William McElhany, West Hanover, and Paxtang, PA

William McElhany was born in about 1766 in West Hanover Twp, Dauphin, Pennsylvania. (See below).  His only daughter was Jane McElhaney (McElhany) Booth (See post about her yesterday)

He was a veteran of  The "Pennsylvania -- 22nd Regiment Infantry -- War of 1812" and died on  Jan. 11, 1815.   See details in tomorrow's post about the War of 1812 Cemetery.

William McElhany was married on May 1, 1787 in Paxtang Presbyterian Church to Elizabeth "Betsy" McNeal McElhany  b. 1768, (See post under her name on Oct. 26).

Info on West Hanover Township, Dauphin, Pennsylvania (part of present day Harrisburg) from Wikipedia:

Originally a part of the County of Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Paxton Township, West Hanover Township was formed by action of the court of Lancaster in 1785.  On March 4, 1842 East and West Hanover Townships of Dauphin County were finally designated as separate governmental precincts.

Historical sources list the earliest settlements in the area of West Hanover as prior to 1735.  Many of these settlers, were of Scotch-Irish Presbyterian origin that came in large numbers with English Presbyterian and Protestant refugees to Penn’s Woods.

Census records from 1800 list 1,862 inhabitants and thirteen (13) slaves.  For the year 1820 there were 2,618 inhabitants.

Jane McElhaney Booth

Jane McElhaney Booth, b. 10.30.1794, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, d. Oct. 3, 1833, Green Creek, Sandusky County, Ohio. She died 3 years before her husband, Isaac Booth (1795-1836). For information on Isaac Booth, go to my blog HERE.

Her monument was inscribed with name, birth, death dates and "wife of Isaac"
buried 6 Oct 1833. It has worn completely away. (see cemetery photo) (both the Booth's monuments are in McPherson Cemetery, Clyde, Sandusky County, Ohio. Plot: Plot Section 1, Lot 43, Site 2)

Jane McElhaney Booth was sister to two brothers and daughter of William McElhany (b. abt 1766  West Hanover Twp, Dauphin, Pennsylvania) veteran of  War of 1812  (Come back here for my post on the War of 1812 Cemetery on Oct 26.)  For information on the place of William McElhany and Betsy McNeal's marriage, see my post tomorrow.

Isaac and Jane Booth's children were:

• William Lewis Booth (1818-1894)
   
• Charles Marcellus BOOTH (1820-1897)
   
• Lucinda Booth (1823-1906)
   
• Daniel Matthew Booth I (1825-1826)
   
• Daniel Matthew Booth II (1827-1892)
   
• Legrand Booth (1831-1832)
   
• Jane Brintha Booth (1833-1834)

 As you can see, three of these children lived about a year.  William Lewis Booth was to become my ancestor.  Until recently I had never heard of naming a next child the same name when a child died early, but in my research have found it happening several times.

Jane had two brothers. Older brother was Matthew who lived in Green Creek Township, Sandusky County, Ohio.  The youngest brother, Robert, was born 17 years after Jane, in 1811.  According to one of my cousins (many times removed) Matthew, being the oldest, and one year older than Jane...

...was obviously the caregiver of the family.  He never married. He had his mother, Elizabeth and brother Robert living with him on 1820 census;  his mother Elizabeth with him on 1830 census;  his mother, and his sister Jane’s children,  Charles,  Lucinda and Daniel Booth on 1840 census.  Upon his death, in 1845, he willed a portion of his property to Isaac and Jane Booth’s children and his brother Robert and his mother, Elizabeth.  He named his brother Robert as the administrator of his estate.

Matthew must have also been the one in charge of chosing a plot for his sister Jane and brother-in-law Isaac's burial in McPherson Cemetery, Clyde, Sandusky County, Ohio, in 1833 and 1836 respectively.

 19th century women in domestic tasks

I find it so interesting that my cousin could figure all this out about Matthew from the few records that are available through Ancestry.  It's amazing.

Good bye to pots I've loved

The turquoise pitcher.  I will be sad to see this go, but so far it's still in my home for me to enjoy looking at.
I sold the last of my pumpkin jars and jack-o-lanterns last weekend, except for the ones I gave away.  So glad they have gone to new homes.

I am reposting this pitcher to talk about heavy pottery.  There is a point in making pots that a potter is interested in making very thin walls on them.  I also believe there is a reason to have heavy pots.  The heat or coolness is held by the walls of the pot.  They will almost never break because they are so sturdy.  They also will outlast me probably.  Oh dear, I'm not sure I wanted to think about that.

All of these have gone to new homes...

And so have their little brothers.

North Cove overlook and Altapass Apple Orchard

A view of Atlapass apple orchards, with the Blue Ridge Parkway running along the top of the slope.

This is one of my favorite overlook sites I've ever found on the Blue Ridge Parkway.  It just felt person-friendly, rather than the sterile concrete, and sometimes walled off overlooks, (though there was also that area.)  Well, part of it was shaded by trees, and there was still plenty of viewing space.  Nothing too exciting besides the apple orchard to see, but as an artifact of humans efforts on the landscape, it's much better than a mine.  Drive over to Spruce-Pine (very close by) to see how strip mining can glare over a town on it's mountains.

Again you can see the rows of apple trees in the distance going parallel to the ridge.  When I took this picture I didn't realize what they were, and just thought it was a strange tree farm where they were definitely not Christmas trees.  (There are several farms of Christmas Trees in the area however.)


(source of this picture, Romantic Asheville)

what?

_{Laughter is inner jogging.} 

 _{Norman Cousins}

Linnville Falls, NC

I corrected my math on yesterday's post about Sofia Elmore Ross's siblings, there were 18 in all, and I'd miss-numbered them.  Sorry about that.

Ancestress cousin - Sofia Saxon Elmore Ross

Sophia Saxon Elmore Ross. My grandfather's aunt, Alice Luella Rogers married John Elmore Ross, who was Sophia Elmore Ross' grandson (and born 2 years before she died.)  Anyway, she was mentioned back in this post HERE.  That was because her father was in the Revolutionary War, and my father was named after him. But actually my father was named after his father, who was perhaps named after a cousin, but probably not the Revolutionary war hero himself.  Strange how a name lost meaning through generations...and my grandmother may have known why she named her first born son Elmore, then used the same name for my father's middle name.

Sophia Saxon Elmore was born Oct 18, 1794, in Laurens County, South Carolina. (This county is located about 100 miles due south as the crow flies from where I now live.)  

Revolutionary War, Musgrove Mill battlefield, near Cross Anchor, Laurens County, South Carolina.

Her father was General John A. Elmore.  He had 18 children with his 2 different wives, and Sophia was the third oldest child.  Her mother died when she was 10, and there were 2 younger and 2 older siblings.  Her father remarried within a year, then had the other 13 children, the ones born before 1817 in South Carolina.  Then apparently he received land in Alabama, from the Revolutionary War and moved there around 1819, where his last 5 children were born. 

Not Sofia Elmore Ross

Sofia Elmore Ross lived most of her life in South Carolina.  She married George W. Ross (a doctor) in South Carolina on May 31, 1810.  (Don't you figure that W. stood for Washington?)  She was 15.  He was 31.  They had six children, and the youngest died at age 7 months, the same year and within a week of her father.  (Perhaps there was an epidemic.)

Her father, Gen. John Elmore, had settled in Alabama, and her husband died in Laurens County, SC in 1825, so she may have moved with her children to live with sisters, or parents following that early widowhood.  When a woman married a much older man, that is likely to happen.  

She may have lived in Alabama for a while. Her family was full of politicians, lawyers, legislators and military men.  Elmore County, Alabama, was named after her father, and he has a big marker on his tomb.

I've not been able to track her life following her husband's death, but she is burried in Canton, Madison  County, Mississippi where she died April 21, 1852 at age 57.  If I took the time to see where her children were married, or where her grandchildren were born, I could probably figure it out.  But I'm glad to have had her as my cousin-in-law.

Canton, Mississippi Cemetery

 

They know what to do

Each leaf, to turn a certain shade, then to fall...

Midnight waterfall

Yes, she's cute drinking water out of my mug.
But not at 3:00 a.m.
And definitely not when I was rudely awakened by a cold wet waterfall bath all over myself and the bed.  I usually have a glass of water on the bedside table.  And since Muffin tries to drink out of it, I lay my glasses across the top. 
Sometime last night I heard the eye-glasses hit the floor, but I didn't want to wake up enough to pick them up.
Wrong choice.
That was her first step before trying to get the rest of the water.  It was only half full, and a tallish narrow glass.
So when she tumped it toward herself, the rest came tumbling quickly onto my shoulder, the pillow and the bed.  Talk about a rude awakening!
I am amazed how fast I found a towel, and turned on the light, and patted as much of the water up, then put another towel over the rest of the bed, and stripped the pillow case off and hung it over something, and stood the pillow up where it could dry, got a new pillow, and changed my own shirt..and then was back asleep in 10 minutes.
So this morning I turned back the sheet and mattress pad to dry things off, with a fan going too, in case moisture had seeped into the mattress.  I think I caught most of it, but these days with damp moving into mold, I want to be careful.

And a peaceful thought for the day:

Any place is sacred ground, for it can become a place of encounter with the divine Presence.

David Steindl-Rast
A Listening Heart

 

Meow

Greeting for the day:

Do all you can with what you have, in the time you have, in the place you are.

Nkosi Johnson, 

Twelve-year-old Zulu boy, living with AIDS