Illinois in the early 1800s

My 3-gr-grandfather, Ichabod/Ike/Bird Hensley moved to Illinois before 1839.  He married Nancy Webb 14 Jan 1839 in Clay County, Illinois.  I do not yet know if Bird was living in Clay County before his marriage to Nancy.

Illinois Statewide Marriage Index:
http://www.ilsos.gov/GenealogyMWeb/MarriageSearchServlet

But I do know that it is likely that Nancy was living with her parents before her marriage to Bird.  Her parents are found in the 1830 census of Clay County:

William Webb

1 Male 20 to 30

1 Male 60 to 70

1 Female 15 to 16

1 female 40 to 50

Bird and Nancy are still living in Clay County in 1840: 

 The  1840 Clay County census lists:   Bird Henslee household as the

following:  1 male under 5 years of age, and one 20 to 30 .  1 female under 5 years of age, one 5 to 10, one 10 to 15, and one 20 to 30.

By 1850 Bird and Nancy had moved their families back to Cabell County, Virginia (now WV).


Nancy HensleyAge:38Birth Year:abt 1812Birthplace:VirginiaHome in 1850:District 10, Cabell, Virginia, USAGender:FemaleFamily Number:453Household Members:

Name	Age
Bird Hensley	39
Nancy Hensley	38
Lucinda Hensley	20
Belinda Hensley	18
Elizabeth Hensley	16
William Hensley	11
Mary A Hensley	9
Sarah Hensley	6
Columbus Hensley	3

What I am finding is that there seem to be a number of families who made the same journey to Illinois who came back to what was then Virginia before 1850.  As I find these families, I would like a place to add them into my notes.  So here they are.  This is NOT my research below.  It is gathered from the sources that I note without my checking to be sure of the accuracy.

"Benjamin Franklin Swann (2nd child of Leven and Elizabeth Jenkins Swann) is said to have:

Benjamin Franklin (1793-1870) married Elizabeth Jarrett and had at least four children.  After a brief move to Sangamon County, Illinois (1828-abt. 1836) he came back here and settled in Mason County.  He was a widower with his brother Hezekiah in the 1870 Cabell Census."  [this information taken from an article written by George Swann and published in the KYOWVA Fall 2011 Newsletter on p.6]  George maintains a website at:  http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~swannfamily/

I have sent George an e-mail as it seems that his ancestor, Josiah Swann also moved to Illinois...perhaps even Clay County.....I will update this as I have more information.  After Josiah moved back to Cabell County, he married Rachel Morrison and it is from this wife that George descends.  I will edit this after I talk with George.

Franco-Prussian War and Hornberger

On my third week of treatment for lymphedema in my right arm, I began cleaning out my bottomless pit of an inbox to pass the morning hours with right arm bound.  One e-mail piqued my curiosity, and I began to read an article about JK Rowlings "Who Do You Think You Are" episodes:


http://www.jkrowling.com/uploads/documents/en_GB-press-wdytya-1373364821.pdf

The link had been sent via one of my favorite mail lists:

alsace-lorraine@rootsweb.com

and from reading that I decided it is a good time to read more about what was happening in the Alsace-Lorraine area just before my grandmother's Hornberger/Schweikart family moved to Ironton OH from that area.  It is quite possible that Jack and I drove through this town on our way to Strasburg.  No looking at map we probably drove on the larger highway shown in blue.  Brumath is the area outlined  with A4 marked going through the town just south of Haguenau.

The family folklore says that Fred Hornberger's father, George, had fought under Napoleon.  Well after my reading today, it definitely was NOT Napoleon Bonaparte!

Summer 2014 Charlotte Erickson and I went to library in Ironton.  At this visit, I made a copy of the Naturalization of Fred.  It is stored in Hornberger file on computer and can be viewed in multimedia in Reunion.  It states that Frederick Hornberger is a native of Germany and that he came to the US about July 1880 and was under the age of 18 when he arrived.  He is now (2Nov 1886 in probate court) over the age of 21.


[Naturalization records have been filed in the U.S. District and Circuit Courts and in the local courts in Ohio counties, especially in the courts of common pleas and the probate courts (after 1851). No centralized files exist before 1906.]

Napoleon Bonaparte rose to prominence during the French Revolution (1789-1799). The Napoleonic Wars took place from 1803-1815.  Napoleon died in 1821.  Much too early for George Hornberger to have been a part of.  Perhaps an earlier generation?  Or perhaps Napoleon III.....Napoleon II ruled for a VERY brief amount of time.  He was the son of Napoleon Bonaparte,  However, Napoleon III was in power

Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte (20 April 1808 – 9 January 1873) was the only President (1848–52) of the French Second Republic and, as Napoleon III, the Emperor (1852–70) of the Second French Empire. He was the nephew and heir of Napoleon I. He was the first President of France to be elected by a direct popular vote. When he was blocked by the Constitution and Parliament from running for a second term, he organized a coup d'état in 1851, and then took the throne as Napoleon III on 2 December 1852, the forty-eighth anniversary of Napoleon I's coronation. He remains the longest-serving French head of state since the French Revolution.

So it would have been this man under whom George Hornberger would have served.  He would have probably taken part in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871.  The german victory led to 

The people of the area were allowed to choose to become German and stay where they lived or to move.

Thomas Higginbotham sells land to Robert Rose 1751

I started this post and spent so much time on the introduction to why I was writing it, that I ended up publishing the post on its own.....so it is the next post that you might read if you continue to scroll down.

Luan Marks sent me information at my request about a man named Patrick Morrison who was probably born c. 1750.  A woman named Ruth Sammons Nassar who did a great deal of research on family lines that my mother and Ruth shared in the mid 1900s had said that the wife of Solomon Hensley was Elizabeth Morrison and that Elizabeth's father was Patrick.  The Patrick in the below information would have been of a suitable age to have been a father to Elizabeth.

 I decided to work on Luan's information  immediately and added the first fact to the time line that I am working on:

3 June 1751 

Patrick Morrison appeared as a witness on a deed in Albemarle County for sale of 540 acres of land on the Piney River and Piney Woods.This Patrick Morrison would have been at least 16 years old to sign legally as a witness on this deed.

“Thomas Higginbotham, son of John and Frances (Riley) Higginbotham was living in Albemarle Co., in 1751, when on June of that year, he conveyed by deed to Robert Rose also of Albemarle, for a consideration of 45 lbs, three messages or tenements . . . Witnesses: John Walker, Robert Green and Patrick Morrison” 

(Albemarle County Deed Book 1, page 378).

I have for a long time been interested in Robert Rose, so I was very excited to see this first item!  

On March 16, 1749, the remarkable planter-minister Robert Rose introduced a new era in Piedmont with the discovery that two canoes lashed together could convey downstream eight or nine hogsheads of tobacco as compared to one hogshead on a single canoe. 

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=6326495

Gotta quit....Christmas stuff.....but fun....afraid I'll loose what I have saved so far if I don't publish.

Ruth Salmons Nassar and Morrison, Hensley, and Webb

This Christmas Season I have been ordering Morrison and Hensley DNA kits and chatting with Luan Marks and Ed Griffith about their mutual Morrison lines.  I hope that Morrison will also be a line belonging to Mom.  Ruth Sammons Nassar had run out of energy or health by the time she began to work on Mom's Hensley line.  She says:  "It has been vexing that I could find so little on the Hensley family and even less on the Webb line.  Lucinda Hensley Salmons was certainly the most colorful and intriguing of my ancestors and I would like to know more about her antecedents, however my research capabilities are now limited and I now compile as much data as I have in order that some future researcher may be aided."

I take this as a personal note from Ruth to me.  I dedicate all of my research on the Morrison, Hensley and Webb lines to this lady who I consider one of my best buddies even though I was never able to actually meet her in person.  When I read her pages, I truly believe that she did all that she could to help me move this research on.  And I hope that I will be able to live long enough to do the same for some future researcher....

In her book about her Hensley family, Ruth seems to take for granted the fact that Solomon Hensley was indeed her ancestor and that his wife was Elizabeth Morrison.  She also places Patrick Henry Morrison as a father for Elizabeth.  I am rereading all of this today in hopes that I will find some source for documentation in the pages that I have missed on previous readings.  I do not believe that Elizabeth's father was Patrick Henry Morrison.  I believe that Cabell County researchers have found some sort of evidence that Elizabeth had father Patrick. ...when in fact it is her grandfather who had name Patrick. They then turn around and connect her to the Cabell County Patrick Henry Morrison that they know.  In truth Ed Griffith explained to me several years ago that the Patrick Henry Morrison that the Cabell County researchers are talking about would have only been 10 years old when Elizabeth was born.  

Salmons and Goochland/Cumberland County

I pulled some books off the shelf to reshelve them in places that make sense.  One of them is Southam Parish Land Processioning 1747-2784 by Ann K. Blomquist.  There are quite a few pages on which John Salmons is listed.  There is also one page on which William Salmons is listed and he seems to be in the same neighborhood as John.

So I decided to go on-line and see if I could get a feeling for the vicinity that is being talked about when John Salmons is among those to whom the processioning refers.  Over and over the points of reference are:  Widow Dillion's Path, Ham Chapel, Muddy Creek....here are some of the references that I found about these places:

The other chapel would be between Peterville and the James River and called initially “Willis” but shortly Ham Chapel. The parish entry detailing its construction is torn but most likely stated that it was to be constructed “as the other” in size and shape, etc. Its site using the names of the time was along Pruett’s Path and Widow Dillion’s Path or today’s along Virginia Road 45 north of U.S. Highway 60 near Ashby. Ham Chapel was finished sometime in 1747, but repairs, modifications and additions were frequently needed.
from:  http://freepages.family.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~huntergeorge/hughespg2.html

I found some information about the Dumas family that includes an explanation of the area being in district #19 on the map on page 10 of this book...oh, yes, I see now that the information is actually labelled as being in precinct #19 on page 14.  This information is found at:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cullember/otherfam/dumas.html

I have a couple of maps on one of my own posts:

http://marshamoses.blogspot.com/search?q=salmons

OK....before I file the book, here are a few maps that help me understand this area of Precinct #19:

And in the below map Muddy Creek is labelled with the small marker.

There is no doubt in my mind that this is the area in which the Salmons Family was living when John Salmons died.  And probably all of these families could have attended the Ham Chapel if indeed it was near present day Ashby.

John Slater in Arkansas

I had bought a couple of books while attending the NGS conference in Missouri this past spring.  I unpacked them tonight and took a look.  The dates of the Index to the Arkansas Land Office are 1820-1907.  Both books have Slater males listed as having bought land.  None named have given name John.  I think it likely that John may have bought land that was in private hands


My 3-gr-grandfather, John Slater, is found in the

....1850 census finds John A. Slater living in Greenbrier, Independence, Arkansas with a wife: Louisa M. Slater who is 19.  THis John has North Carolina as his birth place.

My grandmother, Mary Ann McGregor Hawkins told me in an interview c. 1969 that her grandfather, John Slater, had been born in NC.  I feel sure that this is the right man.  And the John Slater who is found in Lassen County in the 1860 census is also shown as having been born in NC.  I have absolute proof that this John Slater in Lassen County is my man! Also Louisa is absolutely the name of the Lassen County's man's wife.

So where were they living in 1850?  I went surfing tonight and found the following maps:

Hmmmmm.....I am going to have to work on this some more.  The lower map has almost no resemblance to the boundaries of Independence County in the upper map.  Think I quit for the night.

Trip to the suburbs of Philadelphia

I very much want to make my next trip to Philadelphia to be a driving trip.  That way I will have my car in order to visit sites in the more suburban areas.  My earliest ancestors seem to have  settled in Philadelphia city.  Their children and grandchildren moved out into the surrounding countryside.  This blog post is mostly for me in order to organize my thoughts about this possible

Here are some websites that I am finding helpful. 

The first one gives overviews of Old Quaker Meeting Houses in Pennsylvania:
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~paxson/graphics-pax/mtghse.html


http://trilogy.brynmawr.edu/speccoll/mm/radnoumm.xml

http://www.lowermerionhistory.org/burial/radnor/

http://radnorquakers.org/welcome/related-links/

http://pennsylvania-genealogy.net/Exeter-in-Berks-County-Genealogy.cfm

I found the below site while looking for Evan Thomas (connection to Foulke surname)
http://www.gwyneddmeeting.org/history/history.htm

I am doing some of my work in keynote (my slideshow program).  There are a few maps and etc that I feel do not belong to me to put on the internet without asking permission.  If you want me to add or clarify anything, let me know and I'll try to help.