Welsh Immigrants to the Jennings County Area &
Their Families
(surnames Jones, Tobias & Boyd)
In April
of 1817 John D. Jones and family of Caerllan, in
the parish of Liantysliogogo, Wales left their native land in a small sail
boat for America. After a voyage of twelve weeks, they landed at New York.
Maria a daughter spent three months with a family by the name of Conthett,
in Baltimore. There she learned to read and write
English.
About 1820 the Jones Family came to Indiana and
located in Jennings County, where Maria was married to Evan Jones, also a
Welshman.
In a few years Evan Jones died and Maria was
married to John T. Tobias, whose family also from Wales, had come to
Indiana from Ohio. They located their new home in the northeastern part
of Scott Connty on the Muskatatuck River. Eleven children were born to them,
eight of whom lived to maturity, viz John J., Minerva, Susan, Elinor, Emily,
Alice, Margaret and Florella.
Emily was born December
24th 1842. Her earliest recollections were of playing with her sisters in
their humble home; of witnessing the marriage of her half sister Rachel Ann
Jones to Robinson Lowrey and of going to the old log church at Mt. Giliad.
She carefully carried her shoes and stockings until near the church and put
them on before going into the services.
School memories began with a subscription
school taught by Margaret Toole in the summer of 1847 at Old Jefferson.
Elizabeth Dixon also taught a subscription school in this log building, with
its high windows of one pane each in horizontal rows across the sides of the
building. Under these windows were high desks made of slabs. The desk
for the boys was on one side of the room and the one for the girls on the
other. Segregation was deemed best. About ten or twelve children could
write at the same time at these high desks. The seats were of slabs
also.
The curriculum was limited to
reading, writing and spelling, later arithmatic and grammer (Kirknam's) were
added. James Bovard, Wilson M. Reid, Allen Whitsett and Evan Tobias were
some of Emily's earliest teachers. Often the students were permitted to stud
the spelling lessons aloud, and frequently the reading lesson was read "in
concert" or "in chase" pupils often studied together off the same book
and sometimes an older pupil coached the younger children before recitation
time.
Water was carried in a wooden bucket from a
spring about 1/4 mile south of the building. Usually two of the larger boys
or girls carried the water. It was a real treat to pass the water sometime
during the day. This priviledge often fell to one of the children who
carried the bucket and tin cup up one aisle and down the other. Those were
the days when good penmanship was a test of the teacher's scholarship. It
was mark of a poor scholar not to be able to write a "good hand."
Emily was not a very strong child and was often kept
out of school. She enjoyed life in the hewed log house whose logs were sawed
by her father and his brother Elias Tobias, from trees. The house consisted
of one large room and loft, with frame partitions for bedrooms. Several beds
were placed in the loft, where fat feather beds and wool coverlets kept
out the cold but not the snow.
The floors were of
Poplar. As there were no carpets, it was a weekly task to scour the floor
with white sand and lye soap. The home made hickory split bottom chairs also
received a weekly cleaning with the above mentioned sand and soap, to say
nothing of the crock covers, the churn and the various wooden ladles
and mush paddles and brass kettles. The lye soap was made each spring by the
mothers and daughters from lye and grease when the sign was right. In those
days women folks were not considered thrifty unless they constructed an ash
hopper and saved the ashes for lye.
Another
test for housewifery was to be able to spin twelve cuts a day and to weave
flanel, jeans and carpets. Mrs. Tobias was proficient in these things and
taught her daughters how to weave and color, as well as how to cook over the
big fireplace. A second hand stove was purchased by Mr. Tobias about
1850.
The Tobias family used candles, made
as often as needed by the mother and daughters. The greatest supply was
made in the winter when the molds were placed in the snow to harden the
candles. A kerosene lamp was presented the family by one of the sons-in-law
but it was long before it lighted without feelings of awe
and fear. Lard oil was used in the first lamps, and lamp lighters made from
twisted paper. The lamp lighters were usually kept in a glass on the mantle
where they could be easily lighted at the big fireplace.
Mr. Tobias was a farmer, his father having entered fine farms for
his sons on the Muscatatuck. He cleared the heavily timbered land and
burned many fine poplar and walnut trees at log rollings. Corn was the
pricipal grain raised. It was planted and cultivated with horses the
children assisting. Emily remembers the first wooden plows
used.
Mr. & Mrs. Tobias were strict Baptists and
were members of the Coffee Creek Baptist Church in Jennings County. They
often crossed the Muscatatuck in their own boat and then walked to church
several miles away. Sometimes they rode horseback and took several of the
children along. Rev. Thomas Hill and Rev. William Lewis were early
Baptist ministers.
The younger members of the family
also attended services at the Mt. Giliad Methodist Church. Rev. William
Maupin, Eldridge Tucker and Rev. LaSourd were on the curcuit at one
time. Rev. William Daily, Tevis, Spencer and Hester were well known
ministers and exhorters of the early church.
In the
early sixties Baton Smith, of the Campbellite Church of Jefferson
County held services at the old Franklin log school house, it was a great
revival with many converts who were baptized int the creek near the old
Doughty mill after the thick ice was broken.
Socially
the young people enjoyed, corn huskings, apple cuttings, wool pickings,
quiltings, dances, singings, spelling matches, fox drives and hunting
parties, barn raisings and log rollings. Their elders did not always approve
of the play parties and dances and more than once Mrs. Tobias suddenly
appeared at a dance and took her protesting daughters
home.
In the pioneer days clothing was principally home
made and home colored. Plaid flannel, yarn stocking, quilted petticoats
where worn in winter with bombazene and delaine dresses for Sunday. Summer
fashions required calico sacques with and dainty dresses of lawn, linen and
jackonette made infant waist and full skirt. Sunbonnets were often worn
both winter and summer but all the Tobias girls usually wore fancy
Florence braid hats or dress bonnets, scoops and leghorns, bustles,
tilters, hoops tightly laced waists, silk tassled hair nets, black silk
aprons with silk cords and tassles; cloth gaiters (side laced) were also
worn.
In March 1864, Emily Tobias was married to
Travanion Boyd of Jefferson County by James Calvin Esq. in the presents
of many relatives and friends. The next day the wedding party went to
Mr. Boyd's where the infair dinner of roasted pea fowl was
served.
In 1866 they bought a home farm of
George Byfield in Scott County, near the Tobias homestead. Here they
lived for forty years until the death of Mr. Boyd in
1906.
Mr. Boyd was a farmer and stockman a breeder of
Shorthorn cattle and Poland China hogs. By industry and thrift after many
years, they were able to live comfortably; to raise their nine daughters
(two sons died in infancy); to share their home with others, to take part in
the life of the Community and to help solve its
problems.
Mrs. Boyd now in her 81st year, still lives in
the house that has been her home for more than fifty-eight years. She
takes an active interest in the community and in the Alpha Baptist
Church of which she is a Charter member. Six daughters, thirteen
grandchildren, and eleven great-grandchildren compose her family. She still
shares her home with others.
Though small in statue,
scarcely more than five feet and never weighing one hundred pounds in her
normal health. Mrs. Boyd was "Tall" in ability and resourcefulness, if she
needed a pattern she cut it to fit the growing daughters or she could easily
alter a pattern to fit a grown daughter. She had a sense of humor and
the sparkle in her blue-gray eyes provoked other laughter or lightened
tension in the household. She was firm in discipline and undemonstrative in
her affection but had a ready sympathy though not always expressed. The
little "cat swith" behind the Seth Thomas clock on the mantle often had a
soothing effect on the worst peevish daughter or settled an eminent
brawl brewing among playful teasing children.
One is amazed to consider the meals prepared, for hired
men, livestock men, traders, politicians and relatives. Mr. Boyd's hearty
"light and come in!" Was invitation enough to start Mrs.
Boyd's
feet kitchenward to prepare another
dinner.
"Hired girls" were provided until Mrs. Boyd's
daughters were able to help with the housework and to care for the
little ones. Many relatives shared the Boyd home through the years and
had the same care and training as the daughters.
Full of
years and good works Mrs. Boyd died April 21st 1925 at the old homestead
in her 83rd year, beloved and sincerely mourned.
Proverbs
31:32 "Give her of the fruit of her hand and let her own
works praise her in
the Gates"