LAURA & HAROLD'S EXCELLENT GENEALOGY ADVENTURE -- SE
ILLINOIS 24-25 MAY 2001
Harold Henderson 30 May 2001 hs@niia.net
Eliphas and Mary Thrall had ten children in Vermont around 1800. The
family -- all but one -- moved to Licking County, Ohio, in 1815. In the 1820s
and 1830s, five of their children moved on with their own families to
southeastern Illinois, and are buried there in Edwards and Wabash counties,
just down and across the Wabash River from Vincennes, Indiana.
We found out parts of the story of the five and some of their
descendants. Most of what we learned came from the cemetery behind the
Methodist Church in Bone Gap and from the records preserved at the friendly
Edwards County Historical Society, 212 Main St., Albion. I have added
some facts and stories from other sources to fill out the story -- we didn't find
out *everything* below in two days! There are more details, especially more
descendants in some lines, but I thought this would be plenty. If you want
more let me know.
A sixth sibling, Orilla, did not move to Ohio but is rumored to have moved
to Illinois with her husband Johnson Brown and children. We have found no
evidence of her there yet. She does not seem to have a marked grave in any
Wabash County, IL, cemeteries. One source says she's buried at Bone Gap in
Edwards County, but we didn't see her stone there, and she's not on the list for the
old part of the Methodist cemetery. (Just to complete the record, the four siblings
who stayed in Ohio were Mary, Joel, Eliphas R., and Benjamin. Clearly they were
not out of the thoughts of the Illinois contingent, as we will see these family names
pop up again below.)
CAROLINE AND SAMUEL
Caroline Thrall (1799/1804-1826) and Samuel C. Cooper (1799/1804-1857) married
in Granville, Licking Co., Ohio, 19 August 1819 and had three children there, William
(1820-1892), Sarah Ann (1822-1903), and Samuel Thrall (1824-1892). If Caroline's
tombstone is to be believed, she was 15 at the time of her marriage. According to a
Methodist publication's obituary of Samuel C. Cooper, he had been converted in
1818 but went into business, resisting the impulse to preach.
"He settled down and engaged in the Iron Foundry business near Zanesville
[OH] which his energy and fine business ability rendered exceedingly lucrative. In
August, 1824, he removed with his family [including two-month-old Samuel] to Mt.
Carmel [Wabash Co.], Ill., and again engaged in the Iron business. One year later
[two years, according to her tombstone] his wife died leaving him four young
children, the youngest [Stephen, 1826-1894?] three days old." She is reportedly
buried in Sand Hill Cemetery #2 in Mt. Carmel, next to Illinois Route 1, but we
haven't found her stone yet.
Samuel Cooper took the four youngsters back to Ohio, where the Cooper
grandparents took William and Stephen, and the Thrall grandparents took Samuel
and Sarah. In his will in 1833 grandfather Eliphas Thrall made particular provisions
for Samuel to learn a trade. Samuel became a Methodist minister, married Mary
Ward 13 October 1852 in Michigan City, IN, and died 2/3 February 1892 in St.
Joseph, Michigan. Samuel C., his father, sold the Illinois foundry, gave up
business, and became an active Methodist circuit rider throughout Indiana. He
married Nancy Blythe (1809-1857) and they had five children. Among Samuel and
Caroline's descendants via Sarah Ann is Patricia J. Thomas of Redmond, WA, who
uncovered most of the above information and then some. It's in the Thrall file at
ECHS.
AN INTERLUDE ON PROPERTY
All four Thrall brothers enumerated below bought Illinois land from the federal
government for $1.25 an acre. They bought and farmed in Township 1 South,
Range 14 West. This township was established by surveys ordained under the
Northwest Ordinance of 1787, long before state or county lines were ever drawn.
So part of it lies west of Bonpas Creek (in Edwards County), and part is east of the
creek (in Wabash County).
If you consult a good road map of Illinois, you will see two tiny towns -- Bone
Gap in eastern Edwards County and Bellmont in western Wabash County. If you
draw a diagonal line between them, the Thrall brothers' land lay mostly just above
the middle of that line, in Wabash County. In section 13 of the township,
Worthy's 80 acres, Aaron's 80 acres, and Oliver's 40 acres were actually right next
to each other. Lyman was a mile or two southwest in sections 22 and 23. Worthy's
Bone Gap acreage, on the other hand, was about three miles west across the creek
bottom. I have marked pages from the Edwards and Wabash County plat books so
that anyone who wants to can now drive by these locations.
OLIVER AND MARGARET
Oliver Thrall (1796-1858) and Margaret Parker (1799-1845) were the next Thralls
to arrive. According to the "History of Edwards, Lawrence and Wabash Counties,
Illinois," Oliver was "probably" the first teacher in Bellmont precinct of Wabash
County, prior to 1828. He appears in the index for the 1830 census of Wabash
County; I haven't looked up the entry. But he hadn't cut all home ties: records in
Licking County, Ohio, show that he did not sell his half interest in his parents' farm
there until 1830.
He appears as "Otwell" in the 1840 census with a household consisting of
sexes and ages corresponding to those we know. (Censuses before 1850 name only
the head of household.) During the 1840s, he served as an administrator for a
number of estates and was involved in the administration of the Wabash County
back-taxes list. (The documentation, which I forgot to copy, is in the Mt. Carmel
Public Library.)
After Margaret died 26 April 1845, Oliver married her sister Hannah, the widow
of Guy Lockwood who had lived nearby. In 1850 the household (real property
value $1700) consisted of Oliver and Hannah, Margaret Lockwood (19, born in
Ohio), Eliphas Thrall (14, born in Illinois of Margaret and Oliver), and William
Lockwood (11). All three were attending school. Next door were 22-year-old
George D. Lockwood (22, born in Ohio) and his wife Lydia N. (19). (1850 Wabash
County census as transcribed by ECHS)
Their oldest daughter Samantha (1825-1905) evidently was no longer in the
household when the 1840 census taker came through. She married Enos Higgins
and they had four children in Wabash County between 1841 and 1848, later moving
to Texas. (This and more data from descendant Kay Ashcroft.)
Oliver is remembered for comforting and encouraging the family of his widowed
sister-in-law Hannah James Thrall after brother Worthy's death in 1852. He himself
died 15 August 1858. Along with several family members, he is buried in Ridge
Cemetery in rural northwest Wabash County. In 1860 the remaining household
included Oliver's widow Hannah Parker Thrall, "farmer"; William Lockwood, age
21, a student of medicine; Margaret Thrall, age 28, a household worker (not sure
where she came from); and Hannah Lockwood, aged 5.
It is probable but not proven that Joel Parker Thrall was the son of Oliver and
Margaret. He and his family settled near the Thrall brothers in Wabash County. He
was a doctor and served as county coroner in 1868. By that time he'd had ample
experience with death. During the year 1858 -- what was going around? -- he lost
his wife, oldest daughter Charlotte, and sons Louis and Aaron O.
The 1860 census shows his household consisting of Arella -- Arvilla in 1850 --
(16, housework), three other children from I know not whence -- Elephes (9), Aleas
A. (4), and Ellen (3) -- along with peddler William W. Rice (28, born Kentucky) and
Mary Husbrook (20, housework), evidently a relation of his late wife. We don't
know whether Joel has any descendants today; his father Oliver does through
other lines.
DR. AARON AND CYNTHIA
Aaron (1807-1847) may well be the "Dr. Thrall" mentioned as representing his
local precinct in the 1832 Black Hawk War ("History of Edwards, Lawrence and
Wabash Counties, Illinois," 1883, p. 320). If so, he was the next to arrive in Illinois
after his older brother Oliver. He is already gone by the time we get a glimpse of his
household in the census. Aaron is said to be buried in Sand Hill Cemetery #2, as is
his sister Caroline, but we haven't yet found his stone.
In the 1850 census, his probable widow Cynthia is head of a household with
$2000 real property. The household included Mary A. (17, school), Robert (14,
school), George (19, school), Susan (7, school), and three other people whose last
names I cut off in photocopying -- James (5, school), Thomas (23, farmer, born
Virginia), and Aaron O. (26, merchant, $800 property). In 1860, George, Susan E.,
and Aaron A. (the right age to be James) are still there. We don't know whether Dr.
Aaron has any descendants today.
LYMAN AND ABBY
Lyman Thrall (1798-1858) and Abby Phelps evidently came west between 1833
(when their son Henry was born in Ohio) and 1838 (when their son Lyman was born
in Illinois). He bought land in Wabash County 29 February 1836.
In 1850 the Wabash County census found their household ($1000 real property
value) to consist of Benjamin F. (24, farmer), Homer G. (22, farmer), Mary (19), Henry
(17, school and farmer), Lyman (12, school), and Lucy (10, school). Lyman died 9
May 1858. He is supposed to be buried in Rice or Trinity Cemetery, southeast of
Bone Gap, where "old Bone Gap" was located before the railroad arrived in the
1880s. We have not found this cemetery, which might be a good place to look for
Orilla Thrall Brown as well.
In the 1860 census Abigail and Mary are listed as seamstresses living next door
to Benjamin, his wife Margaret (Rice), and their children Augustus (7), Ellen (4), and
Edith (2). The following year Benjamin and Margaret had another son, named
Lyman after his late grandfather. This Lyman (1861-1940) later married Magdalene.
Their family's subsequent history is dramatized on a large stone in Bone Gap
Methodist Cemetery. Their two sons -- Lloyd at Camp Funston, KS, Loren with the
11th Aero Squadron in France -- died within a month of each other in World War I.
WORTHY AND HANNAH
Worthy Thrall (1809-1852) was Eliphas and Mary's tenth and youngest child.
Family tradition has Worthy, Hannah James (1809-1875), and baby Mary Elizabeth
traveling via covered wagon from Granville, OH, to southeastern Illinois in 1834.
The date is confirmed by their absence from the Granville Methodist Sunday
School book after 1833, and in the 1980 "History of Edwards County, Illinois,"
volume 1, p. 32:
"The first Methodist society organized in Bone Gap was in the summer of 1835,
by Rev. Richard Haney of Mt. Vernon, with Worthy Thrall as class leader. They
met in the home of John Brown and were known as the 'John Brown Class.'" (This
is probably not the Johnson Brown that Orilla Thrall married, as he appears to be
married to Lydia, but we're not sure as we have no death date for Orilla.) Exactly
what a class leader did in a frontier church like this we don't know, but I suspect it
was plenty!
Worthy's class united with one led by Luther Morgan (1810-1853) and Ansel
Gould Sr. (1817-1887) in 1848. Its first building, called the Salem Methodist
Episcopal Church, was built in 1849 and its name was changed to Bone Gap in 1888.
Luther and Ansel are buried in the Bone Gap Methodist cemetery. (The church
disbanded in May 2001. As far as I can tell, no records survive from before 1900.
They would have been one of our best chances to learn anything more personal
about Worthy and Hannah. Its last pastor referred me to Eleanor Wood, who
referred me to Jolene Harms, who did not return my call.)
Worthy bought two parcels of land from the U.S. government: 80 acres in
Wabash County, next to brothers Aaron and Oliver, before 1838; and 40 acres in
Edwards County, about 3 miles from his brothers and just east of present-day Bone
Gap, on 23 August 1842. We have not researched county property records to see
whether he sold the Wabash land before buying the Edwards land. This sequence
is a bit odd since he is associated with the Bone Gap church from 1835, but the 1840
Illinois census index clearly has him living in Wabash County along with his three
brothers. Evidently a distance of three or four miles and a flood-prone creek bottom
didn't keep him from associating with the Methodists in Bone Gap.
In the 1850 census Worthy and his family appear in Edwards County, with real
property worth $500 and six children: Mary (16), Laura (13), Emaline [Rachel E. on
her tombstone] (8), Rigdon (7), Caroline (5), and baby "Leonads" (7/12). He's listed
as a farmer, although we know he did a fair amount of blacksmithing work for
neighbors in the 1840s.
Family tradition has it that Worthy contracted his fatal illness cutting wood for
the Methodist minister. He died 3 January 1852 leaving Hannah with six children
aged 2 to 19, four of whom lived.
His tombstone in the Bone Gap cemetery has been broken off. It has an
inscription one and a half lines long that I have been unable to read, even by
holding it at an angle to the sun and using a mirror to reflect sunlight on it as well.
It begins with a capital H, "How" or "Him" or "His," followed by a longer word
containing a double l or perhaps "ill" or "lli" (willing? million?) followed by shorter
words probably including "if." The last word is relatively long and could be
"salvation." It's not as easy to figure out as this sounds.
In 1860 the 51-year-old Hannah is listed as a "farmer" with $1200 worth of real
property and $120 of personal property. In the household are Laura L., age 24, a
seamstress; Caroline, age 15; and Leonidas, age 10. Family tradition states that
Leonidas aspired to grow up to help her so she wouldn't have to work such long
hours at her loom.
In the 1870 census she is erroneously listed as 56 (!) with Caroline (25) a
teacher, and "Orlando" (21) a farmer. Whether Orlando was a farmhand, or just a
census-taker's bizarre mistranscription of Leonidas, we don't know. We do have
Hannah's letter to Lizzie and Laura written in May 1870, from Lebanon, IL, across
the state in St. Clair County, where Leonidas was attending McKendree College.
Among other things, she writes that they have "no dinner and in debt 13 dollars"
and asks daughter Laura to send some money soon.
Hannah died 27 March 1875. The following example of merciless Victorian
sentimentality appeared in the 3 April 1875 Albion Journal, one of many short items
under the heading "Town and Country":
"SAD DEATH. -- Mrs. Thrall and daughter, of Bone Gap, recently left home for
a short visit, but Mrs. Thrall was taken sick while away, and, after a few days'
sickness, died on Saturday last. The heart-broken daughter, accompanied by her
brother, returned home last Sabbath with their mother's corpse." We don't know
which daughter, but the brother can only be Leonidas. She may well have died at
his house.
Four of Worthy and Hannah's seven children lived to have descendants of
their own, a total of 15 grandchildren born between 1852 and 1885 and dying
between 1899 and 1968. In case you're getting disoriented, "Grandpa" Harold L.
Thrall is #15.
WORTHY'S KIDS I: MARY ELIZABETH AND THE MORGANS
Hannah's oldest daughter Mary Elizabeth, or "Lizzie," (1833-1903) married
Amos B. Morgan (1827-1865) on 24 January 1852, less than a month after her
father's death. (Amos was probably a nephew of the Bone Gap Methodist leader
Luther Morgan, but we don't know. Amos's parents were Theodore Morgan and
Lydia Rude.) The Morgans came to Illinois from western Virginia, and from New
England before that. So many Bone Gap families, including the Goulds, Rudes, and
Rices, followed this path that their settlement was known for a time as Yankeetown.
As you might expect, it had a temperance society by 1831 and a Presbyterian
church by 1833. ("History of Edwards County, Illinois," 1980, vol. 1 p. 9)
Lizzie and Amos had four children: Milton Worthy, Allen Theodore, Wilbur
Amos, and Lucretia Ada. Amos died 11 October 1865 aged 38 years, 8 months, and
19 days, leaving Lizzie in much the same position as her mother before her, with
children aged 2 to 12.
Mary Elizabeth is buried next to her husband in the Bone Gap Methodist
Cemetery. Her stone is broken and barely legible. It reads: GOD IS OUR REFUGE /
MARY ELIZABETH / WIFE OF / AMOS B. MORGAN / BORN / NOV. [illegible]
1833 / [illegible, possibly 69] YS 1 M 22 DS / Servant of God well done / Thy
glorious warfare's past / The battles fought the victory won / And thou art
crowned at last!
1. MILTON WORTHY MORGAN 1852-1899
Milton Worthy's obituary (ECHS files) states that he taught school for 20 years
in Nebraska before moving home to Bone Gap due to ill health. "He said to the
writer just before leaving for Conference at Mt. Carmel: You are going over to meet
the brethren; I probably will meet with St. Paul." For some reason this brief
obituary does not mention his two wives, Clementine Clark and Amanda Teachout,
or their four children, Edgar A., Alice, Ray, and Myrtle. Edgar A. (1875-1925) and
his wife Addie (1878-1963) are buried in Bone Gap Methodist cemetery.
2. ALLEN THEODORE MORGAN 1854-1931
Allen Theodore married Rosina Smith. They had one child, Ezra Leonidas
(usually Ezra Lon) Morgan, who became head of the University of Missouri rural
sociology department, married Mary Flint, and had four daughters including
Elizabeth and Esther. (Mary Flint is the daughter of John W. Flint and the niece of
his sister Edith Flint.) After Rosina's death, Allen married Mary Catherine
Schofield. They had three sons, two of whom lived to grow up: Earl Amos and
Evart or Everett William.
3. WILBUR AMOS MORGAN 1858-1945
According to a lengthy obituary in ECHS files, "It was necessary for Mr.
Morgan to miss two entire years of school since his father's death at the age of 39
placed the duty of maintaining the home on the sons. In addition to helping with
the farm work, he secured a contract at the age of 16 to cut and haul wood at $1.00
per cord for the nearby country schools. By the fall of 1879 he had accumulated
funds enough to enable him to enter Illinois Wesleyan University at Bloomington
for a year of study there." In November 1880 he visited his older brother Milton in
Nebraska and considered entering the cattle business.
Instead he came home, purchased a grocery store in Bone Gap, and married
Eliza Jane Smith. At various times he served as Bone Gap police magistrate, school
treasurer, and president of the town board of trustees. He also became a
Prohibition Party activist around the turn of the century. Their three sons, Hale,
Glen, and Willard, moved to California. The three had a total of six grandchildren
and four great-grandchildren. (Mrs. W. A. Morgan obituary, ECHS files p. 347)
4. LUCRETIA ADA MORGAN BRITTON 1863-1906
Lucretia Ada married Joseph Walter Britton -- also from Ohio -- and they had
seven children (according to descendant A.B. McKnight's genealogy): Lucile
Evangeline, Floyd E., Hannah, Elsie "Peg", Waldo V., William E., and Vivian.
Lucretia is very likely the organ-playing "cousin Cretie" in Edith Laura Thrall's
memoir of childhood.
WORTHY'S KIDS II: LAURA LUCIN(D)A AND THE GOULDS
Hannah's second daughter Laura (1835-1898) married Solon Harper Gould (1837-
1914) on 3 April 1862, when he was home on leave from the Civil War. The Goulds
came from Hampshire County, MA, to what is now central West Virginia in the
early 1800s. According to an obituary for their daughter Edith published in the
Albion newspaper in 1960, "The parents of this pioneer Gould family migrated to
Edwards county in the early 1830's with their sons Calvin, Charles and Solon from
French Creek, West Virginia. They floated on a raft on the Fox River into the
Monongahela up to Pittsburg, then into the Ohio River to the mouth of the Wabash
River where they turned north to locate in Edwards county southwest of Bone Gap.
With them on the raft they brought their household goods and domesticated
animals."
Laura and Solon had four children: Alta Areta, Virgil Nathan, Edith Evelyn, and
Flora Alice. In the 1880 census Alta is 15, Virgil 11, Edith 8, and Alice 5; Dorcas,
Solon's widowed mother, age 72, is living with them.
Laura and Solon are buried at Bone Gap Methodist cemetery under a tall stone
next to Worthy and Hannah. Laura's side has a lengthy inscription now long past
legibility. The Albion newspaper may have published an obituary for her 24
February 1898, but it is not at ECHS and we have not got hold of it yet. Solon died
16 May 1914 of pneumonia (death certificate at ECHS). He is the Uncle Sol who so
impressed young Hallie Thrall by eating an apple with a worm in it.
5. ALTA ARETA GOULD BRITTON 1866-1957
Alta Areta Gould married Edward Britton. It would not be surprising to learn
that he was related to the Joseph Britton who married her cousin Cretie Morgan,
but we don't know. They had at least one child, Earnest R. Britton, M.D.
6. REV. VIRGIL NATHAN GOULD 1868-1959
Virgil Nathan Gould became a Methodist minister, and married Dora Sophia
Leighton in 1893. They had five children, four of whom lived to grow up.
According to Dora's obituary in December 1957, they were Gretta Martin (Gillespie,
Macoupin Co., IL), Edwin (Nokomis, Montgomery Co., IL), Victor (Chula Vista, San
Diego Co., CA), and Paul (Normal, McLean Co., IL).
7. EDITH EVELYN GOULD 1871-1960
8. FLORA ALICE GOULD 1875-1926
Edith Evelyn Gould -- known locally as "Miss Edith" -- was a primary teacher in
the Bone Gap school for 22 years. She and her sister Flora Alice did not marry but
"reared two foster children, Lucille Pifer King of East Peoria [Tazewell Co., IL] and
Lt. Col. Cecil Melvin Pifer of Phoenix [Maricopa Co.], Ariz." (Edith Gould obituary
16 November 1960, ECHS files)
WORTHY'S KIDS III: (HANNAH) CAROLINE AND THE CAMPBELLS
Caroline, or "Carrie" (1845-1925), married Charles Campbell of Tuscola, IL, 3
September 1875, six months after her mother's death. They were married by her
younger brother Leonidas. They evidently taught or managed a "Freedman's Art
School" for black children in Houston, TX (caption on photo at Miriam Foster's).
Between 1882 and 1886 she taught at Houston Seminary while he was principal of
that institution. Later Rev. Campbell served Methodist churches in the Austin,
Missouri, Gulf Mission, Arkansas, and Southern Illinois conferences. They
adopted two children, identified in the McKendree 1928 centennial history p. 279.
Carrie died 31 December 1925 in Lake Charles, Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana.
9. LEO F.
Attended McKendree College for a time prior to 1928.
10. ETTIE CAMPBELL MARSHALL
In 1928, was living in Jennings, LA.
WORTHY'S KIDS IV: LEONIDAS AND THE FLINTS
Baby "Leonads" (1850-1918) grew up to become a Methodist minister and to
marry Edith Flint (1845-1898), the first woman to graduate from McKendree College.
She was the daughter of William Flint and Mary Gedney, emigrants from England.
Four of Leonidas and Edith's five children went into Methodism professionally.
Leonidas preached the sermon at the laying of the cornerstone of the current
Methodist church in Flora, Clay County, IL, in 1914, when Edith's brother J. W.
Flint was pastor. The cornerstone is still visible on the outside corner of the
church's yellow brick wall. The names of the pastor and board members are faint
but legible.
I'll just list their children to round out the roster of Worthy's 15 grandchildren,
since we know these five comparatively well.
11. EDITH LAURA THRALL 1874-1950
12. VICTOR WORTHY THRALL 1877-1963, m. Carrie Frances Jones 1877-1952,
4 children
13. WILLIAM FLINT THRALL 1880-1941, m. Enola Loudicy Kiesling 1878-
1950, 1 child
14. CHARLES HAVEN THRALL 1883-1968, m. Gertrude Gerking 1881-1950, 1
child
15. HAROLD LEONIDAS THRALL 1885-1966, m. Elizabeth Schriber 1884-1979,
4 children
16. Leonidas' daughter with his second wife Emily Jones:
MARY VIRGINIA THRALL 1902-1970 m. David Cover, 2 children.
#