Dorothy, acquiring travelers with her, followed the yellow brick road to rediscover her home. She took a journey and along that journey unearthed the stories of others. Our families took journeys of their own, to find their home, along a variety of yellow brick roads.
The yellow bricks that make up the journeys are laid within larger stories that make up our collective history. This is what makes the stories of our families fascinating to me.
Dorothy meets the Cowardly Lion
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Collected Stories
Yellow Bricks
Devine Anderson | Sister
Devine Anderson married Elizabeth Brown in 1847 and is listed in the 1850 US Census with his new wife and infant daughter — and not in his parents’ household. As the 1850 US Census was the first census to list the names of household members beyond the head of household, this has made it difficult…
T. C. Anderson | Given Name
T. C. Anderson, the middle son, of Devine and Elizabeth (Brown) Anderson had a tricky given name. More often than not, he went by his middle name, Clinton, or his initials: When his given name is used, more often than not, it is mis-spelled as the writer attempt a phonetic spelling of his unusual given…
James Brown | Pearce Family Connection, Confirmed
In a previous post, the potential connections between Josiah Pearce and Rachel Pearce, wife of James Brown were explored based on similar migration patterns and the presence of T. J. Brown in both households. Since the publication of that post, a deed has been located in Belmont Count Records (Book X, page 316-317) that confirm…
James Brown | 🪚 Woodworking
Miller James Brown (ca. 1802-1867) is said to to have built the first saw-mill in Astoria, Fulton County, Illinois. The History of Fulton County details that “The first saw and grist-mill was built by James Brown. Mr. Brown and others ran it for about twelve years, when it fell into the hands of H. L.…
Hamilton Brown | Murdered
Hamilton Brown was the oldest son of James Brown (ca. 1802-1867) and older brother of Elizabeth (Brown) Anderson. In the 1850 census, Hamilton is listed with his wife Rebecca Ramsey, in the household of James Brown. Hamilton and Rebecca were relative newlyweds, having married in 1849 and Hamilton and his half-brother, Thomas J, were working…
James Brown | Pearse Family Connections
Very little is known about the family of James Brown (ca. 1802-1867) outside of his children and his second wife, Rachel Pearse. (Note on spelling: earlier records typically used a Pearse/Pearce spelling; later records typically used a Pierce spelling) A rough outline of Brown’s life can be reconstructed through census records and his daughter’s obituary.…
Thomas Hardy | Will & Land Distribution
Thomas Hardy wrote his last will and testament in the summer of August 1811 and by the next spring (May 1812), it was probated in court: To his wife, Mary, he lent “four feather beds and furniture, and all my household and kitchen furniture, plantation utensils, &c.” He also lent “one bay mare called Lady,…
Michael and Peter Fulp | 1776 Cherokee Expedition
Both pension applications for Michael and Peter Fulp describe their participation in the 1776 Cherokee Expedition. The Cherokee Expedition was the combined efforts of militias from multiple colonies to exterminate the Cherokee and open up land for Euro-American settlers. At the end of the Seven Years’ War (commonly known as the French and Indian War…
Peter Fulp | “Scotch Tories”
Georg Volpp had emigrated from the Rhinelands in the 1750s to escape perpetual war as the dynastic powers around him continued to march across the countryside. A generation later, the British Crown and its colonists were about to engage in war again. The backcountry of North Carolina, where Volpp settled, was also home to the…
Georg Volpp | Immigrant
Georg Volpp arrived in Philadelphia in 1751 as part of a wave of German migration to the British Colonies. His ship, the Phoenix, sailed from Rotterdam via Portsmouth, to Philadelphia. Flight Religious wars had decimated the central Europe, with Catholic and Protestant forces battling for control. The aftereffects of the Thirty Years War was still…
Joseph Relfe | Widow
Joseph Relfe died in 1818, leaving an estate in debt, a widow, and four “infant” boys, Stephen, Joseph, Malachi and Josiah. In this case, the “infant” boys are merely under 21 years of age. Many family histories located on the web and in ancestry.com list Joseph Relfe’s wife as Mary Trueblood with a son, Joseph,…
Devine Anderson | Sawmill
Devine Anderson is recorded in the History of McDonough County, Illinois on page 818 as having built a saw mill with J. O. C. Wilson on section 14 of Chalmers Township in 1840. The mill is marked on the 1871 Atlas of McDonough County. The excerpt shows sections 10, 11, 14, and 15 of Chalmers…
John Barkuloo | of the Narrows
1n 1799, John Barkuloo married Catherine Lott in Jamaica, Long Island and the newspaper reported that they were both of the Narrows. In 1800, John “Barkulow” is listed in the census for New Utrecht, Kings County, New York with a household of four members: The Narrows The Narrows is a strait of water between Staten…
Henrietta Mariah Van Slyke | Orphan
In 1852, Henrietta’s father, Andrew Van Slyke died. In 1857, her mother. Her eldest sister and her husband moved back to Texas to administer the estate and three siblings were sent to lived with three separate guardians. Guardianship was a legal arrangement to manage the property of those considered unable to manage it themselves, either…
James Hamilton | Frontier Regiment
Europeans and Euro-Americans designated the Red River as boundary for a long time. The French and Spanish viewed it as dividing line in the 1700s, the US and Spain continued its use as a border in the 1819 Adams-Onís Treaty in conjunction with Mexico. The Republic of Texas used it as a boundary. The Southern…
Rickners | After the War
Southwestern Missouri during the Civil War was burned to the ground by guerrilla warfare. Many civilians left Jasper County after the war due to the intensity of the violence and destruction wrecked by the irregular warfare. When the war was over, “There was not much to return to”, writes Schrantz in his history of the…
Nathan B Cook | Casualty of Disease
Nathan B Cook was the second son of Permelia (Baker) Cook Rickner. Permelia had married James H Cook (I) in Washington County, Missouri in 1828. In the 1830 US Federal Census, they were enumerated in Crawford County, Missouri, a neighboring county in Meramec Township, created in 1829 from Gasconade county. Nathan’s father died prior to…
Sarah Jane Rickner | Stolen Horse
Sarah Jane Rickner, a daughter of Samuel and Permelia Jane Rickner, was born in Jasper County, Missouri in 1844. Her father had a farm east of Carthage for the better part of the 1850s. Her mother died in the 1850s and her father remarried. Samuel with his new wife set up a homestead in McGhee…
Moses J Baker | Civil War
Samuel Rickner married Permelia Baker in 1832. Rickner, an immigrant from Switzerland, married into a slave-holdinng family that had migrated to Missouri from Kentucky and who in previous generations had migrated from the Albemarle Sound region of North Carolina, all slave-holding states. In the mid 1830s, the Rickner family and Permelia’s brother, Moses J Baker…
Samuel Rickner | Crawford Seminary
In 1850, Samuel and Jacob Rickner were living in Jasper County, Missouri in the southwest corner of the state, along the border of the Indian Territory that would become the Kansas Territory in 1854 and the state of Kansas in 1861. Samuel was working the land as a farmer. His real estate was valued at…
Levi Garrison | Whiskey Rebellion
Levi Garrison moved from Cumberland County, New Jersey, to Wheatfield Township in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania in the 1780s. Westmoreland County was in Western Pennsylvania, on the western edge of the Allegheny Mountains. In the early decades of the nation, the county borders changed as newer counties were created when the populations grew. In the 1790s,…
Levi Garrison | Convert to Methodism
Levi Garrison is said to have been born in 1743 in the colony of New Jersey. Living in southern New Jersey, he grew up in Salem County and resided in Cumberland County during the Revolutionary War. Both Salem and Cumberland County border the Delaware Bay. The two townships, Pittsgrove and Deerfield border each other, and…
Cader Edwards | Battle of Kings Mountain
Cader Edwards, b 1705 in Wales, was a sea captain who settled on the Tennessee/North Carolina frontier in the 1770s. Despite his frontier residence, he “kept in touch with the outside world to some extent, and was generally well posted in regard to the various political developments, both in the colonies and the mother country,…
Joseph Bateman | Vermont
In Joseph Bateman’s 1832 Revolutionary War Pension Application, Bateman stated that he “came to Vermont about 40 years ago + he lived in Middletown, Poultney, + Rutland. He now lives in the latter place where he has lived about twelve years. He is known to Rev. W. Walker, Proctor + Rice, clergyman, and to most…
Joseph Bateman | Revolutionary War
In 1832, living in Rutland County, Vermont, Joseph Bateman applied for a Revolutionary War Pension based on his service in the Massachusetts Militia as a private and a corporal. He served almost a full year in the war, the first six months as a private, the remaining five months and a quarter as a corporal.…
Jonathan Walden | Brother, Lewis
Jonathan Walden’s obituary states that his parents died when he was young and he converted to the Baptist faith, shortly before moving to Ohio. It gives no other indication to his family. The earliest records located for Jonathan show that he married Sarah Millikin in Jackson County, Ohio in 1832 (Ohio, County Marriage Records, 1774-1993…
John Walden | Morgan’s Raid
In 1867, William A. Walden posted an Executor’s notice in the Jackson Standard that he had been appointed as the executor of John Walden’s last will and testament. His will was recorded in the Probate Office of Jackson County, where his mother and most of his siblings were residing. He bequeathed “all the interest I…
George W. Lewis | Enslaver
George Washington Lewis, of Claiborne County, Tennessee, was married twice: first to Sarah “Sally” Bullard who died in 1840 and second to Cyntha Fulps, whose family was from Stokes County, North Carolina. Cyntha’s father wrote his will in February 1850 and in his will transferred the legal authority to enslave Black people to his children:…
O. C. Crookham | Migration West
Oliver Cromwell Crookham was born to George and Sarah Crookham, old settlers of Jackson County, Ohio, in 1824. He was their tenth child. Pickaway County, Ohio In 1850, he married Mary Jane Walden in Jackson County. They moved from Jackson County, where both their parents lived, to Pickaway County, northwest of Jackson County, along the…
George L Crookham | Methodist
George L Crookham’s son, O. C. Crookham married M. J. Walden, the daughter of Jonathan Walden, a founding member of Jackson’s Baptist Church. Jonathan and Sarah Walden, with her mother, Jane, were buried in the Pierce-Mather Cemetery, on land owned by W. W. Mather, also a founding member of the Baptist Church. Crookham, however, was…
George L. Crookham | Abolitionist
George Lennox Crookham moved to the Ohio frontier in 1799 where he settled and worked the salt works. He was a self-educated man who “used to read and study by the light of the furnace at night” by the salt boiler. (Jackson Standard, 14 Jul 1855, p 2 | newspapers.com) “Jack Oak College” Burned In…
Sarah Millikin | Parents
Sarah Millikin, widow of Jonathan Walden, died in 1896 and she was buried in the Pierce-Mathers Cemetery in Jackson County, Ohio, with her husband and a Mrs. Jane Millikin. It is likely that Jane Millikin is her mother. The death date on the marker is 1868. Census Record Review A review of census records for…
Sarah Millikin | Ohio Bride
Sarah Millikin married Jonathan Walden in the winter of 1832 in Jackson County, Ohio. Their daughter, Mary Jane Walden, born the next fall, would marry Oliver C. Crookham (I) and migrate to Greenwood County, Kansas after the Civil War. Sarah was born in 1810 in Pennsylvania according to the census records of 1850-1880. She died…
John Barkuloo | Dearborn County, Indiana
John Barkuloo had a name that nobody could spell. From Long Island, NY of Dutch descent, the record keepers of Indiana did their best to spell the unfamiliar surname. For consistency sake, I have settled on “Barkuloo” for when writing about the family. The records, though, and transcription of the records, will reveal much more…
George Vanslyke | Model T & Pie Suppers
George Vanslyke (1887-1967) purchased a Model T in 1927 from the Carter Hardware Store in Stella, MO. 1927 was the last year that Ford produced the Model T. Our first car was a 1927 Model T Ford- a demonstration model which the Carter Hardware Store at Stella, which had a Ford agency, sold Dad. I…
Irene Vanslyke | Joplin Junior College
Irene Vanslyke (1920-2012) attended Joplin Junior College from 1938-1940 and earned an Associate’s Degree in Education. The college was a Junior college which was started the year before I went. The first year classes were held in the HS building but the year I started they had bought an old school building which they used…
Thomas Relf | Great Plains Roamer, pt 1
Thomas Relf (1857-1940) was born in Indiana and lived in Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska prior to 1900. Norton County, Kansas | 1879 In 1876, he married Sarah C Peniston in Madison County, Indiana. Shortly after their marriage, they migrated to Norton County in northwestern Kansas. It is the fourth county from the border with Colorado,…
George Akin Vanslyke | Farmer
George Akin Vanslyke (1887-1967) was a farmer in Newton County, Missouri. He owned 80 acres of land near Indian Creek in Benton Township. Granby RR was our mailing address but the farm was 15 miles or so from Granby and only five plus to Stella where my family traded and where we went to church…
Andrew Van Slyke | Gone to Texas
Andrew Van Slyke chased the frontier. Born in New York in 1797, he first went to Illinois, where he met and married his wife, Electra Norton in 1824. Leaving the Northwest Territory in the 1830s, he traveled with his family to southwest Missouri. Then in the early 1840s, he moved south into Arkansas and then…
William Garrison | America, Liberty, Wabash
William Garrison (about 1810-1858) with his brothers, helped to establish a small Euro-American town in Wabash County, Indiana in the 1830s. A series of treaties in the early 1810s and 1820s displaced the Miami and Delaware peoples, allowing Euro-Americans to settle Indiana, migrating from the southeast border of Ohio farther north and west to the…
William Goff | Cape May Connections
William Goff, a native of Ireland, who came to America during the colonial days preceding the Revolution, and during the war was employed by the government as a ship carpenter. Shortly after coming to this county, he married Prudence Passenger, a courageous colonial maid… John Goff [his son] was born in New Jersey previous to…
Levi Garrison | Symmes Purchase
After the Revolutionary War, Levi Garrison emigrated from New Jersey into Pennsylvania and into Ohio. In 1798, he received 108 acres from John Cleves Symmes in the Colerain Township as part of the Symmes Purchase in southwest Ohio (C1, 4) Symmes Purchase John Cleves Symmes was the father-in-law of William Henry Harrison (9th President in…
James Crookham | Artificer
In the biography of James Crookham’s grandson, he recounts that his grandfather made arms for George Washington during the war. War records indicate that he served in the Pennsylvania Regiment of Artillery and Artificers near Carlisle, PA at Washingtonburg. He enlisted in November of 1778. Capt. Thos. Wylie certified his attendance on the muster roll…
Crookham | Scots-Irish?
William Crookham married Mary Philips in 1752 in the Old Swede’s Church (Swedish Lutheran) in Philadelphia, a multi-cultural colonial city. Mary Philips was likely a Welsh Quaker who married outside of her religion. Mary Crookham can be found in the Quaker Meeting Records for the Chester and Goshen Monthly Meetings, both in Chester County west…
James Crookham | Huntingdon, PA
The Continental Army recorded the desertion of James Crookham in April 1780. He had been listed as a bombardier, matross, and artificer stationed at Carlisle, PA during the war. He appears shortly after the war in the tax records of Bedford and Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. Huntingdon County was formed from Bedford County in 1787. Both…
William Crookham | South Ward
William Crookham is included in the 1774 Tax List for the South Ward of Philadelphia. It is unclear how he is included, in that he seems to appear as a sub-item for the taxes of Charles Marshall who owed approximately 79 pounds. South Ward, Philadelphia The South Ward was bordered by Water and Chestnut Streets,…
Asa Lake | Prisoner of War
In his grandson’s biography, a few sentences describe the role of Asa Lake in the Revolutionary War. In a previous post, I recount the land purchases Asa Lake made after the war in northwest Ohio on the Lanape land; the Lanape, or Delaware Indians, had been removed by the US Government to Kansas and Oklahoma.…
Asa Lake | Western Reserve of Ohio
Asa Lake (d. 1843) lived in Vermont during the Revolutionary War, migrated to Ohio around 1800, first in southeastern Ohio in Jackson County, before traveling to Hancock County in northwestern Ohio, where he died. In the History of Hancock County, Asa Lake was recorded as the first settler in Delaware Township, purchasing land in Section…
James Brown | First Wife
Who was his wife prior to Rachel Pearse? James Brown died in 1867 while visiting his daughter, Elizabeth Anderson, in Greenwood County, KS. His probate records report that he died intestate with a widow and children living in Fulton County, Illinois. Elizabeth Anderson, his daughter, had married Devine Anderson in Fulton County in 1847 and…
Jethro New | Battle of Cowpens
Jethro New enlisted in the 2nd Delaware Regiment and fought in the Battle of Cowpens (Jan 1781). The battle was turning point in the Southern Campaign of the Revolutionary War, as it was a decisive victory for the Continental Army. Battle of Cowpens Cowpens is located near the border between the Carolinas in the backcountry…
Arthur Rexford
Baptism Commanding the cliffs at the mouth of the river Dart, sits a squat Norman church with a square tower, overlooking the waters. Due to its position, watching the ships in the English Channel, the church had been fortified into the Dartmouth Castle, watching the ships from France during the Hundred Years’ War and the…
Samuel Norton | Death on the Prairie
In 1820, Samuel Norton moved his family from Vermont to Crawford County, Illinois. In 1821, he died, leaving his wife and children behind on the prairie. In 1820, Samuel Norton used credit to purchase the eighty acres of land about 5 miles of Lawrenceville, in the Allison Township. His son, Samuel Harris Norton, was issued…
Texas Mounted Volunteer
Andrew Vanslyke (1792-1852) moved his family from southeast Missouri to Texas shortly after Texas was annexed into the US. His son, Andrew H Vanslyke, (1827-1848) fought and died in the Mexican War. Andrew H. Vanslyke (1827-1848) enrolled as Private with Co K of the Texas Mounted Volunteers in July 1847; the war had only seven…
Devine Anderson | Traveling to Kansas
Devine Anderson (1824-1867) lived in Illinois for most of his life. In 1865, he wrote a letter to a former neighbor about moving to Kansas. The obituary for his daughter, Tabitha Anderson (1861-1935), describes how she and her family moved from Illinois to Kansas in 1866 by covered wagon. The letter is transcribed below, with…
Crookham | In the Limelight
The Crookhams attended a magic lantern show at a neighbor’s house.
Jonathan Walden, Baptist
Jonathan Walden’s obituary, written by H. Adams, extolled the virtuous life of Walden as a Baptist.
A Quaker marries in a Lutheran Church
On the 16th of March in 1752, William Crookham and Mary Philips were married at the Swedes’ Church (Gloria Dei) in Southwark neighborhood, south of Philadelphia.
Leaving for France
William Earl Relf (1887-1964) served in World War I. He left for France with his company in June 1918 on the HMS Karmala.
Camp Funston
William Earl Relf (1887-1964) served in World War I. He trained at Camp Funston before shipping out to France.
Enlisted in the Army for World War I
William Earl Relf (1887-1964) served in World War I. He was drafted in Sept 1917, trained at Camp Funston in the first half of 1918, and set sail in June 1918. He returned to the US in 1919.
Letter from the Front
William Earl Relf (1887-1964) served in World War I. One of his letters home was published in the local newspaper.
Chloe Abbott | A Widow’s Pension
In 1851, Chloe Lake, age 82 years, swore on oath the following declaration in order to obtain the benefits due the widow of a war veteran. She was denied a pension as she did not provide details of his service. She is the widow of Asa Lake, deceased, who was a private in the army…
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Finding the Yellow Bricks 