52 Ancestors 2025: Rural — The Quaker Connection

 

This prompt could lead to a multivolume work covering eight or more generations of farmers, but for this entry, I want to focus on one family — the Clouds. Earlier in the year, I described this branch as “overlooked,” so I began reviewing their FamilySearch lineage and consulting secondary sources. In the process, I discovered a book about the Cloud family and was struck to learn that they were Quakers and among the earliest settlers in William Penn’s Pennsylvania.

The first Clouds in my lineage were William Cloud (1621–1702) and his son Robert Cloud (1656–1717), originally from Wiltshire, England, about 100 miles west of London. The Quakers suffered persecution in England during the mid-1600s, and when William Penn Jr. was granted proprietorship of a large landholding along the Delaware River in the New World, many—including the Clouds—saw an opportunity. William received a land grant in 1681 and likely made the move sometime in late 1682. Whether by design or accident, his land turned out to be located in Delaware rather than Pennsylvania. After several transatlantic crossings, Robert, a shoemaker, also settled in Delaware. For several generations during the 1700s, the family farmed in the Brandywine Hundred, New Castle County, Delaware.

Although the details of their farming operations are not as complete as those of the Barton County farms in the late 1800s, regional histories offer insight into what life was like. The newly cleared land supported fertile fields with a variety of crops. One notable product from these farms was butter, and these Quaker farms became known collectively as the “Butter Belt.” The area’s abundance of natural springs made it possible to build springhouses, where cool water helped preserve butter before it was shipped to market.

Life in the English colonies was changing, however. Robert’s grandson Nathaniel Cloud (1725–1802) married twice outside the Quaker faith, with ceremonies taking place at Holy Trinity (Old Swedes) Church in Wilmington, Delaware. Though Nathaniel remained in the area for life, his descendants—like so many others—were bitten by the migration bug. His son Thomas Cloud (1765–1841) moved first to western Pennsylvania and then to Ohio. The family’s farming tradition continued through Nathaniel (1791–1878) and Samuel (1819–1883), the latter being the father of Mary Ann Cloud, whom we met earlier in the year. From Ohio, the family moved westward again, to Iowa.

This is one rural family among many, with roots in an important center of early English settlement. The Quaker communities were known for their religious tolerance and good relations with Indigenous peoples. Their ideals and experience became part of the social and moral fabric of the English colonies. Philadelphia—the City of Brotherly Love—stood at the heart of these developments, a center of business, trade, education, and eventually, revolution.

Picture: 

Quaker Oats company website, https://www.quakeroats.com/, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53308037

Reference: 

Wilson, Raymond H. Sr., The Cloud Family, Houston , TX, 1953.

52 Ancestors 2025: The Reunion of Ben McWIlliams

 

We’ve met my 2nd-great-grandfather Benjamin Cruiser McWilliams before and learned about his harrowing experiences in various Confederate prison camps. He was paroled from a Savannah prison after 13 months of captivity. That winter, Ben was granted a furlough to return home to his family in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. In his later writings about the war and his return to civilian life, he reflected on that homecoming.

He first visited Trevorton to see his grandfather, Benjamin Knauss, at his inn. At first, his cousins didn’t recognize him, but one finally did, exclaiming, “My God, there’s Ben McWilliams!” Grandpa Knauss greeted him with a hearty, “I thought them damned buggers had killed you.” Ben described his capture and explained that he had no choice in surrendering (apparently, Grandpa Knauss believed a soldier should fight to the death) which seemed to satisfy the old man. The next day, Ben helped with the hog butchering before heading to Shamokin to see his parents. “I got there after dark, knocked at their door, and when they opened it, they thought the dead had come to life.”

At a barn raising the following day, he saw more neighbors and relatives. His uncle Will Follmer, who had opposed the war, told him the rebels were nearly finished. When asked why Grant hadn’t yet taken Richmond, Ben replied, “We didn’t want it, that we were holding old Bob Lee up there in that corner of the Confederacy, while Grant was surrounding him on all sides and cutting off his rations.” He added, “Whenever Grant moves in the Spring, mind what I tell you, the thing is ended.”

Ben McWilliams endured an ordeal far beyond what he imagined when he enlisted in a burst of patriotism. He suffered greatly, which made his homecoming all the more meaningful, and it is interesting that, after all he had gone through, Ben was expected to help in the community projects: hog butchering and barn raising. 

Ben rejoined his regiment, the 16th Pennsylvania Cavalry, and participated in the final Appomattox Campaign. As he had predicted, when Grant moved, the war ended. Afterward, Ben headed west to Iowa and later settled in Missouri.

52 Ancestors 2025: Wheels

 

This is less a story about wheels than about the lack of them.

The Cossart side of my family arrived in New Amsterdam by ship, mostly from the Netherlands. Seeking new farmland, successive generations moved westward during pre-colonial times—first to New Jersey, then to Pennsylvania, settling in the Conewago area east of Gettysburg. This mixed Huguenot/Dutch community was linked by family and religious ties. They stayed together during colonial times and remained close when the American Revolution began. Many were patriots; young men joined local militias, and my ancestor, Francis Cossart, was active in the Committees of Correspondence and served in the Pennsylvania legislature, helping to craft the state constitution.

With the Revolution came the opening of lands west of the Appalachian Mountains, though not with the full consent of the Indigenous peoples who had lived there for generations. Daniel Boone had explored beyond the Cumberland Gap and established the Wilderness Road into Kentucky’s Bluegrass region. He and his brother Squire encouraged settlers from the colonies to emigrate west. The “Low Dutch” colonists took two routes: one down the Ohio River to the area now centered around Louisville, and one through the Cumberland Gap via the Wilderness Road to the region near Fort Boonesborough. My ancestors chose the latter.

A group of families left the Conewago colony and spent time around Shepherdstown in Berkeley County (now West Virginia) before making their way to Fort Boonesborough, Kentucky around March 1780. Their journey wasn’t by wagon (the Wilderness Road was more trail than road) so they packed their goods onto horses and traveled through dense forest. The group settled in the White Oak Spring Station area in 1781, building cabins and establishing farms.

Among these settlers was Pieter Cossart and his family. He had married Maria Durie, whose extended family included several Durie (or Duree) households as well as the Demarests (Demaree, originally Des Marets) and Bantas. But these were dangerous times. The British supplied weapons to Native American tribes resisting the loss of their lands. One attack on White Oak Spring Station in March 1781 killed four of Maria’s siblings: Petrus, Angenitje, Hendrick, and Daniel. Petrus’s wife managed to escape with their three children. Pieter Cossart himself was killed the following summer while out picking blackberries.

This was an era when travel to the frontier wasn’t along roads—it was over rough trails or waterways, and only in well-settled areas did actual roads exist. These were precarious times, and as the frontier moved west, so did the violent struggles between European settlers and Native Americans. This part of American history cannot be forgotten. At the time, colonial society largely believed in the settlers’ superiority, though some European and American philosophers viewed Indigenous people as living in a kind of natural state, free from monarchy, which influenced Enlightenment thought.

Coming from a family of early European colonists, stories like these are woven throughout my genealogical record. They are complex and difficult but important to understand, as we reflect on the times and acknowledge the errors of the past.

Wilderness Road picture: Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1797882

52 Ancestors 2025: Siblings - The Cossart Family’s Diverging Journeys

 

There are many families in my family tree, and except for recent generations, there may not be many interesting sibling stories that have been passed down. However, one family intrigued me because its various siblings took dramatically different paths.

My 5th-great-grandparents, Francis Cossart and Margaret Van Nest, came from Huguenot-Dutch families in New Amsterdam and later New Jersey. Before the American Revolution, they settled in the Low Dutch Colony of the Conowago Valley in York County (now Adams County), Pennsylvania. They had seven recorded children, and here are the stories of three of them.

Francis was an important member of the community. Before the Revolution, he served on the Committees of Correspondence. During the war, he worked to supply soldiers with clothing and, as a member of the Provincial, then State, Assembly, helped draft the first Pennsylvania Constitution.

David Cossart (1743–1823)

The eldest son, David, followed in his father’s footsteps, serving in the local militia during the Revolution and later in the Pennsylvania Legislature. Even before the war, he had purchased a farm near his family’s land and remained in the area for the rest of his life. His son Denis moved westward to West Virginia, and that branch of the family found great success. One descendant, Robert Cassatt, made a fortune in land and stock trading in Pittsburgh before relocating to Philadelphia. His children became famous: Mary Stevenson Cassatt, the renowned Impressionist artist, and Alexander Johnston Cassatt, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Christina Cossart Clopper (1755–1801)

Christina married Cornelius Clopper, a fellow member of the Low Dutch Colony, and they divided their time between Pennsylvania and Maryland. Their son, Francis Cassatt Clopper, bought a gristmill in Gaithersburg, Maryland, along Seneca Creek. He married an Irish Catholic woman and donated land to the local diocese to build St. Rose of Lima Church. His prominence led to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad building the Metropolitan Branch to serve the D.C. and southwestern Maryland region. The road passing his mill, Clopper Road, later inspired lyricists Billy Danoff and Taffy Nivert, from Gaithersburg, to write that song that was completed by John Denver. Interestingly, this branch of the family also began using the “Cassatt” variation of the surname.

Pieter Cossart (1746–1781)

The second son, Pieter (Peter), was also a Patriot and militia member. Unlike his siblings, who remained in the east, he was drawn to the west, lured by the promise of land in Kentucky. In 1781, he migrated with many in-laws to the Fort Harrodsburg area of the Bluegrass region. Tragically, he was killed by Native Americans within six months of his arrival. His descendants, including Hendrick, William, and David, became farmers, shaping my lineage. His choice to move west remains one of the great “what ifs” of my ancestry. Interestingly, some of his descendants also adopted the “Cassatt” variation of the surname, suggesting that family ties transcended the distances as their paths diverged.

52 Ancestors 2025: Diary - The Civil War Writings of Benjamin C. McWilliams

 

The Civil War in America was a harrowing experience for those who lived through it, especially those who served in the armed forces. While the war has been extensively documented in writing and photographs, for our family, the writings of my great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Cruiser McWilliams, reveal more suffering than glory.

The McWilliams family, originally Scots-Irish from County Armagh, Ireland, settled in the northern Appalachian Mountains of Pennsylvania after arriving in the American colonies. The early generations of the McWilliams family, along with the German families they married into, have been extensively researched by my cousin Cindy Cruz (starting here).

Benjamin was born on October 18, 1843, and grew up on the family farm in Chillesquaque, Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. Inspired by patriotism following the Battle of Gettysburg, he enlisted in the 16th Pennsylvania Cavalry in the summer of 1863. However, in October of that year, his horse went lame, and he, along with other dismounted soldiers, was captured by the Confederates.

His first stop was Libby Prison in Richmond, where his group of prisoners encountered a notorious gang:

Here was the first start of the ‘Raider’ of which 6 was hung afterwards for murder in Andersonville in 1864. I will trace them from prison to prison as I go along.

Shortly after his time at Libby, McWilliams was transferred to Belle Isle Prison, also in Richmond, where he described his first experience with hunger:

We was issued bean soup of the famous shick pear with more bugs than pear. Well, we had never had enough to eat since captured and we was ravenous with hunger so that the half loaf of bread we received tasted sweeter than any sugar we had ever tasted. We all felt curious to know if they would get enough to fill up on; filling was what we was after now.

In early 1864, he was sent south to the infamous Andersonville Prison in Georgia:

After 8 days we finally brought up at Andersonville. It was in the daytime and we had a chance to see as poor a country as ever layed out of doors. The timber came up nearly to the station and consisted of nine of the long leaf varieties. … A man by the name of White had charge of all who came there and we were turned into the stockade made of logs hewed on 4 sides and cut 20 feet long; set 5 feet in the ground leaving 15 feet out. … There was some stragglers there who was captured different places and sent there, perhaps 20 men when we got there. So we were the first lot of prisoners who arrived there.

At Andersonville, he again encountered the Raiders:

I drew my rations among the rowdies and cut-throats who were most all in the first squad, thinking they could get out first and if anyone came in for any cause, they were the first to know. They were most all Catholics and all the six who were hung were. I spent little time there, attended roll call, drew my rations and went back. My name being Mc they thought I was a Catholic and I never told them better. After about 6 weeks, when I went down for my rations, my sergeant, whose name was Jimmy, says, "Mc, there's no grub for you here. You played it fine but they have caught you. Don't blame you." So that confined me to one ration besides the toll from our sifter. I was in a shape to know who the Raiders were as I had come in contact with the "Molly McGuires"of the coal region and knew how they worked and it did not take me long to tell them.

From Andersonville, McWilliams was transferred to prisons in Millen and then Savannah, where he was fortunate to be present at the conclusion of Sherman’s March to the Sea. Like other Civil War veterans in my family, he eventually settled in Barton County, Missouri. He married Mary Ann Cloud (from an earlier blog post) and became a respected member of the community.

Much more of his writings have been transcribed, offering insight into the unimaginable hardships these prisoners endured, their interactions with enemy soldiers and guards, and the clever ways they used their wits to survive.