52 Ancestors 2025: Travel on the Oregon Trail

 

So many immigrant ancestors, so many westward movements—where do I even start when the topic for the week is travel? Should I talk about ocean crossings to the New World? Already covered that. Possible Mayflower connections? Still unconfirmed. The Wilderness Road to Kentucky? Done. Even wrote about our family’s move back east.

But while combing through the family tree for another travel story, I came across an ancestor who made not one but multiple big moves: first from New England to Ohio and Illinois, and then all the way to Oregon Territory. This is the story of my 4th-great-grandfather, Jairus Abijah Bonney Jr., who, fittingly, had not just one but two Biblical names.

Jairus was born on October 14, 1793, in Litchfield, Connecticut—just 17 years after the founding of the United States—to Jairus Abijah Bonney Sr., a veteran of the American Revolution, and Anna Brown. In 1814, the younger Jairus married Irena Larned in Litchfield. Not long afterward, the couple moved west to Ashtabula, Ohio, part of the Connecticut Western Reserve. Since Ohio had only recently become a state (1803), this move reflected the pioneering spirit that still burned strong.

Jairus and Irena had five children, including Lydia Louisa Bonney, my direct ancestor. Sadly, Irena died in 1827, leaving behind their young children. Jairus remarried, this time to Jane Elkins, and they moved again, this time to Fulton County, Illinois, where they had eleven more children. But Jairus wasn’t finished with big life changes.

A skilled millwright, carpenter, cabinetmaker, and cooper, Jairus was successful in Illinois. Yet when he heard tales of opportunity in Oregon Territory, he was inspired to go west again—this time on the Oregon Trail. He built his own wagon and stocked it with provisions, setting out in the spring of 1845 from Independence, Missouri, along with his second family and his brother, a doctor, Truman Augustus Bonney and his family.

At Fort Hall (in present-day Idaho), they encountered an agent for Captain Sutter of California who warned them that the trail to Oregon was “destitute of grass and wood” and plagued by hostile encounters with Native people. Persuaded, they diverted south to Sutter’s Fort in the Sacramento Valley.

They arrived in fall 1845 to find drought conditions, inflated prices, and land too expensive to afford. And since California was still under Mexican control, settlers were expected to become Mexican citizens. Feeling misled, the families set out again in spring 1846, this time on horseback, heading north to Oregon. With no established roads, the journey was rough, but they finally reached Oregon on June 16, 1846.

At last, Jairus and his family had arrived. His skills were in high demand, and he quickly found work as a cooper and millwright, while Jane worked for Governor Abernathy. In 1847, the family claimed a farm in the Willamette Valley, in what is now Hubbard, Oregon, where Jairus farmed until his death in 1856, three years before Oregon became a state.

This Oregon Trail tale comes from several sources found on FamilySearch under Jairus Abijah Bonney Jr. (LVHD-7FG), including an 1840s article from The Spectator and a set of recollections written by Jairus’s son, Benjamin Franklin Bonney, who was just seven years old when he made the journey.

And what became of my direct line? Lydia Louisa Bonney had already moved with her father to Illinois, where she married William Bolon in 1840. They didn’t go west again, instead staying in Fulton County, Illinois. Their daughter, Louisa Jane, married William Marion Fast and later became part of the Fast family migration to Barton County, Missouri after the Civil War.

Not quite the Oregon Trail, but still another step in the long pattern of westward migrations that mark my family’s story.

Photo Credits: 

Oregon Trail meme from Etsy

Trail map from Oregon Trail Center

52 Ancestors 2025: FAN Club - The Gilmartin Story, Part 1?

 

This week’s prompt was a new one for me. “FAN” stands for Friends, Acquaintances, and Neighbors—a term used in cluster research, which involves studying the people surrounding your ancestor. This approach can be especially helpful when records are sparse or when you are stuck with a genealogical brick wall. It is also useful if your ancestor had a common surname (like Smith or Jones) or one with many spelling variations (hello, “Cossart” family). By examining the people your ancestor interacted with, you can often uncover additional clues about their life.

One of the lines I have been researching is the Gilmartin family. My 3rd-great-grandparents, John Gilmartin (b. 1812) and Mary Gallaher, were married in Ireland. Their son Anthony, my 2nd-great-grandfather, has a well-documented Civil War service and post-war life in Missouri, but details about the family’s earlier years are harder to pin down.

According to published family history, John and Mary had some means but chafed under British rule. They decided to pursue farming in America and settled near Chicago. Tragically, John was reportedly killed in a fight on October 10, 1848, leaving Mary a widow with three young children. Based on the stories that were handed down, she was remarried to a man named Henry Hyde, but at her death, she was buried beside John.

Can we piece together this struggling family using the FAN method? The answers range from “yes and no” to “it depends.” Thanks to more online records, we’ve been able to fill in some gaps and correct a few old assumptions. While the picture is coming together, some pieces are still missing.

Census records confirm that John and Mary were born in Ireland, but we’ve yet to find a birth or marriage record for them in County Mayo or any passenger lists. The gravestone lists John’s birth year as 1812 and Mary’s as 1829, which seems questionable given that their son Anthony was born around 1840.

The 1840 U.S. Census shows a John Gilmartin living in Will County, Illinois. There are two people who match a couple in their 20s and a child under 5, but also two older males in the household, possibly boarders or extended family. By 1850, Mary appears in the St. Louis census, age 30, with children Anthony (11), Bridget (8), John (5), and Alice (1), along with a 20-year-old Ann Gallaher—possibly her sister. Interestingly, John’s will was recorded in Macoupin County, Illinois, suggesting that the family, including John, had relocated there in the 1840s, and that Mary may have moved to St. Louis for support after his death.

The early 1850s brought Henry Hyde into the picture, another Irish immigrant. Although there’s no marriage record, his children's records list their mother as Mary Gallaher. Interestingly, in 1857, “Mary Gilmartin” (not Mary Hyde) was appointed guardian of her four children, alongside Thomas Gallaher—possibly her brother. In 1858, John Davidson replaced her as guardian of the remaining three children, suggesting Mary had died. Her gravestone confirms her passing in 1858 and her continued use of the Gilmartin name. There’s no known gravestone for young John Gilmartin, who likely died around this time.

What became of the children? Anthony, around 18 when Mary died, joined the Union Army and served honorably. Bridget married a man 24 years her senior, Joseph Gerlach, who also served the Union cause, in 1860. Alice, only about 9 years old when Mary died, appears in the 1860 census living with Dr. Charles Holiday’s family in Verdin, Illinois. She eventually was married to George Wright. Henry Hyde, listed as a widower that same year, is still a mystery. We can follow him through the census and through his children, but from what we know, it is hard to disprove the possibility that his spouse had the same name as Mary’s and coincidentally died around the same time.

Much of the new information has come through tracking the Gilmartin children. I have more complete records for Bridget and Alice attached to their spouses and descendents through FamilySearch, and was able to connect them to their ancestors. The three children eventually moved with their families to Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma. As for the others—Ann Gallaher, Thomas Gallaher, John Davidson, and Dr. Holiday—I haven’t uncovered much yet. But with patience and a bit more digging, maybe the FAN method will reveal more, and this story will have a sequel.

Photo and historical credit: Gilmartin History, Shiela Fast McReynolds, 1999