asa Wilcox.
ix. Joseph Ruggles Wilcox.
x. Emeline Annis Wilcox was born on 6 Feb 1821. She died on 20 Sep 1890. She was buried in Ira Allen Cemetery, Sunderland, Bennington Co., VT.
xi. John Austin Wilcox.
xii. James Franklin Wilcox.
Marriage Notes for Ozial Wilcox and Nancy Payne:
Intention of marriage recorded at Ashfield, Massachusetts, April 1801.
Marriage: Apr 1801, Ashfield, Massachusetts
Children of Ozial Wilcox and Nancy Payne are:
i. Ozial Z. Wilcox, born 13 Mar 1806 in Vermont; died 26 May 1889 in Nelson, New York; married Sylvia Stevens Bef. 1831.
ii. Asa Wilcox, born 25 Mar 1815 in Vermont; died 18 Sep 1881 in Georgetown, NY; married Harriet Stevens Abt. 1836; born 29 Jul 1814 in Manchester, Bennington Co.,VT; died 17 Oct 1889.
Notes for Asa Wilcox:
The 1860 census found this family living in Hamilton twp. Madison County, New York. The listing states "Asa, age 45, Born in Vermont"
Burial: Erieville, NY
More About Harriet Stevens:
Burial: Erieville, NY
iii. James Franklin Wilcox, born 01 Jun 1830; died 26 May 1899 in Arlington, Bennington Co.,VT; married Mary Elizabeth Nichols Bef. 1852; born 01 Jun 1829; died 06 Feb 1915 in Arlington, Bennington Co.,VT.
Notes for James Franklin Wilcox:
James Franklin Wilcox served about three years in the Civil War. Both he and his wife Mary Elizabeth are buried at Arlington, Vermont
iv. William West Wilcox, born 26 Mar 1832; married Ellen S. Mack.
* Ozial Wilcox (1806 - 1889)
Warren Wilcox, grandfather of Sylvia Wilcox
o Warren Wilcox
o Birth
o
+ Aug 1845
+ in Erieville, Madison, New York, United States
o Death
o
+ 19 Jan 1935
+ in Boone, Boone, Iowa, United States
#Marriage 1879, New York
* Louisa Page
Wife, and grandmother of Sylvia Wilcox Hoover
* Birth
*
o 1850
o in New York, United States
* Death *
Children *
Clarence Wilcox
*
*
Elizabeth Wilcox
– 1950
*
*
Guy Wilcox
*
*
Orson J Wilcox
1867 – 1947
*
*
Herbert Levi Wilcox
*
o 1879
o in Boone, Boone, Iowa, United States
*
o Birth
o
+ Aug 1845
+ in Erieville, Madison, New York, United States
o Death
o
+ 19 Jan 1935
+ in Boone, Boone, Iowa, United States
#Marriage 1879, New York
* Louisa Page
Wife, and grandmother of Sylvia Wilcox Hoover
* Birth
*
o 1850
o in New York, United States
* Death *
Children *
Clarence Wilcox
*
*
Elizabeth Wilcox
– 1950
*
*
Guy Wilcox
*
*
Orson J Wilcox
1867 – 1947
*
*
Herbert Levi Wilcox
*
o 1879
o in Boone, Boone, Iowa, United States
*
Herbert L. Wilcox
Herbert L Wilcox
1887-1974
Parents
Warren Wilcox
1845 – 1935
Louisa Page
1850 – 1879
*
Wife Flossie A Davenport
Children *
Catherine Wilcox
*
Jane Wilcox
*
Louise D Wilcox
*
Sylvia May Wilcox
*
Vera L Wilcox
Sylvia May Wilcox Hoover
Sylvia May Hoover was my mother in law for many years, it is for her grandchildren and gt grandson that I am posting information I have found. My memories of Sylvia are very complex. We had a very strange relationship but I find now that I am moved by her life and want to share my experiences with her. I feel it has taken me a lifetime to really understand the feelings I had for Sylvia.
* Sylvia May Wilcox
* Birth
*
o 5 Dec 1920
o in Boone, Boone, Iowa, USA
* Death
*
o 24 Nov 2008
o in Webster City Iowa, Hamilton, Iowa USA
*
Parents;
Herbert Levi Wilcox
1887 – 1974
Flossie A Davenport
1897 –
Husband; Clyde Eugene Hoover
1921 –
Children; Althea Jill Hoover, married Robert Brown, 1962
1942 – 1996
Lon Eugene Hoover- 1944; married Laura Evans, 1964 div; 1982
Gandchildre; Kirk Eugene Hoover - 1965-1969
Kent Evans Hoover, Jennifer Anne Hoover, Melinda Jo Brown, Michael Robert Brown
Gt Grandchild; Christopher Floyd Harper, son of Jennifer and David Haper
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About Me
- NeNe
- I am a very busy grandma and mom to a passel of kids! I love crafts and enjoy sharing with others. I am involved in several groups that have shared interests. I have been involved with lots of home make-overs and enjoy decorating for myself and friends.