Moving 7 – The Miller Family Goes West…and North

I last mentioned the Miller family in a blog post on 18 August 2015 when my 2^nd great-grandparents, John Conrad Miller and Hannah Tunstall Mayfield were married and moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. John and Hannah met in Indiana. I have a marriage license dated 5 May 1838 from Tippecanoe County. I assume the actual marriage occurred shortly after that date but no record of the event has yet been found.

The family lived for a while in Jefferson County, Indiana, probably near her father and siblings. Their first child, daughter Matilda Ann was born there in 1839. They then relocated to Cincinnati where their three sons were born: Thomas Benton in 1841, Isaac Mayfield, my great-grandfather, in 1843 and John Conrad Jr. in 1846. I believe that John Conrad Sr. died in 1846 but no death record or grave-site has been found to confirm the date and place of the event. He would only have been about 31 at the time.

John was born in Germany about 1815. We do not know when he immigrated to the US.  He apparently was a tradesman. Information from different sources, if they are correct and for the right individual, indicate he was a blacksmith (Cincinnati City Directory for 1839-40), involved in “manufacture and trade” (1840 US census) and saddler (Cincinnati Directory for 1843).

 

Migration routes of the Miller families

After John’s death, Hannah remarried to a man named Daniel Boone Watson, in 1854. They had two children together, in 1855 and 1857. The photo on this blog is of Hannah and all of her children, taken about 1886. Most of the Watson family packed up to go west in 1866 ultimately landing in Kansas. By then, Hannah’s three oldest children were married. Isaac’s oldest child was born in 1867, in Illinois, possibly along the route they travelled to Kansas.

By 1870 all of the Millers & Watsons were in Kansas. My grandfather, Edwin Miller was born in Manhattan, KS that year. They farmed in Riley County for over 15 years. In 1893 Edwin applied for a homestead in 1893 near Yukon, Oklahoma with the support of his father. I wrote about this homestead in a blog post on 1 April 2014.

In 1895 Ed and Mattie McDaniel met, fell in love and got married. Mattie had arrived in the Yukon area only shortly before with her sister, Rebecca, and her family, as I indicated in my last post here. Their courtship was a short one. According to ‘Becca, “Ed was a prosperous, young farmer with a fast team, and shiny, red-wheeled buggy, the catch of the county!" Through family correspondence, we even know what the bride wore: “…wedding dress was of tan challis, with mutton-leg sleeves, a snug-fitting double breasted bodice with four large cove red buttons, and a floor-length skirt.

The farm was to remain his but over the next decade Isaac apparently reneged and took back the lands, eventually giving them to his youngest daughter, Mabel. That caused some bitterness in the family and probably was the main reason why Ed packed up his young family in 1903 and went back to Kansas.

In 1914 the Miller family moved to Corvallis, Oregon. In a letter written to a cousin by my aunt, she described the trip as by train. There was a week’s stopover in Denver, Colorado, as one of my uncles fell sick with mumps.

My mother was born in Corvallis, OR in 1917 and spent much of her early childhood there. But the wanderlust and availability of almost free land in Alberta got to my grandfather and, in 1928, they made their way north, settling near a little town called Irricana (short for irrigation canal). There Edwin farmed until his 80s. He died of a stroke in 1953. My grandmother lasted only a few years and died in 1956.

Over three generations the Miller families had migrated almost 4,500 miles, from Ohio to Kansas to Oklahoma to Oregon and finally to Alberta, Canada.

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is a past Editor of Chinook, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated

Moving 6 – The McDaniel Family Goes West

When I wrote about the migration of my ancestors across the United States last, on 14 July 2015, I left off with my grandmother and her father and sister just leaving Virginia for Missouri. That was in 1894. Many of her sisters and brothers, with their families, had already migrated west. The rest of her siblings but one would follow within a few years.

Asa Harvey McDaniel, my great-grandfather, along his two youngest daughters, Martha Alwilda Jane (my grandmother) and Sarah Carnelia, left their Virginia home for the last time just before Easter 1894. We have a copy of a letter written to Asa by another daughter, Mary Saphronica (Molly) Davis, dated 18 April 1894 that acknowledged a letter from him sent from Missouri. Asa and the girls had travelled to Tarkio, MO, near where daughters Virginia (Jennie), Elizabeth and Rebecca – all of whom had married men of the Slemp family in Virginia – and son George McDaniel lived. Two other of Asa’s children, with their families, had also moved west by then: Eliza Bundy to Savonburg, KS in 1885; and John McDaniel to Norman, OK in 1892. Other brothers were to join their siblings later: James McDaniel to Norman in 1896; William McDaniel to Neosho, MO in 1899; and Isaac to Savonburg about 1906.

 

Map showing the probable routes taken by Asa McDaniel and his children in their move west

Asa and his daughters likely travelled by wagon from Virginia, possibly to Louisville where they might have boarded a train for the remainder of their journey. There was no easy route across the Cumberland Mountains at that time. When McDaniel families had moved west in the 1880s, the trains were just beginning to branch into Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Land was opening up in the region which spurred migration of people seeking to start over or acquire new lands to farm. The McDaniels were part of that great push into the plains in the latter half of the 19^th century and their moves appear to be directly tied to the development of the railroads.

(Map acquired 6 June 2016 from Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum website)

Maps showing the railway lines as they developed offer a great perspective on how, when and why families moved to certain areas of the country. Prior to their arrival in the plains, it was an arduous task for people, especially those with children, to travel and the only way was in a wagon train.

Other information that has allowed me to put together the times of the moves are the research done by my aunt in the 1960s and ‘70s, correspondence between relatives and the various censuses taken in the regions. From these I found out when and where Asa’s grandchildren were born. This narrowed down the places where the families resided and the dates they lived there.

By the time Asa arrived in 1894, his children were well established in Missouri and Kansas. New land was opening up in Oklahoma which prompted the move of John from Virginia and Rebecca and her family from Missouri. Both settled near Oklahoma City. Rebecca apparently took her newly-arrived younger sisters, Martha and Sarah, with her when she moved from Tarkio, MO, to Yukon, OK.

Yukon is where my grandmother met my grandfather, Edwin Miller, and where they were married in 1895. (I will detail how the Miller family arrived in the area in a subsequent post.)

Asa moved south to live with his son, John, within a year or so of his move west. He remained there until his death in 1901.

By the turn of the 20^th century all but one member of the Asa McDaniel family, Mary Saphronica Davis, were living in the Great Plains and a new era in our history was under way.

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is a past Editor of Chinook, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Family Histories Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated

Memorabilia

In my last post I mentioned that we have a coffee table in our living room that belonged to my grandparents. After reading my post my aunt – the one who had sent me all the cards – wrote to say that the table was one given to my grandparents by their three children and their spouses as a 40^th wedding anniversary present.

All of them had a party together which included a turkey dinner made by my uncle’s wife. I don’t know if the visit was a surprise to my grandparents but I am pretty sure the table was.

It is an antique today but was brand new to my grandparents in April 1954.

It’s oval in shape with a glass top. It was a bit awkward in our previous home but has found a place in our condo. It now holds a large trailing African violet that blooms constantly. The violet itself was a gift from a friend back in the 1980s and is a special reminder of that lady who has since died. She brought a very small cutting of her plant – which grew across her kitchen wall – on a visit from Oklahoma. That small piece developed into the large plant pictured here. The main plant has also given up many small branches from which other plants have grown, like the one sitting alongside it. These have been passed along to other friends over the years.

Both are special memorabilia in their own ways.

Here is the card that went with the table, another piece of memorabilia.

I have many other prized items passed down from previous generations. My wife does not think all of them are all that decorative but they will be here as long as I am. I’ll talk about them in later posts.

Wayne Shepheard is a volunteer with the Online Parish Clerk program in England, handling four parishes in Devon, England. He has published a number of articles about various aspects of genealogy and is the Editor of Relatively Speaking, the quarterly journal of the Alberta Genealogical Society. Wayne also provides genealogical consulting services through his business, Family History Facilitated.