52 Ancestors 2026: A Family Value – Public Service

 

For this week’s theme, I would have to start with myself. My scientific career has included public service at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, where I have worked until my now-within-sight retirement. But as I dig back through a branch of the family I wasn’t previously familiar with, I find that my ancestors also served their communities.

I’ve written before about my maternal ancestor with the Biblical name, Jairus Abijah Bonney. He came from one of those colonial New England families, as did his wife, Irena Larned. Irena was descended from the Learned family (pronounced Lár-ned), which arrived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony sometime between 1630 and 1632. The immigrant patriarch, William Learned, came from Surry, England, and sailed to Massachusetts with his wife, Godethe, their three daughters, and their son, Isaac. William was elected a selectman in Charlestown (later incorporated into Boston). In colonial Massachusetts, selectmen made up the town council and managed town affairs, so the Learned men quickly became involved in public service.

Another family trait was migration. Around 1642, the Learned family moved to Woburn, where William was a founder of the First Church of Woburn and was again elected selectman. William died in 1646, but his son Isaac (born 1623) continued the family’s public service tradition in Chelmsford. He was elected selectman and also served as a deacon and commissioner. Isaac married Mary Stearns and died in 1657.

Their son, Isaac Jr. (born 1655), was a soldier as well as a selectman, elected to that office four times in Framingham. He lived a long life, dying in 1737, and was survived by his wife, Sarah Bigelow.

The lives of the first three generations of Learneds in Massachusetts spanned much of the seventeenth century, from the founding of the colony through its growth. But the family still had more to contribute. William Learned (born 1688), son of Isaac Jr., helped found the church in Sutton, where he was elected a deacon, and also served as a selectman for the town. He married Hannah Bryant and died in 1747.

The next generations of Learneds, Abijah Sr. and Abijah Jr., became embroiled in the War of Independence, serving the patriot cause. Abijah Sr. (born 1729) moved his family to Norwich, Vermont (then part of New Hampshire), where he bore arms in the American Revolution and became involved with the revolutionary legislature. He died in 1776. His son, Abijah Jr., had a longer tour of duty with the Continental Army, serving for two years in Crane’s Continental Artillery Regiment. Abijah eventually moved west to Ohio. His daughter, Irena, married Jairus Abijah Bonney Jr., bringing our story full circle.

The tradition of public service continued among other Learned descendants. William Learned Marcy became governor and a U.S. senator from New York, and later served as U.S. Secretary of War and Secretary of State. Another prominent descendant was Judge Billings Learned Hand, an appellate judge, legal scholar, and civil libertarian.

Public service is a calling, and this branch of the family certainly had its share of people who served their church, town, and country. These values were passed down through generations, first in the colonies and then in the nation they helped build. In November, we observe both Election Day, when we choose among candidates who pledge to serve the public, and Veterans Day, when we remember those who have served in our military.

52 Ancestors 2026: What Surprised Me the Most – My Deep, Deep Roots

 

Growing up, I was just a kid in a working-class family. My parents grew up on farms in the southwestern region of Missouri. I had an interest in science and American history, but I viewed the history part from a distance. Events, names, places, and famous people all seemed pretty remote. As I grew older, I learned a little about my family history, namely, that we had French and German ancestors who came to colonial America before the American Revolution. There were a few remarkable stories: Christian Fast, who was captured by Indigenous people during the Revolutionary War, and Ben McWilliams, who served in the Union Army during the Civil War, was captured, and spent time at Andersonville.

But then I started digging, and what I found was surprising and even more interesting. It turns out that, through some stroke of genealogical luck, I can reliably trace lineages to the first settlers of Plymouth Colony, New Netherland, Massachusetts Bay Colony, and Quaker Pennsylvania. I also had many pioneering ancestors who made their way inland, away from the seacoast, although these settlements were not always established with the approval of Indigenous people. Many of these settlers became well known as among the first in their communities. For the most part, however, they were ordinary people, perhaps with a degree of stubbornness or opportunism that led them to become refugees or pioneers.

Knowing this about my ancestors makes American history more than names, places, and famous people. The American Revolution, the Civil War, and westward migrations become much more real when I understand my ancestors’ contributions and how these events affected them. Following their lines, I encounter ordinary people, mostly farmers, who helped build this country.

So my roots are deep indeed. But looking at my wife's family's migrations from Poland, I have also come to understand the migrations around the turn of the twentieth century and what escaping the Russian tsars for the promise of America meant to them. This, too, is a part of American history that we can learn about through genealogy. And the ideals and promise of a new life still attract people who throw in their lot with the United States and become new Americans. This is truly the promise of a nation of immigrants, whether their arrival was 400 years ago or just in this century.

52 Ancestors 2026: Homemade – The Tools That Make It Possible

 

I’m not sure our family was big into crafts. Of course, we had basic Southern-style meals growing up, and I have fond memories of my mother’s fried chicken, potato salad, and coleslaw (the recipes are in a box somewhere). I also think I have a quilt that my paternal grandmother made for each of her grandchildren. But when I think of things that are homemade, I think of my dad.

He grew up on a farm during the Great Depression, when knowing how to make and repair things—from clothes to farm machinery—was a necessity. He left the farm to learn airplane mechanics and eventually worked on the Bell Aircraft assembly line, building P-39 fighters. After the war, he got a job at General Mills, eventually rising to the level of millwright. He was responsible for keeping the machines that made Cheerios, Lucky Charms, and so many other tasty cereals from my youth running.

But his mechanical skills weren’t limited to the workplace. He did all that and more at home.

His skills were evident in the way he kept our washing machine running for decades. Motor burned out? Head to the electrical supply store and get a replacement with the same specifications. Universal joint on the car making a loud hum? Find a new or used one, put the car up on a couple of stumps, and crawl underneath to replace it.

His most impressive emergency repair happened while he was driving me back to school one Sunday. Suddenly, the exhaust pipe rusted through, producing a loud chugging sound. We stopped at a service station, but there was no mechanic on duty. My dad asked me to drink a can of Coke, which he then used as a sleeve to wire the exhaust pipe back together.

But that wasn’t all. We were a camping family, and he built a cupboard that attached to the table with C-clamps. Our roof rack was homemade, too, with wooden slats bolted to metal angles. His most ambitious project was rebuilding our two-story porch. 

The metal posts weren’t exactly authentic, but the structure was sturdy. And when it came time to remodel the kitchen, he built the cabinets himself using birch-finish plywood and a circular saw.

I don’t have any of his handiwork, but he did give me some tools of a quality that’s hard to find these days. One was an old-school Craftsman 3/8-inch drill. But the other drill is one for the ages: a Thor 1/2-inch drill made in the 1950s, with a back yoke and an extra top handle. It draws four to six amps.

But what did I inherit besides the drills? Apparently, the do-it-yourself urge.

I may not have replaced a washing machine motor, but I have replaced washing machine water pumps and inlet valve assemblies. No car universal joints, but I did replace a brake master cylinder. The only cabinets I’ve built were for a toy kitchen for my daughter.

And that Thor drill? I was building a backyard shed and needed to drill holes for spikes in landscape ties. My 3/8-inch cordless drill wasn’t up to the job, so it was time to bring out the Thor and a 50-foot extension cord. Drilling those holes was like drilling through butter. Building the shed from a kit was another matter!

So, whenever I tackle another home repair, furniture-refinishing job, or caning project, I think about the mechanical skills passed down through the generations—and the urge to do things myself. Maybe the artifacts weren’t passed down, but some of the tools and the desire to tackle just about any task were.

52 Ancestors 2026: A Life Compared to Mine – Or Contrasted with Mine

 

It has been really hard to find anyone whose life parallels mine. I grew up in the city, received a university and postgraduate education, and have spent my career as a scientist. Almost all my ancestors were farmers living, of course, in rural areas, and they did not have the benefit of a college education. I do a passable job of growing vegetables in a modest backyard garden, but that’s the extent of my farming experience. Kentucky loomed large in my ancestry, but I was a graduate student in the heart of the Bluegrass, not a settler subject to Indigenous attacks.

So there are few parallels, but what about opposites? It’s difficult to choose someone because my life and times are so different from those of my ancestors that I could pick someone almost at random. However, while digging around for one piece of information, I found someone who may—or may not—be a relative: George Washington Rutledge Larkin, Gentleman. Is he a relative? According to FamilySearch, he is my seventh cousin five times removed, but the common ancestor supposedly lived in England in the seventeenth century, and that connection has not been verified. Nor does George appear to descend from the Puritan Larkins of New England.

Caveats aside, there are some connections to family members I know about. Larkin lived from 1833 to 1901, spanning the period when my ancestors had a variety of involvements in the Civil War and were moving west to Barton County, Missouri. I came across him while following up on leads concerning Martha Jane Weatherford and her husband Joseph White’s first family.

Joseph’s first wife was said to have been Native American. FamilySearch identifies her as Natichia Na-Ta-Ka Hiya, but no sources are listed. They had two children, Nancy Elizabeth and William. I looked for information about Nancy, hoping to find something that might add to the story of Martha Jane. Nancy had married Jesse Duncan and moved to Jackson County, in northeastern Alabama. But that’s when I started to go down the rabbit hole.

It was the next entry in the 1860 census, the last census taken before the Civil War, that caught my eye. The entry read: G.W.R. Larkin, age 25, male, occupation: Gentleman. I was accustomed to looking more closely at real estate and personal estate values, but I had never seen figures like these associated with anyone in my family: $25,000 in real estate and $30,000 in personal estate. In 1860!

In Alabama, even in Jackson County in the northeastern Appalachian region, those figures suggested that Larkin might own a plantation and enslaved people whose value was included in his personal estate. A quick look at the slave schedule confirmed his name. He was listed as owning 26 enslaved people: 19 males and seven females.

It is possible that he inherited most of them from his father, David Larkin Jr., who died in 1856. Other Larkins appear on nearby pages of the schedule, including George’s brother, William Rutledge Larkin, with 24 enslaved people, and his 18-year-old sister, Mary Elizabeth Larkin, with four. Mary was living in the household of another sister, (Sarah) Ann Larkin Dillard, who was listed with nine enslaved people herself.

Who were these Larkins? The patriarch, David Larkin, had emigrated from Tennessee and established a 32,000-acre plantation that became the center of the town of Larkinsville. David died in 1856. In 1850, he was listed as a farmer with real estate valued at $23,000 and a household that included 45 enslaved people.

Further research into probate records may yield the names of people whom the census and other records treated as property. In the slave schedules, they were identified only by age, sex, and whether they were classified as Black or Mulatto. It is clear, however, that the enslaved people were divided among David’s children after his death.

The family was among the leading citizens of the county. The eldest son, William Larkin, was singled out as “one of the most progressive, energetic and outstanding citizens in the county.” Located near the Tennessee River and the railroad, the area became a Civil War battlefield. George Larkin served as a first lieutenant in the Confederate Army.

Interestingly, the county history notes that “Ned and Frank Larkin were killed near Larkinsville by a lawless party, New Year’s night 1871.” Testimony given by Charles Waldron Buckley before the congressional Joint Select Committee investigating conditions in the former Confederate states provides additional evidence identifying the perpetrators as the Ku Klux Klan. Since there are no records of children or grandchildren of David Larkin that fit these names and dates, we can imagine that these two men were among the enslaved men or boys who were only indicated by age and sex. 

The life and times of George Washington Rutledge Larkin could hardly be more different from mine. His experience may not even have been representative of many—or most—of my Southern ancestors, and it was nothing like their neighbor and my closer relative Nancy Elizabeth White Duncan’s life. My ancestors, north and south, appear to have been the Jeffersonian “yeoman farmers” who worked the land themselves rather than being plantation owners. Many came from the Appalachian regions of the Southern colonies and, later, states, rather than the Tidewater regions of Virginia and North Carolina.

I have checked the slave schedules for evidence that my ancestors* owned enslaved people, but so far I have come up empty. I have not yet finished researching all my family lines, however. Perhaps, as I dig deeper, I will find more direct ancestors whose lives resembled that of George Washington Rutledge Larkin.

* Besides the landowners in New Netherland, but that’s another story.

Photo

Larkinville Map: https://digital.archives.alabama.gov/digital/collection/maps/id/536/

52 Ancestors 2026: What the Timeline Shows – Maria Durie’s Journey

 

One of the activities that genealogist Amy Johnson Crow describes in her book 31 Days to Better Genealogy is creating a timeline for each of your ancestors. Timelines make it easier to identify patterns, gaps, and inconsistencies, as well as to determine where to look for additional information, such as death certificates, children’s marriage records, or a parent’s will and probate records. With so many ancestors in my tree, extending back eight or more generations, constructing timelines for everyone would be a Herculean task. I find it best to be strategic and prioritize those ancestors whose lives need further examination or whose lives and times are of particular interest.

One ancestor who has long intrigued me is Maria Durie (or Duryea), my 4th-great-grandmother on my paternal side. She belonged to the New York/New Jersey Huguenot and Dutch branch of my family, whose members experienced several migrations as their communities and families moved westward. Maria was born in Bergen County, New Jersey, in 1749. We have her baptism date as September 24, 1749, and because baptisms were generally performed shortly after birth, we assume she was born that month. Her parents were Samuel Durie and Wyntie Banta. Through her additional Des Marets (Demarest) and Terhune ancestors, she was connected to some of the most prominent families in the New Jersey Dutch settlements.

Maria and her family migrated to the Conewago Valley, east of Gettysburg, sometime between 1765 and 1768. It was there that she married Pieter Cossart, son of Francis Cossart and Margarette Van Nest. We know of seven sons born between 1769 and 1779: Francis, Samuel, Jacob, Peter Jr., twins Hendrick and David, and Albert. An eighth son, Reuben, appears in FamilySearch, but he has been difficult to trace.

Maria and her immediate and extended family would not remain Pennsylvania’s “Low Dutch” residents for long. The American Revolution began in 1775, and within a few years, her husband Pieter and several of her brothers had joined various militia units for short enlistments. Meanwhile, Daniel Boone had helped open a route through the Cumberland Gap and along the Wilderness Road to Kentucky’s rich bluegrass region.

Samuel Durie scouted the area near Fort Boonesborough and declared it suitable for the Low Dutch migration to Kentucky. It is unclear whether the migration itself took place in the spring of 1780 or 1781, but the Cossarts, along with many members of Maria’s extended family, made the journey and settled at White Oak Station near Hart’s Spring. Whenever the migration occurred, they were there by early 1781—a tragic year for 31-year-old Maria.

First, her brother Hendrick died in an Indian attack in February 1781. Then, in March or April, members of the Durie family who had established themselves in a cabin were attacked while gathering food. Two of Maria’s brothers-in-law, her sister Angenitie, and her brother Petrus were killed. Annie, Petrus’s wife, escaped with their three children.

But that was not the end of Maria’s sorrows. In July, her husband Pieter was killed while picking blackberries, leaving Maria with five children, ages two to seven. Two of their sons, Francis and Samuel, had remained in Pennsylvania.

What happened to Maria after that? This is where her timeline goes cold. Three different possibilities have been suggested:

1. Marriage to Cornelius Vannice (Van Nuys): A marriage record documents the marriage of “Mary Cozart” to Cornelius Vannice on November 11, 1796. However, the gravestone of Mary Vannice at the Mud Meeting House in Harrodsburg indicates that this Mary was born in 1763. The date discrepancy makes this identification problematic.
2. Migration with the Banta family in 1796: We know that some members of the Banta family, related through Maria’s mother, migrated north to Warren County, Ohio. Some histories place Maria and several of her children among those who accompanied them.
3. Living out her life with her son Hendrick and dying in 1800: This account comes from family lore recorded by family historian Joseph Arthur Cossairt. It may not conflict with the second possibility, but the documentation is sketchy. Hendrick was 22 years old in 1800 and did not marry until 1814, when he was 34. He eventually acquired a farm in Warren County and did quite well for himself.

This is where the gaps and uncertainties in a timeline become glaringly obvious, especially for ancestors who lived on the frontier, where records are often sketchy at best. We can only imagine what life was like for Maria after the losses she suffered in 1781. Those who remained in her immediate family, including her parents, Samuel and Wyntie, probably provided mutual support. She also had Banta aunts, uncles, and cousins nearby. The Low Dutch Colony had remained connected since its members’ days in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and those ties had strengthened over the decades.

Maria’s timeline reveals much about her journeys and the circumstances of her life. She began life as a colonial in the New Jersey region of the former New Netherland, living as part of the Low Dutch Colony. She ended her days as a Kentuckian—or perhaps as someone who had relocated from Kentucky—but always as an American. She headed west twice: first to Pennsylvania and then across the Appalachian Mountains to Kentucky, where she found herself in the midst of the brutal Western Theater of the War of Independence.

Her children carried on her wandering ways, and this branch of the Cossart/Cossairt/Cassatt family eventually scattered throughout the Midwest. Two sons, Francis and Samuel, apparently remained in Pennsylvania; Jacob stayed in Kentucky; Peter settled in western Ohio; Hendrick went to Warren County, Ohio; David settled in Indiana; and Albert went to Illinois. Three sons—Peter, David, and Albert—married their Banta second cousins. Hendrick appears to have been the only son to marry outside the colony. He married Mary Nailor and adopted the Anglicized name Henry.

But Maria’s timeline also leaves many questions unanswered. We can turn to the history of late-18th-century Kentucky and the Low Dutch Colony to fill in some of the gaps, but few stories were passed down, and the information we do have is sometimes contradictory. We may never recover all the details, but we can develop a sense of what life was like for pioneer families in the bluegrass region—and use our imaginations to fill in what the records cannot tell us.

Photo:

Old Mud Meeting House, https://harrodsburghistorical.org/historical-homes-in-mercer-county/dutch-reformed-church-old-mud-meeting-house-nhr/

52 Ancestors 2026: A Moment of Courage (And Perseverance) – Joining the Union Army

 

One could say that my family tree is full of courageous people—refugees who took a chance on a months-long sail to the New World; men, women, and their children who set out for the frontier; young men who went off to battle; and women who raised large families on their own after their husbands died. But one of my ancestors stands out for the two times he decided to serve the Union cause by signing up for the Army.

That would, of course, be Benjamin Cruiser McWilliams, my 2nd-great-grandfather on my maternal side. His Civil War journey began in the spring of 1862, when he was 19 years old and a company was being raised in Milton, Pennsylvania, in Northumberland County. But it was not to be. He took some time for his last day as a civilian, only to find out that the company had left without him. He and his friends and cousins, including Folders and Billmeyers, tried again later that summer, going all the way to Harrisburg, but once again Ben was unlucky.

He ended up becoming a sutler’s clerk, doing trade near Yorktown, Virginia. Maybe it was being in the presence of the monument where Cornwallis had surrendered, or maybe it was hearing about the Union victory at Gettysburg, but in July 1863 he decided to give it another shot and signed up to serve in the 16th Pennsylvania Cavalry, Company F.

It took some courage to sign up when the quota for the county had already been filled and he was unlikely to be drafted, but simply surviving the war would require another level of courage. Just three months after entering the service, Ben was captured while on retreat. The next 15 months would see him confined to five prison camps. At first, he was in relative comfort, indoors at Libby Prison in Richmond, but he was soon transferred a few miles away to Belle Island, where he lived outdoors and was subject to the vagaries of the weather.

As the cold winter weather set in at Belle Island, the prisoners were denied blankets, although blankets were available in plain sight. Ben decided to risk being shot by dashing across a ditch to get blankets and clothing:

I recollect when the guards first got their blankets they would throw them up on the bank between them and us. While I stood one day and looked within 8 feet of the blankets and realized how they came by them and how they was treating us, I made up my mind I might as well die with the bullet as starvation. Our camp was full of old tents which came close to the ditch where we was allowed to go and the banks of it was worn down by the trading done by the men and guards after night as most all guards traded every night. I saw that when two guards came together and then turned around to walk back 60 feet, the length of the beat in daytime, I had plenty of time to move the 8 feet, pull the blanket off the bank, get in among the crowd and old tents, and be safe. Well, I succeeded so well the first time, that I tried it again and by working the 3 reliefs that day, I got 13 blankets, a rubber poncho and 2 overcoats. The last time I was shot at. I got so bold by my success that I could not see a put-up job by one of the guards who threw his blankets further over than any of the others and then by looking over the crowd could easy tell who who was watching. When he turned by the blanket to walk back I went out as usual and when I put my hand on the blanket he turned suddenly around and say, "now, you Yankee (__), I have got you now" and fetched his gun to his shoulder and fired within 30 feet of me. If he would have kept still he would have had me, only for him saying what he did. When I heard him, I let go of the blanket which I had not pulled over yet only put my hands on. I rolled down in the ditch and his shot passed over my head. Then I said, "now you haven't got me", took the blanket and ran among the crowd and tents before the other guards could comprehend what had took place.

But the “good times” at Belle Island wouldn’t last. In February 1864, many of the prisoners were shipped out of Richmond and were given the opportunity to become charter members of Camp Sumter in Andersonville, Georgia. Andersonville. Yes, that camp notorious for squalor, disease, and death. It was still being built when the first prisoners, including Ben, arrived. There may not have been any specific acts of bravery, but the day-by-day need to survive the seven months he was imprisoned there, especially after getting the attention of the camp ruffians known as the Rangers, took a great deal of cunning and fortitude.

In October 1864, he was moved to a prison camp in Savannah, where he stayed for a month before being moved to Camp Lawton in Millen and then back to Savannah to be paroled on November 19, 1864.

After a period of furlough, and with no weapons and no horse, Ben ended up participating in the siege of Petersburg and then followed Grant’s army to Burkeville Junction and Lynchburg. With the war over, he eventually found his way to Richmond and camped across from Belle Island. And fished.

In a way, his captivity had come full circle. He was discharged and, like so many of his comrades, began to make his way back into civilian life. He made his way west, first to Iowa and then to Missouri, where he bought a farm and broke the prairie sod in what became the crossroads of Verdella, Missouri.

In most times and for most people, his adventures heading westward toward an uncertain future would have been an act of courage. But after all he had been through, his new adventure must have seemed tame by comparison. 

52 Ancestors 2026: What Wasn’t Written Down – A Dearth of Records

 

In digging through various records and using full-text search, I’ve been able to reconstruct the lives of many of my mid-19th-century ancestors. My 2nd-great-grandparents were all born between 1812 and 1843, spanning the period from the War of 1812 through the railroad era. They lived through the Civil War and, for some, into the early years of the 20th century. This was the generation that eventually settled on the Missouri prairie, many having followed migration routes through Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, and Tennessee. I’ve been able to write a great deal about this generation, thanks to family writings, extensive analysis of population and agricultural schedules, and probate and land records.

But the trail starts to get spotty with the previous generation, especially my 3rd-great-grandparents who were born in the 18th century and took the more southerly routes from Virginia through Kentucky and Tennessee. I might not have hit brick walls, but sometimes we are left with little more than names and dates. There are some notorious characters, like John Reed, but others, especially women, are shrouded in obscurity. And sometimes a name and a few facts simply stick out and inspire us to find more. One such person is Martha Jane Weatherford, my 3rd-great-grandmother on my mother’s side.

What do we know about Martha Jane? First, she was another Kentucky girl, born in Nicholas County, northeast of Lexington, on March 23, 1823, to Jonas Weatherford and Judith Rawlins. Sometime before 1841, the family moved to Morgan County, Illinois, where 18-year-old Martha Jane married Joseph White, a 54-year-old widower who was said to be a preacher on the Methodist or Baptist circuit. The only family lore handed down was that her parents were unhappy about her marriage to a man 36 years her senior—and older than her father. Not surprising.

What else do we know about her? The family moved to Sangamon County, and she bore eight children—seven girls, including Jane Elizabeth White, who married Anthony Gilmartin, and one boy. Martha Jane lived until 1892, spending her last 28 years as a widow. And then? Her son, James Monroe White, apparently died young, while her daughters took different paths. Some married and migrated west, while others remained in the area.

Joseph was a farmer, and census records show that in 1860 they had a farm worth $1,800. The Agricultural Schedule tells us that this was a relatively small farm, with 40 acres improved and 33 acres unimproved. Their livestock holdings were worth only $40 and consisted of just two milk cows. Somehow, they were able to harvest three tons of hay, 120 bushels of wheat, and 1,000 bushels of Indian corn. With Joseph being all of 73 years old, they must have had considerable help from their teenage daughters, Julia Ann, Nancy Melissa, and Jane Elizabeth.

But what happened to the farm and the family after Joseph’s death in 1864? We don’t know. Either there are no surviving legal records, or they are not accessible through FamilySearch Full-Text Search. The 1870 Census lists Martha Jane and four of her daughters—(Nancy) Melissa, Sarah, Annie, and Alice—but gives no value for real estate. There’s no entry for the family on the agricultural schedule, either.

So what can we discern about Martha Jane, or M.J.? She had two older brothers, but she was the oldest daughter in the family, so she may have assumed more responsibility and perhaps been more mature than her years. Was she smitten with the widower Joseph White? Their first child was born a respectable 14 months after their marriage, so there was no obvious reason they had to marry. One census record indicates that she couldn’t read or write, a condition common among farmers from southern and Appalachian families.

The couple was together for 23 years, until Joseph’s death in 1864. Even though Martha Jane was only 41 years old and had several young children, she never remarried. She was buried as “Martha J. White, wife of Joseph White.” She had family living with her until 1882, when daughter Anna, listed as a member of the household, married.

All we seem to have are households, dates, and a snapshot of her life when she was 37 years old. Were there land sales? Was there help from family? What happened to the farm? Clearly, answering these questions will require more digging and a better understanding of Martha Jane’s FAN club.

Another task for another day.

Photo:

Entry for Martha J. White, 1870 Census, Sangamon County