Near the Old Graveyard

 

Richland Chapel was the name of the first Methodist church built in Fairfield County, Ohio. From a description in an old local history book, the chapel was said to have been a log cabin built "near the old graveyard." Among the church's first members appeared the surnames of collateral lines descending from my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandmother, Elizabeth Howard, wife of William Ijams.

Right now, as I take a hiatus from the search for all Elizabeth's matrilineal descendants, a detour to examine the history of this county's earliest church may be helpful. As it turns out, that "old graveyard" near the chapel is a place I've written about before. Known by some as the Stevenson Cemetery, by others as the Ruffner Cemetery or the Campground Cemetery, it was an old burial ground where the now-half-sunken headstone for William Ijams rests. 

A more recent cemetery sign—at least, according to Find A Grave resources—identifies the location as the Stevenson Ruffner Cemetery. Through chatty weekend "Nature Notes" over the years by Lancaster Eagle-Gazette columnist Charles Goslin, we can glean some of the history of the place. His May 6, 1961, article takes us on a Sunday afternoon drive along "Snake Run," stopping in at the cemetery to learn a bit about the history of the area.

On or near that same property, not long after 1800, a man named Daniel Stevenson settled, along with his brothers. Daniel was said to have been a "soldier of the Revolution"—though D.A.R. can find no service records and admits earlier membership applications may have mistaken him for another soldier entirely—and received a land grant to settle in Fairfield County in 1806. Columnist Charles Goslin mentioned that the area became known as the "Stevenson Settlement" after this early settler.

How well-integrated the Ijams household became within that Stevenson Settlement, the church meetings held on that property, and even the burial of Elizabeth's husband there, can be gleaned by comparing names in hundred-year-old history books with the intermarriages of the Ijams daughters. As we've already seen, though daughter Rachel's husband James Turner has not been specifically mentioned, history reports we've already covered did mention others of that surname in the congregation. Younger Ijams daughter Comfort married Edward Stevenson, and although I have yet to document his father's identity, the surname does resonate. Daughter Sarah, of my mother-in-law's direct line, married John Jay Jackson, mentioned in yesterday's post. And William and Elizabeth's son William married a daughter of the Ruffner family. All these marriages handily demonstrate the intertwined community whose legacy became the now-deserted cemetery called by many names where our Ijams ancestors once lived, worshipped and, eventually, were buried. 

In the Right Vicinity

Some local histories just resonate with surnames from our family's history. That, according to the history of Richland Township in Fairfield County, is what I've been noticing as I search for signs of my mother-in-law's roots during the early years of Ohio's statehood.

Among the earliest settlers in that vicinity, according to one 1912 book, History of Fairfield County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, were these: Wiseman, Turner, Stephenson, Ijams. All of these, I already know, fall handily into what some genealogists call the "F.A.N. Club" of my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandmother Elizabeth Howard and her husband, William Ijams. Or, to look at this report from the eyes of another genealogical phrase, "cluster genealogy," those surnames lead us to the right cluster.

To see that cluster a bit more clearly, though, we need to take a detour from our main research goal to explore what brought those families from their previous, distant residences to their new homes in the formative years of Ohio's Fairfield County. In a word, that gathering force was religion.

That same 1912 history book noted that the township—indeed, the whole of Fairfield County—saw "the early organization of religious societies and churches," but the first of such meetings were held before any church buildings could be erected. Those meetings were held "in the log cabins of the settlers."

In another book, Pioneer Period and Pioneer People of Fairfield County, Ohio, published in 1901, author C. M. L. Wiseman noted that the church in question—at least for my mother-in-law's family—was Methodist. Included in a list of those who attended services in that early church prior to 1805 were:

Daniel Stevenson and wife, Isaac and Thomas Ijams, John J. Jackson, John Sunderland, Edward Teal...William Turner.

Perhaps you, as I do, see that cluster of familiar surnames taking shape—the very surnames I've been following as we look for the matrilineal descendants of Elizabeth Howard and her husband, William Ijams.

When attendance overtook building capacity, church meetings were held out of doors in 1803, and then again in 1807, a year said to have drawn over one thousand people to such a "camp meeting." The site of the camp meetings, and the log cabin itself, was noted as "near the old graveyard" and "in sight of the home of Daniel Stevenson." Before we explore further how these surnames intertwine with the daughters of Elizabeth Howard and William Ijams, let's take a step back, tomorrow, to learn a bit more about what that author meant in 1901 when he talked about the old graveyard. 

Revisiting a Six Year Old Story

 

It was almost exactly six years ago when I began sharing the story of a photograph I rescued from an antique shop up in Gold Country. The picture itself was sweet, containing the cherubic faces of two young boys, the younger barely one year of age. The puzzling part was that the portrait was labeled in French, and likely dated from the earliest years of the 1900s, an odd find from a store in a small town in the northern California foothills.

At that time, I had begun what has become a habit of rescuing old abandoned photographs and researching the subjects of the picture in hopes of finding current-day descendants who might be interested in receiving the orphaned picture. In the case of Emile and Lucien Hallée, the two boys in the photograph, with barely enough details to locate a possible descendant, the generous assistance of a Canadian blogger who spread the word plus the power of social media enabled a happy ending: the photograph made its way home to family.

Ever since that point, I've been totally sold on the thrill that comes from what I call "giving back" to the genealogical community, and have returned several other photographs to family over the years. But it has only been lately that I've been able to share such stories in person. This coming Monday, April 22, I'm privileged to have that opportunity to head up to the same gold rush country where it all began in 1848 to present "The Genealogical Legacy of the California Gold Rush" to the Placer County Genealogical Society. If you're curious or want to hear that story once again (as well as others), I invite you to come along, whether in person for those living in the Auburn, California area, or online for those in time zones in which an evening presentation at seven, Pacific Time, would not be prohibitively late. The Society's website has the information to guide you in accessing the online meeting, and they are very welcoming in inviting visitors to their meetings.

   

Granny Hobbies: Do We Make the Cut?

 

Recently, I read an article by one writer I follow online, who was reflecting on something he had read in another writer's blog. The topic he had shared was about what's called "granny hobbies." The originating writer, in a blog called Working Theorys, explained granny hobbies like this: hands-on and thumbs-off. Hands-on, because these are hobbies which are all about creating something. Thumbs-off, to signify being as far removed from online activities as possible, especially if mindlessly consuming social media posts.

The list provided by the original writer encompassed the kind of activities you might presume would be in such a list: cooking, gardening, knitting, playing board games. What I found interesting was to see how the second writer augmented that list of granny hobbies: he included genealogy.

Great. Now we can officially claim family history research to be among those in the domain of senior citizens? While I prefer to see people of all ages finding themselves fascinated with their family's stories, I do have to grant these authors one concession: there are benefits to the act of creating and the discipline of mindfulness about those creative processes.

If there is now a movement returning to such beneficial hands-on activities, I suppose I don't mind the moniker of "granny" hobbies. By its description in these two online articles, it apparently is something seen in a positive light. And there is certainly plenty to say for the therapeutic benefits of working for pleasure with the end goal of creating something of beauty or value. Preserving one's family legacy—at least the intangibles of personal and family history—can apparently not only give us something to pass down the generations, but it can serve to benefit ourselves and others in the doing of it, as well.

When All the Details Line Up

 

It's encouraging, when looking for a brick wall ancestor, to finally find the document in which all the details line up and we can say with assurity that we have discovered the name belonging to the previous generation. In some cases, the one court document I found which mentions James Turner assures me of his connections to my mother-in-law's family. In other cases, though, it brings up more questions.

James Turner, if you recall, was son-in-law of my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandmother. And that distant great-grandmother was a matriarch on my mother-in-law's matriline, a potential common ancestor for the three exact matches my husband has on his—and thus his mother's—mtDNA test results. All I need to do is determine just how those female descendants for that matriline might figure into the puzzle.

After discarding the possibility of several of the women descending from Elizabeth Howard, that fourth great-grandmother, due to lack of daughters to pass down that mtDNA signature, we are currently circling the family of Elizabeth's daughter Rachel. Because Rachel was married in 1802, before Ohio had even attained statehood status, it would be a very slim chance indeed for me to find mention of her own name in legal documents—with one exception.

That exception was my hope to find a will for her husband, James Turner—and that her husband predeceased her. That hope, however, was quashed when my search for such a legal document in Fairfield County came up empty-handed.

It was as far as a last will and testament go that I was foiled in my research attempt. In its place, however, I found something else which turned out to be quite helpful—except for one detail.

The document was an indenture dated January 11, 1843. By the time of the 1840 census, James had already declared his age to be in his seventies. His wife was not far behind him. And the document being drawn up in court on that date in 1843 served as an exchange of property between the elderly couple and another man named James M. Turner.

The record was helpful in that it identified Rachel specifically as James' wife. In addition, we could possibly infer that James M. Turner may have had some relationship to the originating parties in that he exchanged a mere two hundred dollars in exchange for the property (worth about $8,000 in today's economy, not a bad price).

There was, however, one glitch in that document which didn't seem to line up. Toward the end of the first page of the court record, in specifically describing this property of James Turner, the wording stated, 

...which lot or section of land was granted by the United States unto the said William Turner by Letters made Patent...

Wait. Which said William Turner? I went back to reread the document—not relying on the AI transcription provided by FamilySearch Labs' Full Text search function, but reading that handwriting for myself. If there was a "said" William Turner previously mentioned, I have yet to find it.

However, the indenture provided some other very specific details, like the date in which that original transaction occurred (August 13, 1805), and the description of the property location (Section 28, Township 17, Range 17). I blasted over to the Bureau of Land Management's General Land Office Records to see whether there might be any record of a William Turner receiving land in Ohio.

There was. In Fairfield County. At that precise location: Section 28, Township 17, Range 17. On that same date: August 13, 1805. 

Don't you love it when all the details line up?

Better yet, if James Turner had somehow received that land from someone named William Turner, perhaps William was James' father, just as James M. Turner, next recipient of that property, might have been son of the elder James.

Of course, that's just a guess on my part. But at least it points me in a possible direction to continue my search. After all, it will take some cluster genealogy to help point out what became of Rachel and James Turner's currently invisible daughters.     

Turning to the Turners

 

Stomping around the wilds of pre-statehood Ohio without genealogical trail, map, or compass can be a disorienting experience. Looking for someone with a name as common as Turner does not help the situation. And yet, intrepid researchers on a quest to map out their family tree remain undeterred. Let's see what we can discover about James Turner, husband of Rachel Ijams.

Granted, I would not be looking for Rachel Ijams if it weren't for her mother, formerly Elizabeth Howard of Anne Arundel County, Maryland. Elizabeth was my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandmother, and sat squarely in the path of her matriline. My husband's mtDNA results bid me chase that trail as far as I possibly can. Thus, all the female descendants of that line are in the crosshairs of my spyglass.

Having failed to find any continuing female lines of Rachel's sister Mary, it was time to move on to the next eligible family member: Rachel. What little I already knew about Rachel I gleaned from the probate proceedings for her father's 1815 will in Fairfield County, Ohio. Thankfully, Rachel was married by the time she signed to acknowledge receipt of William Ijams' legacy, since his will only obliquely mentioned his female offspring as "my daughters." The one clue—best one so far—was that in 1802 in Fairfield County, still part of the Northwest Territory, Rachel married a man by the name of James C. Turner.

Yes, I know Turner as a common surname can be a research challenge. At least I can find James Turner in census records in the early years of Ohio statehood. From the 1820 census, we learn that James and Rachel were likely the parents of two sons around the age of ten, and three daughters under the age of ten plus two more in their early teen years. If each of those daughters lived to adulthood, that would give me five chances to find potential mtDNA matches.

Easier said than done by far, of course. When we fast-forward to the 1830 census, still in Fairfield County, only one female remained in the household—a possible daughter in her later teen years. The others could already have married—or they could have met the demise of so many in those early years, fallen to death-dealing diseases.

By the time of the 1840 census, James Turner and his wife—we can only presume she was still Rachel—remained alone in their household, with James in his seventies and his wife in her sixties. On a hunch, I took a look to see if any other Turner households were listed in this census at the precise location of James Turner's entry in Richland Township. As it turns out, there were five. Of course, that could mean they were nephews of our James just as much as it could signify his own sons. There is no way to tell at this point, though I am tempted to explore our James' F.A.N. Club to see if I can uncover any leads.

With James supposedly in his seventies by the time of the 1840 census, I would have been surprised to see any mention of him in the 1850 census, as much as I would have hoped it were possible. It was time to explore other options to uncover details about this family. Unfortunately, looking to old county history books yielded little more than we already know. The History of Fairfield County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens, a 1912 book edited by Charles Christian Miller, provided the slightest of nods to James and Rachel's roots.

Among the first settlers were: William Wiseman, Theodore Turner, Stephenson and Ijams families and Judge William McClung.

Granted, the very first name in the list—William Wiseman—caught my eye, as we will turn to that name next in our search for matrilineal descendants, but I can't yet say whether James was even related to the list's second name, Theodore Turner. The only consolation in that passage is that I know another Ijams daughter did indeed marry a Stephenson. We are in the right place and on the right track—but not far along enough to yield us any usable information.

There was, however, another resource to check: the latest tool to smash through genealogical brick walls, FamilySearch Lab's Full Text search. Looking for James Turner in Fairfield County, Ohio, did produce some records. Not quite what I was seeking—it would be handy to locate James' own will, for instance—but it is worth some consideration. We'll take a look at those court records tomorrow.

Providence's Progeny

 

On the trail of all the female descendants of my mother-in-law's fourth great-grandmother Elizabeth Howard didn't seem to be that challenging of an assignment. At least that's how it seemed at the beginning. But after running into several daughters whose female offspring birthed only sons—if any children at all—I was beginning to despair of reaching my matriline-mapping goal with that handy mitochondrial DNA test.

Then, I found Providence. And among Providence's progeny, there were three daughters: Elizabeth, Sarah, and Mary Eugenia—not one, but three chances to make progress with my research goal.

Don't assume things will go well for us here, though. Providence, daughter of Elizabeth Howard's daughter Mary Ijams, was married to Thomas Dain, an Indiana man whose death in 1865 came with no documentation that I can find (so far), other than his monument in the Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis.

With Thomas' passing, he left Providence with their youngest daughter—Mary Eugenia—still at home. Born after the 1850 census, which listed her two older sisters, Mary Eugenia did not marry until her 1874 wedding with Jacob Smith.

It's fortunate to have found that record, for the 1900 census revealed exactly what I've been looking for: more daughters among the descendants of Elizabeth Howard. In fact, Mary Eugenia and Jacob had two daughters: Bernice and Myla. Bernice, however, never married. And Myla, soon wife of Frank Merrill Talbot, followed the family pattern by producing three sons for the next generation. No daughters.

Don't think looking to Mary Eugenia's older sisters will help us out in our quest. Her oldest sister Elizabeth's marriage produced one son. Period. And the middle sister, Sarah, has eluded me ever since her disappearance after the 1850 census.

With that, we'll retrace our steps back through the generations until we arrive at the generation of Elizabeth Howard's other daughters. Tomorrow, we'll see if we have better results in following Mary Ijams' sister Rachel, wife of James Turner, back in Fairfield County, Ohio.