The Family of John D.
Jones
Welsh Pioneers
It was in the year of 1817 that John D. Jones began making
the final plans for the ocean voyage that would take himself and his
family and the families of friends and neighbors to the wonderous land of
America, away from the parish of Llantysiliogogo where he had been born on
the 5th of January,1777 at Caerllan all of which lay in the county of
Cardigan, South Wales.
Here in the last western retreat
of the Britons who had fought and fled before their ever pressing English
neighbors, he had grown to manhood feeling often the western winds that blew
from Cardigan Bay.
At the age of 20 her married his
first wife, Elizabeth Reice, and on November 12th of 1797 he became the
father of his first child, a daughter whom they named Onar who was to
be his standby for many long years in the old home and in the
new.
Their first son came 4 years later on October 1st,
1801. Fifty years would pass before this son was to die in Madison, Indiana,
editor of their first daily newspaper, elogized by his fellow citizens. For
the little Welsh baby Daniel D. Jones, was to become a lively articulate
leader, full of fun and pranks, the intelligent editor of the Madison Daily
Banner.
Three years later another son, Theophilus
arrived but lived only one month, but the second daughter, Maria D., born in
July of 1806, was to cross the Atlantic Ocean eleven years later, and
to live long years in Indiana where she was to become the mother of nine and
to finally lie beside her husband in a peaceful cemetery west of Paris
Crossing. (Maria had eleven children instead of
nine.)
In the year 1809 another son also named
Theophilus, was born in October. He to came to America and lived for a few
years in the new Indiana home on the north bank of the Muckatatuck, a home
built of the felled trees of the primitive forsest.
On
Christmas day of 1811 a gift arrived in the form of a new daughter
Ralhel, and three years later in another December little Hannah was
added to the ever growing family on the last day of the
year.
The home was filled with activities of six
children, ranging from nineteen to two, when little Ebenezer was added
to the family in October of 1816. How busy the parents must have been and
how welcome the help of the older ones. Thinking too was John D. for news
came across the ocean of a new country, calling itself the United States of
America, that had licked their old enemy, by Golly!
As
the family increased news continued to arrive of this new land with its vast
forests, wide plains and growing cities. They must have admired the courage
and determination it took to dirve the English from their shores, not only
once but TWICE! Unyielding independence was something the Welsh understood
and a better life for their children was a deep desire.
By 1817 their plans were fully laid and six families known to each other
booked passage for New York City, America their household goods
sold.
Elizibeth may have had some misgivings
about leaving for another land, but she and capable Onar, now almost twenty,
had sorted and packed clothing, bedding, dried food, seeds and such small
household articles as could be packed in or between them. Stout wooden boxes
held tools, a few books and all the assembled piles of items laid out by
Elizabeth and Onar. Labels were tacked on firmly by John and Daniel, for the
boxes and bundles of six families would be numerous, the handling
and voyage rough.
The family then dressed in
their traveling clothes, carried their small bags, boxes and bundles, bade
their friends and relatives goodby, received their tearful farwells and were
off on their long voyage on the seventeenth day of April,
1817.
John D. was now forty, Elizabeth about the same,
Onar nineteen, Daniel fifteen, Maria D. ten, Theophilus seven, Rachel five,
Hannah going on three, and baby Edenezer almost six months. It took
courage, careful planning and determination to set out on the seas which
sent such bitter winter weather over Cardigan bay. They departed held up by
faith and hope and in the presence of tried and trusted friends. It is
thought that there may have been six families, some with the names of Jones,
Hughes and Tobias, possibly more than one family with the same
surname.
Tragedy struck quickly, baby Edenezer died
April 21st and the stricken family was faced with going ashore in order
to lay the body of their second wee one in the soil of
Wales.
Almost three months later their small ship
pulled into New York harbor in the month of July. They had been in a violent
storm, were heartily tired of cramped quarters and the lack
of fresh food. At long last they gazed on the bustling warves of this
entrance to their new country.
The teaming city with its
emigrants from many countries must have been bewildering to these
families fresh from a more rural countryside, facing the needs of finding
housing, and food among people speaking a different language, although
Daniel may have learned English at school as it was I believe it was a
required subject in Welsh schools. It certainly must have been an
exhausting, trying time, and then tragedy struck again. Little Hannah
sickened and passed away August 30th.
There is a
small note somewhere that Daniel, now a few months from his sixteenth
birthday, worked while living in New York, at the immigration office,
indicating that he must have received a solid education in the schools of
Wales. I believe that at that time schooling for boys was considered more
important than for girls.
The family moved on to
Baltimore, Maryland. Where Maria D. Lived with a family named Conthett, and
there she learned to speak and write English. Daniel soon obtained
employment on the Baltimore American, where he learned the printing trade.
John D. may have had and used carpenter skills but their hopes for land had
not been forgotten and they saved and planned.
Within a
few years they had purchased a covered wagon, at least two cows, supplies
for the overland journey were packed and they were off again for the states
farther west where they could buy government land. They drove their wagon
overland by way of Ohio, milking the cows once a day, after they had a
nights rest. Slow was the pace and great was the distance over the mountains
and through scattered settlements by way of roads taken by former wagon
trains. They were free however of marauding indians for even the tribes of
Indiana and Illinois had gone farther west by this time. Camping was fun and
then became tiresome as, day after day, they drove westward, part of the
family walking to save the strength of the cow team. There were friendly
encounters on the way and information about roads, crossings new lands
and towns ahead. There were also days of rain, mud, swolen rivers and needed
repairs. Game was not plentiful along the well traveled trails and supplies
limited as they traveled farther and farther west, but they made do and
often sang as they went and the children were often excited over
some strange scene, the enormous trees, the animals and
birds.
Daniel about nineteen, was not with them for
he had remained in Baltimore. He would join them later. The family, John D.
forty three, Elizabeth, Onar twenty three, Mary D., fourteen ,
Teophilus, eleven and Rachel nine, arrived at long last in southern Indiana,
where there was land available. In the new county of Scott aged one year, in
the new state of Indiana aged five. John D. chose land beside the
Muscatatuck and entered a claim for eighty acres, on April 5, 1821. And now
the wheels stilled. The cows grazed and trees were felled for a cabin well
back from the north bank while Elizabeth and Onar washed and spread their
clothes and bedding to dry on bushes and cooked over an outside fire
until the cabin was up and a chimney built. Time brought cleared and tilled
lands and a dug well. Was their help from others? Possibly for in those
times, men traveled some distance and news got about when strangers
settled anywhere about.
But neither Elizabeth or
Theophilis were to live long in the new home, for Elizabeth passed away
in August of 1823 and the family cemetery to the east of the homesite
was begun. The endless work of the pioneer home for both men and women went
on for almost a year when John D. ended some of the loneliness of a
motherless home by his marriage to Elinor Tobias on August 1, 1824 the
new found happiness was shadowed for Theophilis who had been so much help in
clearing and building, died on August 12, two months short of his fifteenth
birthday and was laid beside his mother in the family
cemetery.
How happy they were to see Daniel arrive the
next year and remain awhile before he went to Bardstown, Kentucky, there to
work in a publishing business. He was pleased to meet his new brother-in-law
as Maria D. had married Evan Jones, another Welshman the previous fall. One
may be sure that he heard all the news, visited all their friends and that
they listened spellbound to the stories of his doings. A grown man he was
but visits to the little cemetery must have been difficult for this the
eldest son, so soon to depart again. He must go where he could use his
skills, learned in Maryland.
Life moved along rapidly,
John D. welcomed his first child by Elinor on the first day of November and
they named her Eliza. Two years later saw Thomas Tobias and faithful Onar,
now thirty years of age applying for a marriage liscense to wed at
Vernon on October 11, 1827. And the tale of births and death went on as it
did so frequently in those times. Elinor gave birth to Lavinia on the 27th
of December 1828, a little sister for three year old Eliza. Then a letter in
the midst of winter arrived from Daniel, telling of his marriage to Margaret
Simpson at Louisville, January 22, 1829. This was happy news for John D. who
often thought of his eldest son and missed him sorely at
times.
Now John D. began to think of another important
feature in life. Maria D. had joined the Coffee Creek Baptist
Church west of Paris Crossing in December of 1828. A this time the county
was still sparsely settled and the Churches were far apart. The roads of
course were miserable during much of the winter and spring or at any time
when the weather was very rainy. The streams were forded when low
enough or at certain lower spots. One walked or road horseback. Corn was
taken to the mills in sacks thrown across the back of a horse. The
rider waited until the meal was ground and the miller had taken his toll,
which was part of the meal.
People rode or walked
for miles to attend church. The Coffee Creek Baptist Church, made of hewn
logs, was organized in 1822 with twenty five members. John D.
joined in December of 1829 and in 1832 John T., John and William
Tobias also became members. John T. was by then the husband of Maria whom he
had married in 1831, for Maria's husband had drowned while crossing the Ohio
river in a small boat and left her a widow with
children.
By this time another daughter
had been born to John D. and Elinor in October of 1830 named Mary
Margaret and they had lost little Lavina, not quite three, eight days before
Mary Margaret was one, on October 16, 1831. Then by this time there were
grandchildren by Onar, Maria and Daniel, children of his first marriage to
Elizabeth Riece.
By the time Mary Margaret was three,
John D. rejoiced at the birth of a son Samuel L. born on August 30,
1833, bringing hope for help in his later days for John D. was now fifty
six.
A few months later on November 21 Rachel the last
of Elizabeth's daughers married Henry Dixon the last marriage in this family
for fifteen years. The three little ones kept the home lively and in August
of 1835 another boy to be named William arrived and in another two years
there came the last daughter Sara followed by Hugh Elias in December of
1839.
Little Hugh however lived only thirteen days and
his resting place was still unsettled when his mother Elinor died a week
later, leaving Eliza fourteen to care for Mary Margaret nine, Samuel six,
William four and Sara two, a difficult task when the heavy chores of cooking
over a fireplace and washing great kettles of clothes had to be done so
often. Knowing this John D. married for the third time, a Mary Davis with
whom he was to live for fifteen years.
At some time
during all the growing up years they had moved to the new roomier brick home
built a short distance east of the cabin. There were two large front rooms,
a large fireplace and separate kitchen in the back. We can well imagine that
a grapevine trellis might have been built between the two or a covered
walkway where much outside work could be done in warm weather and wood
stacked high and dry.
The children grew rapidly but
little William, seven going on eight, died in the spring of 1843. Of what,
measles, whooping cough, pnumonia, diptheria, all so dreaded, and,
all too frequently fatal? We do not know. Now for all John D's seven
sons only Daniel and Samuel remained to carry on the family name in the
new world. Of which John D. had become a citizen on August 18. His grief at
Williams passing may have been somewhat softened by the fact that Daniel had
settled in that thriving city of Madison where he had purchased a
partnership in a newspaper and was rapidly becoming a well known editor.
Then, too, Daniel had two sons.
A few years went by and
Mary Margaret married John M. Williams on April 23, 1848 and must have
gone to live nearby for her three older children are in the
family cemetery on the farm. We were told that many years later Mary Margaret
and another sister both widowed and remarried and widowed again, lived on
the home farm in their later years.
Daniel sickened and
died in September of 1851, aged fifty years of age, and highly elogized by
all the editors of Madison. That was a hard blow to the family
especially to the aging father and those who remembered Daniel who was
always having and making fun for them.
Eliza married William Chasteen in January of 1854 and by 1856 Mary the
faithful last wife began to fail. John D. feeling his years, made his
will that September, leaving the government land he had purchased so long
ago to be evenly divided between his heirs. By January of 1857, Mary had
passed away leaving John D. now seventy nine, Samuel twenty three, and Sara
eighteen. How thankful the aged father must have been for these two on whom
he could lean. Now he often sat in the warm sun, within sight of the
family cemetery, and lent his mind to many memories of life in the new land.
It was then that he must have decided to write his memorandum, listing the
births and deaths of his children and the women he had
married.
On Janyary 29, 1857 aged eighty years
and nineteen days, John D. emmigrant from Wales, pioneer settler of
Indiana and father of fifteen, died and was laid in the long row beside his
wives and his children.
He would have been pleased to
know that Onar and her family were to buy the beloved and dearly won acres,
that his friend Wm. B. Lewis, executor of his will carried out his wishes
and that he had many growing grandchildren. He would be spared the
knowledge of the Civil War and the worry of having Samuel enlist and remain
in the Union Army through out the war he was to serve in Missouri, Arkansas,
at Vicksburg, New Orleans and Texas and suffer much exposure but no recorded
wounds. In 1864 he was with Sheridan in Virginia and Georgia. Ten years
after his death he would have seen Samuel married and the father of a
son. However, Samuel was to remember and record his death in the
beautiful leather bible he cherished and of which we have remants, kept as
they were by Samuel's son, DeSoto, in a safe place.
During the 1870's
Miss Permelia Boyd, great grandaughter of John D. and Elizabeth, died.
As she was the last of the immediate family, we purchased a Welsh bible
which must have come over in 1817 with them; it is in poor condition but we
wish we could read it. While we were doing something else a box of family
pictures was sold.
This
information on the the Welsh Pioneers is from the Lucille and Kinnett
papers, loaned by Edwin & Cleo Kinnett--Author
Unknown.