03rd

Henry Mockford b. 1831

/ Kirstin Miller

Henry Mockford 3rd great grandpa on RootsMagic tree

Henry Mockford was born on February 5, 1831 in Budock Cornwall England, the oldest of 8 children of Richard and Elizabeth Green Mockford. In Cornwall on the 1851 census Richard and son Henry are Millers and Journeyman- workers who have completed an apprenticeship considered qualified in their trade. Philippa Johns is a servant in the home. In 1853 Henry Mockford married this Philippa Johns, she was also from Cornwall.

1851 Budock England census Mockfords and PhillipaHenry, a year after his marriage, sailed to America and on the 1855 New York census he lived in Monroe County, New York, he was a servant and boarded in the home of Lucy Blodgett.  Within a year his wife and baby son William came to America too. By 1860 Henry had his own home, a next door neighbor of Lucy Blodgett and her family. On the 1860 census Henry is a Miller, his kids range from age 6 to 2 months, older brother William is also in the home. Henry and Philippa would have 7 kids total, 4 sons and 3 daughters: William born in England, and Richard, Emily, Lucy, Harry, Mary and Milton, all born in New York.

By 1872 Henry and his brother William were business owners in Hamline, New York. From the Atlas of Monroe Co., “Business Notices Mockford , Henry Propr of flouring and custom mill, Mockford, WS Propr of saw mill. Particular attention paid to custom work. Lumber constantly on hand and for sale at lowest rates”.

Mockford brothers 1872 in Hamlin, NY

Henry died in 1905. HIs obituary mentioned he worked at Johnson Harvester Company and mentioned his surviving family including children, bothers and sisters of the Monroe County, NY area except Richard Mockford who had left for Shell Rock, Iowa.

Henry and Philippa are buried in Elmwood Cemetery in  Batavia, New York.

Sources

Casjen Frerichs b. 1834

/ Kirstin Miller

Casjen Frerichs 3rd great grandpa on RootsMagic tree

Casjen was born February 5, 1834. He was from Lower Saxony Germany near Hamburg and Bremen, close to the Netherlands, and Amsterdam. Casjen married Kuna Janssen in Germany. In 1883 Casjen was 49, he and Kuna had 5 kids: Yevkea, Enno, Gerd, Entje, Hilka and the whole family left Germany for America.

Frerichs, Casjen arrival 1883 cardThey sailed on the ship, America, stopped at the New York Harbor then sailed on to Baltimore. From Baltimore, Casjen and family went directly to Butler County, Iowa just over 1,000 miles. Casjen stayed in Butler County, near Parkersburg in Albion township. HIs children stayed in same area, Gerd and Yevkea died shortly after arriving in Iowa, son Enno, daughters Entje and Hilka married, had children and farmed. When Casjen died at age 59, in 1893 he had 3 grandchildren including Mary Frerichs Roose, mom of Stanley Roose.

Frerichs, Casjen headstone

Casjen and wife Kuna are buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Parkersburg. They share a headstone, at the bottom are many words inscribed, by hand, in the German language, something like -Not mine, -, my Savior I found, and I have also in part – . About 10 yards away Martin and Mary Walters Wisbar are buried, parents of Lena who married Johan Roose. Lena and Johann’s son was George Roose who married Mary Frerichs, their son was Stanley Roose.

 

 

Sources

William Stewart b. 1804

/ Kirstin Miller

William Stewart 3rd great grandpa on RootsMagic tree.

William was born in 1804 in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. In 1833 or so he married Elizabeth Crooks also of Pennsylvania. William and Elizabeth had 2 daughters and 5 sons. They stayed in Pennsylvania until at least January 15, 1852 when their youngest daughter Elizabeth Stewart, mom of Harve Speedy, grandma of Elizabeth Speedy was born.

Mary and brother James Stewart

Mary b. 1833 and brother James b. 1845

On the 1860 census the family was in Jefferson, Green County, Wisconsin. They lived on a farm. On any census recording occupation William was a farmer. Their neighbors were also farmers, most from Pennsylvania, a couple from Ohio, Ireland and New York. In 1860 sons Thomas, William, James and Jeffrey and daughter Elizabeth were with their parents. Oldest daughter Mary -in the photo- was married to William Royer and oldest son John was married to Martha Graham, all lived and farmed in Jefferson, Wisconsin too.

On the 1870 census William was in Shell Rock, Iowa with wife, daughter Elizabeth and son James. William was still farming. All of his children, spouses and grandkids stayed in Shell Rock or the Butler County area except youngest son James – in the photo- and his wife Anne Elliot who went further west to Nebraska. In 20 years time William and Elizabeth traveled at least 700 miles across the country, maybe common today, but in their time kind of incredible. William died at age 70, in 1874 and is buried at Riverside Cemetery in Shell Rock. There are 25 Stewart memorials in Riverside Cemetery, of those 15 are proven in this same Stewart family, the remaining 10 may be somehow related.

Pennsylvania to Iowa

Sources
1850, 60, 70 and 1900 US censuses at FamilySearch.
Google map, Allegheny County, PA to Shell Rock IA
Find a grave memorial https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/83687033

William Speedy b. 1783

/ Kirstin Miller

William Speedy 3rd great grandpa on RootsMagic tree.

William Speedy was born in 1783 in Pennsylvania. His parents aren’t known. He probably grew up in Pennsylvania then left for Ohio where he fought in the War of 1812.

Speedy, William on War of 1812 roster

War of 1812 Roster

On April 13, 1823 he married Elizabeth Glenn. He and Elizabeth had 6 sons Thomas, John, James, Clark, William and Manford. The Speedys lived in Jefferson County, Ohio near the Ohio River. William’s farm in 1850 had 100 acres of improved land, 100 acres of unimproved land, a cash value of $1000 and $200 worth of tools and machinery. Livestock on the farm included 5 horse, 2 milking cows, 2 cattle, 20 pigs valued at $450. the farm produced 500 bushels of wheat, 100 bushels bushels of Indian corn, 20 pounds of Irish potatoes, 300 lbs of butter, 8 tons of hay and 3 bushels of clover seed.

William was a widow in 1850, his wife Elizabeth and her dad Thomas Glenn died in the cholera epidemic in Ohio. By 1856 William’s younger sons Clark and Manford were in Shell Rock, Iowa living with Thomas Hall, son of Mary Glenn Hall- Elizabeth Glenn Speedy’s sister. William joined his sons in 1870 and lived with Manford and his family in Iowa. William died in 1872 he was 83 years old.

William is buried at Riverside Cemetery in Shell Rock Iowa. One of 7 Speedys in that cemetery. Annie Coates Speedy, 1st wife of Manford, their 4 children who died young Bertha, Blanche, Eda and Julet and Clark Speedy, son of William, brother to Manford.

Andrew and Manford Speedy cousins

William Speedy is somehow related to Allen Speedy born in Ireland or Scotland in about 1726. I haven’t found any records showing this connection only my DNA results which show Allen Speedy’s descendants as ‘half 4th cousins’. Allen Speedy b. 1726, a cousin or uncle of William Speedy, were both living in Pennsylvania and then in Jefferson County, Ohio. Allen Speedy had a son Andrew, 13 years younger than William, photo shows Andrew Speedy’s family. The 1820 census in Jefferson County Wisconsin shows Allen and William Speedy as neighbors.

Sources

Samuel Druckenbrod b. 1833

/ Kirstin Miller

Samuel Druckenbrod 3rd great grandpa on RootsMagic tree.

Samuel was born in Pennsylvania on May 6, 1833. He was baptized July 14, 1834 in the German Lutheran church at Warwick, PA. Samuel’s great grandpa Matthias was probably the first of his family in America, arriving in the early 1700s during upheaval in Germany and William Penn’s German communities in Pennsylvania. By 1850 his family had moved west to Plain City in Stark County, Ohio.

Samuel married Elizabeth Harter Bair in Stark in 1854. Samuel and Elizabeth had 12 kids and they stayed in Stark, Ohio, they were farmers. On the 1900 US census Samuel and Elizabeth are still farmers. Their son Ivy recorded this census, his name is at the top as ‘enumerator’. In the future Ivy would be superintendent of the Stark County Infirmary. Daughter Fianna Druckenbrod is the only child to move from Ohio. Fianna moved to Bremer County, Iowa with her husband William L. Miller, also from Stark, Ohio, grandparents of Faber Miller.

Samuel was a widow in 1902 and he died on February 14, 1905. At his death his home was in Stark, Ohio, he was on a visit to Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, 35 miles north, where his two daughters Lidia Druckenbrod Crist and Adeline Druckenbrod Miller were living with their families. The area in the 1800 and 1900s provided “recreation for urban dwellers … the Valley Railway became another way to escape urban industrial life”. The Cuyahoga Valley National Park was established in 2000 and has 100 waterfalls, trails, 250 species of birds and more.

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Elizabeth Crooks b. 1810

/ Kirstin Miller

Elizabeth Crooks 3rd great grandma on RootsMagic tree

Elizabeth was born in Pennsylvania on May 3 1810, the daughter of Andrew and Elizabeth Jeffrey Crooks. Elizabeth’s mom died when she was 7 and her dad remarried. In 1830, Elizabeth married William Stewart, also of Pennsylvania. They lived in French Creek, PA 30 miles east of Lake Erie, on the western edge of Pennsylvania. Elizabeth’s dad died in 1849 and in his will he named each of his children, Elizabeth and her sisters each inherited $100.

On the 1850 census Elizabeth was still in French Creek, Pennsylvania on a farm, she and William Stewart had 6 kids, ages 2 to 17 years old. On the 1860 census Elizabeth and family have moved 500 miles west to Jefferson, Green County Wisconsin. On the 1870 US census Elizabeth had moved 200 miles further west to Shell Rock, Butler County, Iowa. Elizabeth was 60, her husband William 65. Their 2 younger children James 24 and Elizabeth 18 were in the home, James and William farmed. Elizabeth was a widow in 1874 and on the 1880 census was living with daughter Elizabeth who had married Manford Speedy and their family. They all lived near Allison, Iowa.

Elizabeth Crooks died September 26, 1887 and had an obituary in the local newspaper, “Shell Rock, Mrs. Elizabeth Stewart, mother of J.W. and William Stewart of this place, died at the residence of her daughter, Mrs. M.B. Speedy at Allison, Monday evening, September 26th, at the ripe old age of 77 years, 4 months, and 23 days. She was buried in the cemetery at this place on the following Wednesday”. She is buried at Riverside Cemetery in Shell Rock, Iowa.

Sources

Jacob Miller b. 1808

/ Kirstin Miller

Jacob Miller 3rd great grandpa on RootsMagic tree

Jacob was born in 1808 in Virginia. On April 18, 1833 in Jackson, Ohio he married Sarah Davis, also from Virginia. They had their first child in Ohio then moved to Elkhart Indiana and had 9 more kids. The 1840 and 1850 US censuses show Jacob and family farmed in Baugo Township, 50 miles east of Lake Michigan, near Elkhart and South Bend, Indiana The red rectangle on the Google map shows the location. The Mitchell family from New York were neighbors in 1850 and on August 7, 1850 Jacob and Sarah’s oldest daughter Mary married Moses Mitchell and they moved to Iowa.

Jacob Miller photo

Miller, Jacob d. 1854 newspaper snapshot

Jacob died in 1854 at age 46 and there’s a pretty good chance he was hit by a train after a night of drinking. The newspaper article (Peru (Indiana) Wabash Valley Olio 1854 Jan 13) shows detail. In 1845 the ‘Temperance’ lobby, movement was pretty well established and continued to grow until prohibition in 1920. When Jacob died, his widow, with 8 kids still at home, one of them just born in 1854, decided to move 400 miles west to Iowa, where her oldest daughter Mary Mitchell and family lived. That move set in motion the marriage of Sarah’s son James to Mary Ella Gaines then the birth of their son William, then William’s marriage and the birth of his son, Faber who married Gladys. Faber’s sister Florence kept family history notes with the names and births of her family including Jacob’s family. Jacob’s kids would set up homes in California, Kansas, Oklahoma and Washington, 3 stayed in Iowa, 3 are currently unknown.

Sources

  • 1850 US Census at FamilySearch
  • Public Ancestry photo “LanceL_Ferris originally shared this 24 Dec 2013”.
  • Newspaper Archive, Cedar Rapids Public Library, Peru (Indiana) Wabash Valley Olio 1854 Jan 13

Sarah Ann Davis b. 1819

/ Kirstin Miller

Sarah Ann Davis 3rd great grandma on RootsMagic tree.

Sarah Davis was born in Virginia, probably to Pleasant and Sarah Horton Davis, the 6th of 7 kids. On April 18, 1833 in Jackson, Ohio Sarah married Jacob Miller. Sarah and Jacob had one child Mary, in Ohio, then moved to Elkhart, Indiana. They farmed and had 9 more kids.

Miller, Jacob and Sarah Ann Davis

Jacob and Sarah Davis Miller, public photo on Ancestry

Jacob died in 1854 same year his 9th child was born. In 1860 Sarah was 46 years old and head of house on the census, living on a farm with 6 of her children. Jake is the oldest, he’s 18 and farms. James, Sarah, Will, Susan and John are 14 to 8 years old, they attend school. The oldest daughter Mary had married Moses Mitchell and moved to Nashua, Iowa. Son Pleasant, named after his grandpa, was in Sutter, California, a miner. Two children Horton and Alexander are still a mystery, not a lot of records. Maybe son Horton, named for his uncle, had joined the Confederate Army in Tennessee, maybe son Andrew was on his own and married with a family in Indiana.

On the 1870 and 1880 census Sarah and children have moved to Washington Township, Black Hawk County, Iowa, near Janesville and the Cedar River. On the 1880 census Sarah had real estate valued at $1700. Her sons Jacob and James were farmers, younger kids were at school. Her neighbors were farmers, carpenters, a physician, a teacher and day laborers; born in New York, California, England, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Iowa.

Sarah died April 8, 1888 and is buried at Oakland Cemetery in Janesville, Iowa. She is near her son James’s in-laws the Gaines family. Son James married Mary Ella Gaines, their son William is the dad of Faber who married Gladys.

Sources

  • Ohio county marriages 1789-2013 database at FamilySearch
  • 1860, 1870, 1880 US census at Ancestry
  • Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/42676896
  • Public photo shared on Ancestry, “LanceL_Ferris originally shared this 24 Dec 2013”

Mary Walters b. 1848

/ Kirstin Miller

Mary Walters 3rd great grandma on RootsMagic tree.
Mary was born July 4, 1848 in Hanover, Germany. On August 17, 1872 she sailed to America, landed in New York with her husband Martin Wisbar and 2 daughters Anna and Lena. The Wisbar family was in Illinois for a few years then in Butler County, Iowa by 1895. The Plat book of Butler County, Iowa 1895 shows the Wisbar land, Mary and Martin lived in Monroe Township on 148 acres. Next to their farm was a cemetery, still there, Monroe Township Cemetery. The nearby German Lutheran Church and schoolhouse are most likely gone.

Wisbar, M 1895 land

Mary and Martin’s land 1895

Mary and Martin had 8 children, 4 boys and 4 girls. Martin died in 1912 Mary lived until 1918. She had moved to Waterloo and was living with her son Louis. Mary’s obituary was in the November 4, 1918 Waterloo Evening Courier and provides detail on her marriage, arrival in America and Lutheran Church membership. The obituary also lists her daughters- by their married names: [Anna] Mrs. F. J. Meyer, Farnhanville, Ia.; [Lena] Mrs. John Roose, Allison, [Sophia] Mrs. I. C. Parker, Miss Emma; her son Louis, and a “sister. Mrs. William Pohlman” no further details on the sister. Mary is buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Parkersburg, there is a group of Wisbar headstones and about 20 feet away Casjen and Kuna Frerichs. Mary’s grandson George Roose married the Frerichs’s granddaughter Mary and had a son Stanley Roose.

Wisbar, Lena and Roose grandchild

Lena Wisbar and Roose grandchild

Sources

  • Newspaper Archive, Cedar Rapids Public Library, 1918 Nov 4 Waterloo Evening Courier page 7 of 10 column 4 bottom 5 top. CR Library card required to view.
  • Plat book of Butler County, Iowa 1895 at University of Iowa Digital Libraries, page 27, image 18 of 37 square 1
  • 1895 Iowa census database at FamilySearch.
  • New York passenger lists 1820-1891 database at FamilySearch.
  • Find a Grave https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/180799561 .

Elizabeth Harter Bair b. 1836

/ Kirstin Miller

Elizabeth Bair 3rd great grandma on RootsMagic

Elizabeth was born in July, 1836 in Plain Township, Stark, Ohio. She was the oldest child of George and Margaret Bowman Harter. Elizabeth’s middle name ‘Harter’ was her maternal grandmother’s maiden name. Both the Harter and Bair families were pioneers in Plain, Elizabeth’s great grandparents some of the first settlers.

Bair, Elizabeth and family 1850 census

1850 Plain Township, Ohio census, Elizabeth Bair and family

On the 1850 census Elizabeth is 13. The Bair family is on page 45 of 53. The 53 pages with 20 or fewer person on each page contain Elizabeth’s future husband’s Druckenbrod family, the Henry Miller family, future in laws of granddaughter Fianna and lots of ancestors: Miller, Bair, Harter, Druckenbrod, Malone, Kryder and Shuler families. Also in laws by marriage: Grubb, Essig, Troxel, Christ, and Bishop families. And no relation: Kissinger, Trump and Pence families too, all in this tiny township with population at 896 people in 1820 then 2277 people in 1850.

Population in Plain Township, Ohio from 1855 map

Population from 1820-1850

Elizabeth married Samuel Druckenbrod around 1854. They lived on a farm, and had 12 children. Elizabeth was 24 when the Civil War started. 320,000 Ohio men were drafted in to the war which was covered in the local newspapers: Stark County Democrat and Stark County Republican.  Elizabeth could have read Mrs. Samuel Stover’s eyewitness account of ‘the march of Lee’s rebel army into Pennsylvania; also of the retreat of the remnant of said army to the Potomac’ in the Republican and details of the battle in the Democrat.

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