To my grandchildren:
After I had passed the prime of life and had retired from active business I realized how many opportunities I had failed to grasp. For me, the possibility of correcting any errors of commission or omission in my business life has long since gone by. Naturally, I regret mistakes I made in my personal life and in my relations with others. And I failed to do many little things which would have eased the way for others. One of the things I neglected to do in my youth and early manhood - my failure to learn more about my forebears, their places of origin, their experiences, and their way of life - is now most regrettable. Maybe that error of omission I can correct in a measure for the benefit of my descendants.
On the basis of research to date - early 1961 - all my American ancestors arrived in what is now the United States prior to 1780. Naturally, family records are clear so far as my four grandparents are concerned and I have the names of all my eight great-grandparents including maiden names of the women of the families. Of the sixteen persons in the next preceding generation the names of four couples have been found and the names of two other men in the roll, but not their wives. Of two couples there is no record. whatever as of now. Only a few names have been turned up in earlier generations. It appears that Mathias Schiltz was the last to arrive of all my American ancestors - 1776-1780. One family is known to have come here as early as 1713 and it is entirely possible that others in the line came still earlier. Thus, on my side of your family, you can point to an extensive colonial ancestry.
Your great-grandfather, Edgar T. Robens, could trace his American ancestry back to the Pilgrims in 1620 and to the Puritans who came to Boston in 1680. If any of the girls in the family care to become members of DAR, Colonial Dames, or the Society of Mayflower Descendants, there is now ample evidence to support their claims.
I missed the opportunity to learn the story of my maternal ancestors by failing to make any inquiries from my grandfather Dougan. I was a boy of nineteen when he died in 1900. My grandfather Shilts died when I was a child of six. He gave me a silver dollar one time when my parents took me to visit him at his log house near Killbuck. And that is all I can recall of him whose picture hangs in my office as I write. My grandmother Shilts died in 1857. Grandmother Dougan died February 25, 1885, when I was under four years of age. I have a dim memory of her in her coffin. Thus I missed my only chance to get from grandparents the first-hand story of their lineage and life experiences. Like the young people of today, I had no interest in the past history of my family. I was concerned only with the present and the future. I had ample opportunity to learn much about family history from my father and mother but I am ashamed to admit that I failed to avail myself of their store of knowledge. Fortunately, my sister Olive took a real interest in her ancestry and much of what I shall tell you we both owe to her. And Allan a few years ago corresponded with several men and women who bore the Shilts name and so learned a great deal about their antecedents.
Then Janis Heidenreich Miller offered to search the records in Washington and elsewhere for data on Mathias and on collateral families. The information she has dug up is incorporated in this revision.
Members of the family use various spellings of the name - Shiltz, Schiltz, Shilts. The earliest spelling I have come across - Matthias Schiltz - is found in a list of Revolutionary War soldiers entitled to bounty land. How the name was spelled in Germany I do not know. Evidently, as in the case of other old German names, younger generations simplified the spelling. My immediate family has used the Shilts spelling from the tree of my grandfather.
According to data handed down from generation to generation, Mathias and a brother Daniel were in one of several contingents of German mercenaries hired by the British Government to help put down the American revolt. So far as I know the principality from which the brothers came has not been determined. During the Revolution the British used German troops from Hesse-Cassel, Brunswick, Hesse-Hanau, Anspach-Bayreuth, Waldeck, and Anhalt Zerbst. (Regardless of the principality of origin, all the German conscripts were called Hessians by the Americans.) Of approximately 30,000 German troops rented out to the British, 17,000 were from Hesse-Cassel. The largest contingents were shipped over in 1776 although trickles of replacements were arriving up to 1782. Twelve thousand five hundred did not return according to German authorities. Many died of wounds or disease. Some who were captured elected not to retum and the German authorities claimed 5000 deserted. I do not know whether Mathias was captured and elected not to return to Germany or if he liked America well enough to desert. A large contingent of Hessian troops was landed at Quebec but apparently most came in through New York. If the brothers came by way of Quebec, they must have been in the Saratoga campaign and were captured. If they landed at New York, they would have been engaged in the campaigns in the midddle colonies.
Nothing is now known of what happened to Mathias during his service as a Hessian soldier. We do know that he remained in America. Family tradition has it that his brother Daniel returned to Germany. Through his correspondence, Allan was told by one member of the family that Mathias saw service as an American soldier during the Revolution. Janis Heidenreich Miller searched the records in Washington and elsewhere and found documentary proof that Mathias served as an American soldier during part of the war. Thanks to her, I now have a photostat, from the Virginia State library, of a page of the "list of soldiers of the Virginia Line on Continental Establishment who have received certificates for the balance of their full pay agreeable to an act of the Assembly passed November Session 1781." On that list the name Schilz Mathias appears, described as a soldier of infantry. The certificate was received by Col. Byrd, January 13, 1786, and was in the sum of 29 - (evidently pounds, shillings, and pence). The Library also reported that the name of Mathias Schiltz occurs on a list of Revolutionary War soldiers who were entitled to bounty land but never received it. It is of historical record that many captured Hessians were interned in Virginia. So it may be a fair guess that Mathias was one of the captured. A letter to Allan from a descendant of Jacob Shilts states that Mathias, according to the story handed down through the family, was captured soon after arrival. After being held captive for some time, he heard that an exchange of prisoners was under consideration. Not wanting to serve again under the British, he asked and was granted permission to join the American forces which would give him the right to remain in America. This could be the true story for it is well established that he served as an American soldier in the Revolutionary War.
In the 1790 list of heads of families is the name Mathias Shilt listed with wife, two sons under sixteen years, and one daughter, resident in Washington County, Maryland. Family records show one son, Frederick, my great-grandfather born 1787, and one daughter, Elizabeth, born 1789. Question - was there another son older than Frederick? Strangely, Mrs. Miller found in the church records of Maryland Evangelical and Reformed Church the following: "John Philrich born December 28, 1785, baptized June 5, 1786, son of Elizabeth and Matthias Schild." Was Matthias Schild Mathias Schiltz? If so, the two sons mentioned in the 1790 census are John and Frederick. But that John disappears and Mathias' wife's name in family and public records is Mary Magdalene.
Another census, probably 1800, lists Mathias Schiltz, wife Mary Madeline, sons Frederick born in Maryland, 1787, Henry born in Maryland 1794, John born in Maryland between 1790 and 1800, and Daniel born in Maryland 1798. No daughters were mentioned although the family records show Elizabeth born 1789 and Catherine born 1791. Family records are in agreement with respect to the sons. As Mathias is not listed as a head of family in Maryland, census of 1800, it may be assumed that he had moved to Pennsylvania between 1798 and 1800.
The 1810 census lists Mathias Shiltz and wife Mary, both over forty-five years of age, resident in Jefferson Township, Greene County, Pennsylvania. Children listed were three sons between ten and fifteen years of age, one son under ten years, one daughter between fifteen and twenty-five, and a daughter under ten. Frederick Shiltz and wife Catherine were listed separately, no children. Our family records check out fairly closely with the census. Henry, John, and Daniel would be the three older sons, George, born 1803, the youngest boy. Catherine, born 1791, would be the older daughter and Mary, born 1808, the younger. Apparently, the oldest daughter, Elizabeth, had left the household, probably married.
By the time the 1820 census was taken, Mathias had moved to Ohio, Dover Township, Tuscarawas County. He is listed as Mathias Shields with his wife Mary, two sons under twenty, a daughter ten to fifteen, and a daughter twenty to forty. Presumably, the sons were Daniel and George, the daughters Mary and Catherine. That census also lists Frederick Shields and wife with four sons under fifteen and Henry Shields and wife with two children. The three families lived in the same township. At this point information from another source is available. Hanna's History of Harrison County, Ohio, contains the record of a land patent taken up by Matthias Schilds in Monroe Township, Harrison County in June 1814 and lists him as having come from Greene County, Pennsylvania. In the census records noted, his wife's name is given as Mary and Mary Magdeline. Our family records show her name to have been Mary Magdeline Bower. A distant relative wrote Allan that she was descended from a Sarah Byfield of Surrey, England, and George Bower who came to America in the middle 1600's.
Mrs. Janis Miller has turned up an interesting Bower lineage starting with a Hans Bauer, born 1670 in Switzerland. He married Anne Willener, a Mennonite. At that time Mennonites were persecuted in Switzerland, so he and Anne emigrated first to Holland, then to Pennsylvania, arriving there 1714-15. He bought land in Berks County, Pennsylvania, where the family lived until his death around 1745. His son, Hans Jr., born around 1710, married a girl whose first name was Magdalena, family name unknown. Their son Abraham, born about 1743, had a daughter Magdalena, born around 1766. My great-great-grandfather married Mary Magdalena Bower sometime between 1780 and 1786. Sons and daughters were and are frequently named after parents or grandparents. The fact that both the Bowers and Mathias Schiltz were known to have been residents of Maryland in the years from 1776 to 1790, and the coincidence of the same given name Magdalena leads me to suspect that this may be one of my ancestral lines.
Land patents were taken up by John and Bernard Bower in Monroe Township, Harrison County in 1809 and 1812 and other land patents were issued in their names prior to 1830. The present town of Bowerstown must take its name from the Bower family. It would seem that Mathias followed members of his wife's family to the vicinity of Bowerstown, then Bowers Mills. Mathias must have been around sixty years old when he moved to Ohio. According to family records, he died in 1823 and with his wife, who died earlier, was buried on the home farm. Years later a railroad, now a division of the Pennsylvania, was run through the farm and the graves turned out to be located on the right of way. After opposition by surviving descendants, the bones were reburied in the Bowerstown cemetery. One day in July, 1948, Allan and I drove to Bowerstown and located Denton Shiltz, a descendant of Frederick through his son George, an older brother of my grandfather Henry. Denton was then seventy-eight but active and keen. Later his brother, Rev. Emmett E., called and the four of us went to the Bowerstown cemetery and saw the graves of Mathias and Mary Magdalene Shiltz, our common ancestors. Denton and Emmett had erected a new headstone and had placed the original, badly weathered stones flat on the graves. We then drove to the original grave site which is between the railroad and the highway. Denton said that the original cabJln stood on the hill beyond the grave but that later Mathias built a better cabin in a little valley across the road. Denton told us that as a boy he had talked with an old man who as a youth had seen and talked with Mathias, that his parents had sent him to the Shiltz cabin to investigate as they had heard a horn blown. The boy found that one of the old couple had died and that the horn had been blown to summon help. We then visited the Connotton cemetery where Frederick, my great-grandfather, and several of his relatives are buried.
Strangely the name Matthias Shiltz, eighty years of age or older, appears in the 1830 census, residing in One Leg Township, Tuscarawas County. According to family records Mathias died in 1823. Listed as members of the household are a male aged twenty to thirty, a female of the same age, a male fifteen to twenty, and a female under five. That census also lists Frederick Shiltz and wife forty to fifty years of age residing in the same township. Other members of his household were five males ranging from five to twenty, one female five to ten years old, and two females under five. The family records correspond. My grandfather Henry was one of the males, born 1815. Frederick's brother Daniel also appears in that census, resident in the same township. He would be the Daniel who later settled in Holmes County. Again in One Leg Township a George Shiltz and wife, twenty to thirty years of age, appear, likely Mathias's youngest son, born 1803. Listed in North Township, Harrison County, are John Shiltz and wife, thirty to forty years of age, likely Mathias's son born 1796.
So far the names given in the census records, noted above, can be fitted into the family records. But two names appear in the 1830 census which I am unable to relate to Mathias. George Shiltz, wife, and children are listed as residents of Jackson Township, Highland County, Ohio. Both George and wife were thirty to forty years old,bringing their birthdates between 1790 and 1800, while Mathias's son George was not born until 1803. Then in Richland Township, Holmes County, Ohio, appear Andrew Shiltz and wife, forty to fifty years old with family of eight. The name Andrew appears in none of the family records, but an Andrew Shilt, wife, all seven children were living in Berks County, Pennsylvania, in 1790. I recall having read in reports of the Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society that a Charles Schiltz was a noted hunter in southwestern Ohio in the early days. Maybe that accounts for the Highland County George. At any rate, others than Mathias bore the Shilt or Shiltz name in America as early as 1790 or 1800.
Mrs. Miller has tried unsuccessfully through correspondents in Germany to determine from where Mathias Schiltz came. To date, his name has not been found on any list of Hessian soldiers. Her correspondents write that the name Schiltz has been fotmd in Frankfurt, in Hanover, and in Cologne. Inability to locate the name on Hessian lists has led to the thought that he might have come from Switzerland, for there were some Swiss serving with the Hessians. And the early appearance of the Shiltz name in Pennsylvania gave rise to the guess that he might have joined the Hessian forces from America. In fact, the earliest record of Mathias is as a soldier in the Continental line of the American army in the Revolution. So far as known records go, he was a Revolutionary soldier, not a Hessian. However, I must consider family tradition to be true - that he came over as a Hessian, was captured or deserted and later joined the American forces.
Henry Shiltz, wife, and family show up in the 1850 census as residents of Hardy Township, Holmes County, Ohio. According to the census he was born in 1794 which agrees with the family records on Henry, son of Mathias. Family tradition has it that he was an herb doctor and that he saved the life of my Aunt Fanny with his scarlet fever treatment. He is supposed to have lived on the farm near Millersburg where my father and mother later lived. The 1907 Atlas of Holmes County mentions him as one of the earliest settlers in Hardy Township. A relative visiting the family in Holmes County in the 1860's refers to that Henry as a perpetual motion enthusiast in a letter he wrote to my father. Mary, Mathias's youngest daughter, married John Waltman, had a family of four daughters and two sons. Her son Perry, still living when I was a boy, was a prosperous farmer living near Killbuck, Holmes County. Her other son, Elmer, was an artist and I wonder if he could have done the picture of my grandfather. Of the older daughters of Mathias I can only surmise. Apparently, the oldest daughter, Elizabeth, disappears from his household in the 1810 census. According to a record discovered by Mrs. Miller, an Elizabeth Schiltz was married to Daniel Sawyer, June 6, 1808, in Jefferson County, Ohio. She could have been Mathias's older daughter. Records of Harrison County, Ohio, show the marriage of Catherina Shultz to Michael Habler in 1813, she possibly the second daughter of Mathias. As Daniel Shilts lived on a fann adjoining Grandfather Henry's, my father had the opportunity to know well a son of Mathias. Uncle Dan, as he was called, must have come to Holmes County sometime after 1830 as he is listed living in Harrison County in the census of that year. In the 1850 census he shows up in Holmes County. The 1815 Atlas of Holmes County contains the plot of his 206 acre farm a mile north of Oxford, now Killbuck. He raised hogs and must have profited from the high Civil War prices for he left a sizable (for the times) estate. He had seven children. Some of his sona moved to Wisconsin were several families bearing the Shilts name still live. A son, Barney, was killed in the Civil War. I recall that his son Joshua, a Civil War veteran, came one summer from Wisconsin to visit my family. He helped my father with harvest work. Daniel died in 1888, aged ninety, and is buried in the Christy Chapel cemetery. Mathias's son John lived in Harrison County some years, then moved over into West Virginia.
While still living in Pennsylvania my great-grandfather Frederick married Catherine Prong, a daughter of Stophe1 Prong (Stophel the Geman for Christopher). Mrs. Miller's research makes Stophel the son of Jacob Brong (old German names vary greatly in spelling and were generally simplified and Anglicized in America) and Margaret Wollschlaeger who were married in Oberweiler, Germany around 1745. The couple came to America in 1750, landing at Philadelphia. Margaret's mother and a young brother came on the same ship, the Edinburgh. They settled in Bucks County where Stophel (or Christopher) was born September 12, 1758. His baptism is recorded in the records of St. Paul's Lutheran Church. Jacob died in 1766. Records show that Margaret's maiden name had been shortened and Anglicized to Wools1ayer. Stophel enlisted in the Third Pennsylvania Battalion under Col. Arthur St. Clair and served in the Ticonderoga campaign. In 1781 he again appears on the muster roll of the First Regiment of Foot. As Christopher Brang he appears on the list of taxables in Bucks County from 1781 through 1786. He was married probably around 1783 and the 1790 census finds the family located in Washington County, Pennsylvania. He settled on a tract of land later known as Prong's Quarry. The County records show his name as Prong, the spelling handed down in family records. There seems to be some evidence that he had married twice but his will names his wife Elizabeth, maiden name unknown. He died March 4, 1809, is buried in the Horn Cemetery near Zollarsville. His will names ten daughters, no sons, among them Catherine, my great-grandmother, born 1789, died 1855. His widow, Elizabeth, remarried.
Frederick and Catherine had a family of five sons and three daughters; George, 1811-1879; Isaac, 1812-1869, John, 1813-1870; Henry, 1815-1886, my grandfather Jacob, 1821- ; Sarah, 1829-1813; Mariah, 1827- ; Susan, 1830-1890. Harrison County marriage records give the maiden names of the wives taken by each of the five sons and the dates. Susan married Jacob Renaker. Mariah, Alexander Lytle. My grandfather Henry moved to Holmes County, Ohio; Jacob settled in Appanoose County, Iowa, in the 1850s. George, Isaac, and John seem to have remained in Harrison County or nearby. Sarah never married, was killed by a train in 1872, is buried in the Connotton cemetery as are George, Isaac, and John. Frederick died in 1837 of a heart attack induced by running to free a son caught by a falling tree. He and Catherine are buried in the Connotton cemetery.
My grandfather Henry was born December 10, 1815, died December l6, 1886. He was probably born in Pennsylvania as the land patent issued to Frederick is dated in 1818. My grandmother's maiden name was Mary House. She was born in l811, the oldest child of John and Sarah Nesbitt House. Olive recalls Father telling her that his great-grandfather House came over from England during the Revolution and served with the British troops. She also recalls being told that the Nesbitts came from Virginia to Indiana County, Pennsylvania. John House was a tailor by trade and my grandmother, a fine seamstress, helped him as a girl. Father told of having once walked with his father from Killbuck to Magnolia to visit the House family. And that's a long hike [46 miles]. John and Sarah Nesbitt House had eight children: Mary Shilts, Fanny Ulman, Eliza, Anne Croskey, Susan Husted, Sarah Richards, John, and Jonathan. Father kept rather closely in touch with the Ulmans and with Jonathan. I don't think he knew much about the others. Wellman Ulman often visited us at Millersburg and I remember the big house Frank lived in at Spring Mountain, having visited there. Jonathan lived at Brink Haven, Knox County, was a prosperous farmer. He owned a large farm in Holmes County according to the l875 Atlas. His daughter May married a man named Stillwell and lived in Millersburg for some years. My Aunt Elizabeth used to tell us children that "the blood of kings runs in our veins." How true that story may be I don't know, but if there should be something to it, probably the House or Nesbitt families should get the credit. I didn't have sense enough to ask my aunt the basis for the story. Grandfather Shilts was a big man, over six feet tall, weighing around 225 pounds, all bone and muscle. He was so powerful few dared challenge him. The story goes that he could pick up a beer barrel and drink from the bunghole. He needed that physique during the Civil War for Holmes County was solidly Democratic, many of its citizens partisans of the South. He was a Republican as was Grandfather Dougan. I do not know whether his education went beyond reading, writing, and arithmetic, probably not. My Grandmother Shilts must have had a good education for the times, for she was a school teacher, in fact, she was teaching in Harrison County when she met and married my grandfather. Grandfather Shi1ts lived his entire life in log houses, never had a bathtub, gas or electric lights, telephone, furnace, washing machine, running water in the house, in fact none of the labor saving equipment now considered indispensable. Olive has it that he first settled on a hill farm about two miles south of Millersburg where he had a cooper shop. My father in his younger days helped in the shop and I remember seeing him make staves and repair kegs and barrels. Later grandfather moved to a small farm near Killbuck across the road from the large farm owned by his Uncle Daniel. Grandfather must have retained ownership of his first property as Father bought out the interests of his brother and sisters in that part of the estate. An account book Father kept in 1887, 1888, and part of 1889 records payments he made in settlement of the estate.
What I have written in the preceding paragraph represents family records and memories concerning my grandmother Mary House Shilts. Mrs. Miller's search of the records to determine her ancestral lines led into a veritable welter of names. She uncovered dozens of families bearing the name House, Houze, Hause, or other similar spellings. Men of the name came to Virginia as early as 1618 and to Massachusetts in the 1600's. Whether our House line goes that far back in Colonial times now seems likely never to be determined. But from the records of Carroll County, Ohio, she procured a transcript of an Article of Agreement between Elizabeth Houze and Mary Shildts et al dated September 26, 1843. That document confirms Elizabeth as the widow of John Houze and the mother of Mary Shilts, Frances Ulman, and five other unmarried girls. As a boy I knew that Frances, wife of Jacob Ulman, was my father's aunt. The document makes no mention of the two sons, John and Jonathan. Elizabeth signed with her mark, the daughters knew how to write. My grandmother signed her name Mary Shildts. Also from Carroll County records came a transcript of the action of the Probate Court appointing Elizabeth Houze and Jacob Ulman administrators of the estate of John Houze, indicating he left no will. The document is dated July 14, 1843, so John House must have died shortly before that date. Interestingly, the paper is signed by Daniel McCook, Clerk, probably one of the "fighting McCooks" famous in the Civil War, Carrollton having been their home. This first document establishes Elizabeth as my great-grandmother's name, not Sarah, though Sarah could have been a middle name or a first name and Elizabeth the middle. The 1850 census names Elisabeth House resident in Magnolia with four daughters and two sons in the household. The sons, John and Jonathan, were shown born in Ohio, all the others born in Maryland. The boys' ages, fourteen and fifteen,indicates the family had come to Ohio by 1830. The three oldest daughters were not in her household, Mary Shilts and Frances Ulman known to have been married earlier, but it does indicate that grandmother Mary was born in Maryland.
Based on my present knowledge, the ancestry of my great-grandfather John House presents a baffling problem. My father told us that his great-grandfather came from England to America during the Revolution and fought on the British side. It is a known fact that John House, my great-grandfather, married Elizabeth Nesbitt while the families were living in Maryland and that my grandmother Mary House Shilts was born in Maryland. The 1820 census lists a John House and wife aged over forty five living at Magnolia in what is now Carroll County, Ohio. And the 1830 census shows John House, my great-grandfather, and wife resident in Magnolia. In the same household were a man and a woman, eighty to ninety years of age, likely John's father and mother, for it is known that Elizabeth Nesbitt House's father lived in Indiana County Pennsylvania at the time of his death. And a John House living in or near Magnolia in 1836 made application for a pension stating that he was born in 1747, had served under George Rogers Clark as an Indian spy. The application is on file in Washington. He was turned down for lack of proof of service. Based purely on age he could have been the old man living with John House in 1830. It is a matter of record that a John House was suspected of being an active Tory during the Revolution. I certainly had a great-great-grandfather House, but that's all I know for certain about him.
Mrs. Miller has accumulated quite a volume of data re the ancestry of Elizabeth Nesbitt House. She was the oldest daughter of John and Catherine Wycoff Nesbitt. John was a son of Nathaniel and Fanny Whitmer Nesbitt. The name Nesbitt comes down from a Norman to whom William the Conqueror granted extensive lands in Scotland. For centuries Nesbitts were prominent participants in Scottish events, many having the title Sir before their names. The families are badly split during the religious troubles of the 1600's, some supporting the Stuart kings, others Covenanters. And some Covenanter Nesbitts were hanged for refusing to forswear their beliefs. In 1680 a number of Covenanter Nesbitts fled to Ireland, some of them later coming to America. Four men bearing the Nesbitt name landed at Perth Amboy and New York in 1685, said to have sailed from Leith, Scotland. Nathaniel is the first of the Nesbitts to be identified in our ancestral line, He was born June 16, 1725, his name first found in the early records of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The 1790 census locates him in Washington County, Maryland as does the 1800 census. He and Fanny Whitmer were married in 1761 in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and as all their children were born in Clearspring, Maryland, they must have moved to Maryland soon after the marriage or possibly he had taken possession of the Maryland lands before he was married and came back Lancaster to claim his bride. His son John, my great-great-grandfather was born September 28, 1762. From various sources it is known that John and Nathaniel Jr. moved to Indiana County, Pennsylvania, probably around 1820 as his older children were born in Maryland. Nathaniel Nesbitt, Sr. signed the Patriots' Oath of Fidelity and Support, so for DAR membership purposes, Nathaniel Sr. would count as a Revolutionary ancestor. Nathaniel Sr.'s will dated April 13, 1805, gave his 689 acre landed estate to his five sons in approximately equal acreage. His will was probated in 1807, probably the year of his death. Interestingly, among the assets Nathaniel Sr. willed to his son John was a negro girl called Judie.
John Nesbitt, my great-great-grandfather was born in 1762. He and his wife, Catherine Wycoff Nesbitt, had four sons and four daughters. In his will he designated Elizabeth, who was married to John House, his oldest daughter. In the census records of 1790, 1800, and 1810 John Nesbitt is shown as a head of family in Washington County, Maryland. He must have moved to Indiana County, Pennsylvania, between 1810 and 1820. His daughter Elizabeth must have been born 1790 or a little earlier. At least until recent years some of his descendants continued living in Indiana County.
In her research on the Nesbitts, Mrs. Miller turned up two names which had been totally unknown to me - Whitmer and Wycoff. A Michael Whitmer, a Swiss Mennonite, came to Philadelphia in 1733 on the ship Hope out of Rotterdam. He was sixty-five at the time he came over and is thought to have brought with him three sons, one of them also named Michael. He and Jacob Sensenig were the first settlers in Earl Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Around 1739 the son, Michael married a girl named Barbara and is thought to have married for the "second time" woman whose last name was Sensenig. By the two wives he had ten children whose names are of record. Fanny, the eighth child on the list as we have it, married Nathaniel Nesbitt in 1761, she apparently much younger than Nathaniel. They were married in Lancaster, Pennsylvania and moved on to Washington County, Maryland. Michael Whitmer is buried in the old Whitmer cemetery near the Harrisburg and Downington Turnpike. He died in 1778. So the Whitmers were among the many Germans who came to Pennsylvania soon after the founding of the state in 1681, among the first of the Pennsylvania Dutch.
A great deal of research has gone into tracing the history of the Wycoff family. In Europe the family has been traced back to Erik King of Sweden in 800 A.D., his son Edmund, King of Upsala, and his grandson Erik Vaderbatt, king of Svea Valda. However, the history of the family from those kings to 1590 is not clear. The known history dates from Cornellis Peterson of Borgholm, Öland Island in the North Sea. May 12, 1593, he married Joanna Van der Goes in Calmar, Sweden. He died in 1599. His son Claes, born in Holland in 1597, a child at his father's death, grew up under the guidance of his grandfather, Jacob Van der Goes of Walcheren, Holland and Colmar, Sweden. Both families had been traders in North European ports. In 1623 C1aes married his cousin Margaret Van der Goes of Walcheren. She died in 1631. At that time the Thirty Years War was in progress making shipping dangerous. So Claes disposed of his shipping interests, sailed to America with his son Pieter, arriving at Fort Orange, New Netherlands, April 7,1637. Pieter was born 1625 on Öland Island. They came over on the "Rensselaerwick" which sailed from Amsterdam September 26, 1636, reached New Amsterdam March 13, 1637, according to the ship's log. In America, Claes was known as Claes Cornellisen van Schouen and Pieter as Pieter Claesen. Pieter became prominent in the affairs of Fort Orange and in 1649 moved to New Amsterdam where he was engaged "to superintend the Bowery and cattle of Peter Stuyvesant." His house in Brooklyn was long known as the Wycoff homestead. He helped establish the Flatlands Dutch Reformed Church and is believed to be buried under the altar of that church. When the British took over the colony they insisted that the Dutch take new simpler names. So Pieter took the name Wykhof. Before leaving Port Orange he had married Grietje Van Ness, a daughter of Hendrickse Van Ness, a rich Hollander. They had ten children, the oldest Nicholas, born 1646. Pieter died in 1694, his wife in 1699. Nicholas married Sarah, daughter of Pieter and Sarah de Plancken Monfoort. They had six children, the oldest Pieter, born 1675. According to the records of the Flatlands church, Sarah died in 1704. The last known document signed by Nicholas is dated 1714. Pieter Wycoff married Willemtje Jansen Schenck in 1696. He moved from Brooklyn to New Jersey and all their children were baptized in the First Dutch Church of Freehold, New Jersey. However, his will was made in Flatlands, New York, probated in 1759 and recorded in New York Surrogate's Office. His oldest son, Nicholas, was born in 1697, married a girl named Elizabeth, last name unknown. They lived near Readington, New Jersey. Nicholas died in 1778. His son Samuel, born June 9, 1725, married Gertrude Wyckoff in 1749. He owned land in Loudon County, Virginia, in 1772, later moved to Hardy County, then in Virginia, now West Virginia. Samuel's will was probated in 1813 in Hardy County. Their daughter Catherine married John Nesbitt, probably prior to 1790. She was my great-great-grandmother.
Henry Shilts and Mary House were married June 17, 1841, by a Justice of the Peace David Bower, probably a relative. They had six children: Sarah Jane, 1842-1852; Eliza Ann Heidy, 1844-1924; Mary Elizabeth Johnson, 1845-1922; my father, John Franklin, July 19, 1847- May 23, 1926; Frances McKeal, 1849-1916; Ransom, 1854-1936. Grandmother Shilts died May 29, 1857, leaving five children ages three to thirteen. Aunt Eliza evidently ran the house until she married then Aunt Elizabeth took over until Grandfather's death. I have not the slightest idea of the physical characteristics of my Grandmother Shilts, whether she was dark or fair, a large woman like my Aunt Eliza or of average size as was Aunt Elizabeth. Aunt Eliza Heidy had a son and two daughters and lived near Howard in Knox County. Aunt Elizabeth, Johnson married late in life, had no children, lived in her married years at Spring Mountain, a tiny hill village in northern Coshocton County. Aunt Frances McKeal had three sons and a daughter, lived in Wayne County. Ransom married Emma Bowers, had no children, lived on a small farm about four miles outside of Millersburg. I recall that as a boy I walked over to see Uncle Ransom, on which occasion Aunt Emma gave me a dish of tapioca, the first I had ever had. Uncle Ransom lived alone after his wife died, while physically able raised enough on his little farm by hand work to keep going. Later he was removed to the old folks home where he died. When I learned of his condition I tried to help him with money and clothes, but he didn't want charity and I know he never wore clothes I gave him. I must admit I knew very little of relatives on my father's side, with the exception of Uncle Ransom and Aunt Elizabeth who lived with us at times after Grandfather died.
Both Grandfather and Grandmother Shilts are buried in the Christy Chapel cemetery near Killbuck.
My mother was a daughter of William Morrow and Esther Parkhill Dougan. Nothing has yet been turned up to determine when the first Dougan in our line came to this country or his place of origin. The 1790 census locates a Robert Dougan in Dunbar Township, Fayette County, Pennsylvania, also a John Dougan in the same township. A copy of Robert Dougan's will, which I have, seems to prove that he was my great-great-grandfather as one of his two sons named in the will was Robert, the name of my great-grandfather who, as we definitely know, also lived in Dunbar Township. John was the other son, doubtless the one listed in the 1790 census. The will was dated December 1802, probated apparently in January 1804. It is interesting to note the provisions in the will respecting his wife Elinor (family name unknown). She was bequeathed "a good milch cow, a bed and sufficient bedclothes, her wheel and reel and all my pewter to be at her own disposal at her decease." She was also given twelve pounds per year during her lifetime to be paid equally by the two sons in wheat and corn at specified prices per bushel. She was also given the use of the house in which he lived. The daughters Nancy, Margaret, and Elinor were given twenty pounds each to be paid in grain and cattle by John after his mother's death. Daughters Elizabeth, Jane, and Mary were also given twenty pounds each to be paid by Robert in grain and cattle after his mother's death. The real estate was apparently divided equally between John and Robert. The married names of the daughters we do not know.
My great-grandfather, Robert Dougan, was born in 1760, was married to Margaret McClelland, died August 3, 1834. Robert and Margaret Dougan had six children. James, 1794-1849; Sarah, 1796-?; Elizabeth, 1798-?; Robert, 1812-1874; William Morrow, 1817-1900, my grandfather, David, 1820-?. James came to Holmes County, Ohio, at an early day, lived on a farm near Millersburg; Elizabeth married a man named Carr; of Sarah we know nothing; Robert seems to have left the farm and became a jeweler. Family tradition says David left home and was never heard of again by the family. Great-grandmother Margaret was born in 1775, died 1855. Robert's will, a photostat of which I have, left the use of the home farm and his personal property to his wife and his sons Robert and William until William became of age when the personal property was to be divided equally, the real estate, 145 acres in Pennsylvania and 240 acres in Ohio, to be divided between Robert and William. James and Elizabeth were given $200.00 each. Sarah and David were not mentioned in the will. The two sons mentioned were to take possession of the Ohio lands immediately after their father's death. Hiram and Cyrus Dougan were witnesses to the will, possibly nephews of Robert. The 1800 census lists as residents of Dunbar Township, Fayette County, Robert Dougan and wife, born prior to 1755, and Robert Dougan and wife, born 1755-1775. In the latter household were listed one male and two females, all under ten years of age, which checks with what we know of grandfather's brothers and sisters and the birth dates of his father and mother. I have no recollection of hearing that any of our Dougan ancestors had Revolutionary War service. However, Mrs. Miller discovered the war record of a Robert Dougan who was awarded land as a bounty. My great-grandfather Robert owned 240 acres in Holmes County, Ohio, which my grandfather William later took over. An atlas of Holmes County contains a map showing the portions of the county laid out in 100 acre lots for allotment to Revolutionary veterans. The Doogan property was in Killbuck Township where no military subdivisions were located. Land not designated as military was sold by sections of 40, 80, 160, and 320 acres. So I am reasonably certain my great-grandfather was not a soldier in the Revolution. Had he been, I'm sure either I or Olive would have heard about it. The records show that there were numerous Dougans living in North Carolina, Virginia, and Pennsylvania in Revolutionary times and several Dougans are listed as Revolutionary soldiers.
The several accounts I have of the origin of the Parkhill family agree that in the early 1600's a vessel, supposedly French, was wrecked on the Channel coast of England. The only survivor was a boy too young to talk who was adopted by a resident of Torquay and given the name Parkhill, that being the name of the gentleman's estate. Descendants of that first Parkhill fought under William of Orange and for their services were given lands in North Ireland. They married Scottish wives and apparently adopted the Covenanter faith for in 1740 or thereabouts four sons of one family came to America, a time when the Scotch Irish were being forced to emigrate due to their religious differences with the Established Church of England. My great-great-grandfather was David Parkhill. One of the four emigrants was named David but one account has it that the David who was my ancestor came to America with his father James. If that version is correct, our American ancestry is moved back another notch. Records agree that my ancestor David Parkhill was married August 29, 1768, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. According to one account, he married Martha Morrow, a daughter of Jeremiah Morrow whose son Jeremiah became the sixth governor of Ohio. The other account carries Martha Rankin as his wife's maiden name. One account relates that this David was one of a party of pioneers who left eastern Pennsylvania in 1782 on a search for suitable land. The leader of the group was Daniel Boone. Land in what is now Fayette County looked good to Parkhill and there he settled. David and Martha Parkhill had a family of twelve, one my great-grandfather James. His daughter Sarah married Rev. William Andrews, who, late in life, became president of Marietta College. His daughter Mary married Jeremiah Morrow who removed to Ohio, was the new state's first representative in the Congress of the United States, senator from Ohio for six years, then the sixth governor of Ohio, during whose term construction of the Ohio Canal was begun. Morrow County, Ohio, bears his name. I have a photostat of David Parkhill's will, dated January 1794. Only ten of his twelve children are mentioned as heirs, possibly the other two had died. After making provision for his wife Martha, he willed his daughter Sarah twenty shillings; his son John ten pounds; daughters Jane, Mary, Martha, and Elizabeth each one horse, and saddle, a feather bed and furniture, and one milch cow; James and David a plantation in Westmoreland County "laying on the waters of the Loyalhanning"; William and Hugh the home farm subject to bequests to his wife, daughters, and son John. David died in 1794, his wife Martha in 1842, aged one hundred.
My great-grandfather James Parkhill was born in 1779, died 1846. He married Sarah Smith, born 1782, died 1869. They had ten children: David, Mary Blaney, Martha Wilson, Robert, James, Eliza Cray, Rebecca, John, William, Esther Dougan, my maternal grandmother, who was born March 4, 1817, died February 25, 1885. James seems to have spent his life in Fayette County. We do not know what happened to his half-interest in the Westmoreland County farm. His wife Sarah Smith was a daughter of Robert and Mary Starrett Smith. Robert Smitll was born in Ireland, served three short enlistments in the American army in the Revolutionary War but seems never to have been in battle. At the time of enlistment he lived in Berks County, Pennsylvania. His pension claim was allowed in 1834 at which time he lived in Fayette County, Pennsylvania. If any of you should be interested, reference may be made to DAR numbers 99683, 102188, and 118869. Robert Smith was born September 29, 1757, died August 16, 1837. Mary Starrett was born July 17, 1760, died January 10, 1832. They were married November 8, 1781. They had ten children, the oldest Sarah, my great-grandmother.
I have been curious as to the reason for the name Morrow appearing as the middle name of my grandfather Dougan. It certainly appears in Esther Parkhill's family but he was born in 1817, not married until 1842, becoming by marriage a nephew of then Ex-Govenor Morrow. I have wondered whether the name Morrow occurs in his ancestry, Morrow having been a common name in Pennsylvania as shown by the number listed in the 1790 census. Jeremiah Morrow was a senator from Ohio at the time grandfather was born.
Olive recalls that Grandfather Dougan often had a visitor from Millersburg with whom he talked about the Isle of Man. What could have been the cause of such an interest?
Most of Mother's American ancestors were Covenanters, members of that strictest of Presbyterian sects. Grandfather Dougan was one whose religious beliefs I saw put into practice. By 1790 most of Mother's ancestors then living were located in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, many in Dunbar Township.
I have a letter from Grandfather Dougan's brother Robert in reply to one from Grandfather, telling of the death of their brother James. I also have a letter from Robert's daughter Fanny advising Grandfather of the serious illness of her father. I recall that Fanny visited us at Millersburg, accompanied by a nephew, of whom I was somewhat in awe, he being so well dressed. Fanny had been a schoolteacher in Seattle.
At one time my Uncle Robert Dougan thought he had traced his ancestry back to Daniel Boone, but later evidently learned that he was not a descendant. I had always wondered whether there might have been some Boone connection. Mrs. Miller has dug out the facts. The name Boone is said to have derived from de Bohan, a famous name in medieval England. The first Boone in our ancestral line was a George born before 1600, who lived near Exeter in Devonshire, England. His second son, George, was married to Sarah Uppey. He was a blacksmith. Their son George was born in 1666 at Stoak in Devonshire. He was a weaver. He married Mary Maugridge, a daughter of John and Mary Milton Maugridge. George and Mary Boone were members of the Society of Friends. Around 1713, their three oldest children came to America - George, Squire, and Sarah. In 1717, they with their six younger children sailed from Bristol for America, arriving in Philadelphia September 29, 1717. By 1720 the family was settled in Berks County, Pennsylvania, living first in a log house. In 1733 he built a large stone house into which he never moved. On the site of the log house has been placed a boulder inscribed:
George Boone, Grandfather of Daniel Boone
Site of George Boone's Log House Built 1720.
George Boone died July 27, 1744, in Berks County at the age of seventy-eight. He left eight children, fifty-two grandchildren, and ten great-grandchildren. Our ancestor was Mary, born September 23, 1699, in England, who married John Webb. Her brother Squire was the father of Daniel Boone, so Mary Boone Webb was an aunt of Daniel Boone, who had moved with his parents to North Carolina in 1750. Mary Boone and John Webb were married September 13, 1720. Mary Webb died January 6, 1774, and John October 18, 1774, in his eightieth year. The Boones and Webbs according to the records had difficulty living up to the strict tenets of the Quaker Church for they several times had to publicly acknowledge their shame. Mary, daughter of John and Mary Boone Webb, married John Starrett. Their daughter Mary Starrett, my great-great-grandmother, married Robert Smith and their daughter Sarah was the wife of James Parkhill, my great-grandfather.
Those remote ancestors of yours who came to America in the 1600's and early 1700's, after a dangerous sailing ship voyage across the Atlantic often lasting up to five months, landed on a soil totally foreign to them, lacking even the simplest amenities they had enjoyed in Europe. Your grandmother's Pilgrim and Puritan forebears and the Boones were among the venturesome people who came in that early period. They lived in fear of marauding Indians and helped in driving the Red Race from the coastal areas. They had to build shelter from the weather and learn how to live off the land. Some lived at first in holes dug into a hillside, covered with branches laced together with vines. Then came the log house first introduced by the Swedes in Delaware, later improved by the incoming Germans. Fortunately, corn was native to America and the first comers learned from the Indians how to grow it. Seed wheat, oats, barley, rye were brought in from Europe as were cattle, horses, hogs, and sheep for breeding. Corn was your ancestor's staple diet for generations, supplemented by fish and wild game. For light at night pine torches, grease lamps, candles when tallow from sheep was available, later whale oil lamps if enough cash could be found. Steam power was unknown in those days, men, women, and boys furnished most of the power .. although windmills and water power were soon introduced to grind grain and operate crude sawmills in the more settled communities. To start a fire it was necessary to use steel, flint, and tinder. No matches until after 1827. What little furniture they had was handmade from timber found on the farm. An iron pot was one of the few imported necessities. Cooking and baking were done in the fireplace or outside over an open fire. Dishes were made of wood as were spoons. Many a meal was eaten with fingers the only tools. Table forks were a later invention. The man's hunting knife served for many purposes, including kitchen use. Metals were scarce, even iron. The pioneer's most useful tool was his axe. And on the frontier he needed a gun if he were to survive. A Bible was frequently the only book the family owned. There were no schools, no newspapers, no roads, no postal service, no doctors. On the frontier no stores only occasional itinerant vendors. They came to a wilderness but they helped tame it. My ancestors settled in the Middle Colonies, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, the forebears of your grandmother in New England. My American ancestors were a great mixture, German, English, Swiss, Scotch, Scotch-Irish, Dutch, and probably Swedish. Apparently, all your grandmother's ancestors were undiluted English. My ancestors belonged to a variety of Protestant faiths - German Reformed, Quaker, Mennonite, Lutheran, Covenanter. And they brought with them trades learned in Europe such as tailor, weaver, blacksmith, cooper, cabinet maker but the lure of cheap, even free land, seemingly turned all into farmers. Several of your grandmother's forebears were members of the approximately 5700 white population in 1630, and quite a number of hers and mine were here when the white population of what is now the United States reached 475,000 in 1720.
Those of your ancestors who came in the later 1700's had a somewhat easier time of it. Indians had disappeared from the coastal strip as had the dangerous wild animals. Most of them seem to have first established themselves in the eastern counties of Pennsylvania from whence they or their children gravitated to the new lands west of the Alleghenies. By the mid 1700's some of the better known trails had been widened into rough roads, with great difficulty passable by the Conestoga wagons, the old covered wagon. Merchants in cities like Philadelphia were importing goods from England and the French and Dutch islands, sending their wares west by pack train and wagons. The newcomers could quickly throw up a log cabin with the help of neighbors. Peddlers came around with necessities which could be exchanged for farm products. There was still a shortage of currency so barter and trade sufficed. Itinerant craftsmen - coopers, tailors, cabinet makers, smiths - made their rounds making implements, clothing, furniture for the settlers. Churches were built, many served by traveling preachers. Parental teaching could be supplemented by itinerant schoolmasters. In cities such as New York and Philadephia people of wealth could and did live as comfortably as their relatives in Europe, but so far as we have found out to date none of your ancestors lived in Philadelphia. One family - the Wyckhoffs - probably enjoyed the best life of them all while resident in Brooklyn. All the others seem to have chosen the hard life on the frontier. For them so far as diet went there was little improvement over that of those who came earlier. Nor did they have better tools or household furniture. Men and beasts, water and wind furnished power in the more settled localities but on the frontier humans and beasts did all the work.
William Morrow Dougan and Esther Parkhill were married November 18, 1842. They had eight children: Margaret Linn, 1843-1917; Sarah Phillips, 1845-1919; James, 1848-1861; Elizabeth Shilts, 1850-1934; David, 1852-1861; Robert, 1854-1926, William, 1857-1861, and Mary, 1859-1861. Four of the children died of diphtheria within a period of a month. Doctors at that time had no cure for that disease, no preventive antitoxin, did nothing more than swab out the throat. Grandfather Dougan came to Killbuck Township, Holmes County. Ohio, in 1844, settled on, that 240 acres mentioned in his father's will. Olive recall. being told that they made the trip on horseback, carrying baby Margaret. The other children were born in Ohio. To what extent, if any, the land had been cleared of timber before they came to live on it, I do not know. It is probable that most of the clearing had to be the first order of business after arrival and the work must have continued for years. As late as 1838 some Ohio wild land remained unsold. Much of Holmes County was in a United States Military Reservation set aside by Congress for grants to men who saw service in the Revolutionary War. Land not so taken up was sold through land agents. Land was cheap by modern standards, $2.00 per acre about the top price. Holmes County was covered with magnificent timber in those days, great oaks, chestnut, beech, hickory, maple, tulip, gum. A few patches of virgin timber were still to be found when I was a boy, but they were on hill land not suitable for farming. The first step in clearing was to cut down the trees near a spring over enough space for a log cabin and a garden. Then the clearing was extended to larger areas by girdling the trees to kill them, grubbing out briars and undergrowth. That operation made it possible to plant corn, small grains, potatoes, etc., enough to provide food for the family. In those days neighbors helped the newcomer get started with clearing and cabin building. Hogs were left to roam the woods getting their food from acorns and beechnuts. The girdled trees were cut down when dead, rolled into heaps and burned. I don't know how many years it took Grandfather to clear his land of trees, brush, and stumps, but I fancy he made fast progress for he was a hard worker in his younger days. Not too many years elapsed before he built a large frame house which I remember seeing when we visited Uncle Robert, who lived on the farm at that time. Grandfather was skillful in the use of tools. He brought with him to the new house near Millersburg a complete set of woodworking tools with which he could repair or replace any broken part of machinery or furniture. In his day "do it yourself" was Dot a hobby, it was a necessary acquirement for any young man who hoped to make a success out of farming. In the early days, the family larder was easily supplied with game and fish. Grandfather liked to hunt and fish. Deer and bear had been pretty well killed off by the time he came to Holmes County, but there were plenty of squirrels, rabbits, grouse, quail, and great flocks of passenger pigeons. In his old age, I recall seeing him ride off in his buggy for a day's fishing in Killbuck Creek or even farther away from home. Grandfather Dougan must have profited handsomely from the high prices for farm products during the Civil War for he was able to give his daughter Margaret a good farm near his own, gave his son Robert the home farm and had enough spare funds to buy the farm near Millersburg and build a new frame house thereon. There was no mortgage on that property.
Grandfather Dougan was intensely religious, a Covenanter. He was a member of the United Presbyterian Church. In 1891 he gave $500.00 to the Board of Foreign Missions of the UP Church, a sizable sum for a farmer to give in those times. [~$17,000 in 2023] I have the receipt given for the donation. He was a firm believer in the ancient dogmas of his church, objected when the more liberal element in the Millersburg church installed an organ. From that day until be died he refused to go to church services, but he read his Bible every day. He said grace at the beginning of every meal and returned thanks at its close. I think it doubtful that he ever even tasted strong liquor or tobacco. Certainly when I knew him he abstained from both. He allowed no work on Sundays except preparation of meals and the necessary care of livestock. He tolerated neither card playing nor dancing. He certainly had a fairly good common school education for he wrote a good hand (I have samples of his writing) and was able to handle well the business problems arising from his substantial farming operations. Yes, he was an old-fashioned farmer but a sturdy citizen whom I am proud to own as grandfather. Grandfather, Grandmother Dougan, Great-Grandmother Margaret, and the four children who died of diphtheria are buried in the Millersburg cemetery.
During the lifetimes of my four grandparents, 1815 to 1900, came many of the great inventions which made life more comfortable, revolutionized transportation and communication, and reduced the back breaking labor on the farm. In those eight decades came the Erie and Ohio canals, the steam railroad, the mowing machine for cutting hay, the reaper, and the binder for harvesting grain, the threshing machine, the sewing machine, the telegraph and telephone, the Atlantic cable, the transoceanic steamship, the electric light, the friction match, the bicycle, dynamite, the dynamo, the lawn mower, the fountain pen, photography, the revolver, vulcanized rubber, the pneumatic tire, the trolley car, the typewriter. The first automobiles were running before Grandfather Dougan died but I don't think he ever saw one. These and many other revolutionary inventions were made during their lifetimes, but being farmers far from big cities, they had little chance to avail themselves of them. Grandfather Dougan may have talked over the telephone but none of my other grandparents ever did, nor did any of them ever ride in an automobile. None of them had a bathtub or lived in a house with running water. Grandfather Dougan must have taken at least one long railroad ride for he attended the Philadelphia World's Fair in 1876.
It seems certain that most of my great-great-grandparents had settled in southwestern Pennsylvania or western Maryland before 1800. They came to a wilderness where living conditions of necesity were primitive. Even though they could have accumulated a good inventory of household goods and farm tools before starting west they would have been unable to transport all their possesions over the mountains for the roads were mere traces unfit for wagons. So all they could bring along were such absolute necessities as could be carried on the back or by packsaddle - a rifle, some knives, a few pewter or wooden dishes, a pot for boilng food, a few tools such as axe, auger, sickle, scythe, hoe, froe, drawknife, etc. Everything else had to be made from the wood of the forest. Their first job was to clear a plot near the spring and erect a crude shelter - usually a one room log cabin with an attic for sleeping quarters. Beds were built on poles supported on pins driven into the log walls. Rude tables and chairs were made by hand. More land was cleared for the first food crops. Corn was the best early crop as it provided food for both man and beast. Until a rough log barn could be constructed, horses, cattle, and hogs were kept outside in all weathers to browse for themselves. The rifle, the long barrel Pennsylvania brand, was indispensable to provide game for food. Wild game was plentiful, most pioneers were expert riflemen trained from boyhood, so a staple food item was the game brought in by the hunter. So long as deer and bear were to be had they furnished much of the heavy clothing. Clearing tie land was a gradual process. As the area filled up with settlers clearing went forward at a faster pace as it was customary for neighbors to help each other with clearing and building. When clearing had advanced far enough wheat, rye, and oats were grown. There were no grain drills for mechanical sowing, so the planting of all crops was by hand scattering the seed. The first plows were crude wood tools with a piece of iron fastened to the moldboard for the cutting edge. Wheat and other grains were harvested by the sickle. Grain was separated from straw and chaff by beating with the flail or by driving horses over the piles of straw. The flail, a stick fastened to a pole by a leather thong, was the usual threshing tool. Threshing grain could be a winter's job for the isolated farmer. Most of the grains raised by the early farmers was used to provide food for family and livestock. City markets were too far away and bulk transport not available. Lacking markets for farm products money was scarce, barter took the place of money. Products of the farm were exchanged for the few necessities not produced on the land - salt, powder, lead, iron, calico, etc. Flax was commonly grown to provide linen to be made into clothing, along with wool on the women's spinning wheels and looms. Some of the surplus corn and rye could be disposed of by making whiskey. Cattle, hogs, sheep, even turkeys could be marketed only by driving them on foot over the mountains for sale in eastern cities.
It was a rough life at first but those ancestors of yours knew no six or eight hour days. It was work from sunup to sundown, six days a week. By keeping everlastingly at it they gradually cleared for cultivation large areas of "new ground," built better homes and outbuildings, accumulated more tools and household goods. They raised big families of self-reliant sons and daughters who often sought and found new homes further west. At first, there were no schools but mothers and fathers gave their children the rudiments of an education in reading, writing, and arithmetic, with the occasional aid of an itinerant teacher. Even though educational facilities were so poor or nonexistent, ambitious young men did succeed in getting fine educations fitting them to take their place in the best societies of the time and to fill high posts in government. Two of David Parkhill's girls married such men. Usually, the first public building in a new settlement was the church, especially true where the settlers were Scotch-Irish or New Englanders. The church was the social as well as the religious center.
Conditions were little different when Mathias Shilts came to Harrison County, Oilio, in 1814. There had been little improvement in tools, in household equipment, in housing, or in transportation facilities. The match had not yet been invented. When the fire died out in the hearth it was a case of starting it anew with flint, steel, and tinder or borrowing live coals from a neighbor. There is an indication in the History of Harrison County that a grist mill, possibly a sawmill also, had been established near where he settled. They would have been operated by water power. At such a mill Mathias could have had his wheat and corn ground, but most families in those days also had in the home a mortar and pestle for grinding corn and wheat by hand. The sickle and the scythe were the harvesting tools, the flail the threshing tool. In fact, as a boy in the 1880's and 1890's I saw most of those primitive farming tools and even saw them in use - the flail, sickle, scythe, troe, home-made wood mallets and wedges for splitting fence rails, as well as household articles made of wood, buckets, chums, pans, butter molds, etc. After dark the fireplace and the tallow or wax candle furnished such light as there was though some folks had whale oil lamps. That was before the day of the coal oil lamp. Things bought today readily and for little money were not to be had. Soap, for instance, could not be bought in cake form. It was made by the women in the form of a messy, soft soap, from fats saved up, mixed with lye from soaked wood ashes and boiled. I remember that my mother used to make batches of soft soap. She used it in her washing. and my hands have been cleaned with it. In 1814 there were no tax-supported public schools, nor were there any for over twenty years. If children had any schooling, it was from the itinerant teacher, whose meager stipend was paid by parents who subscribed for his service. The teacher boarded around the group of parents. That old couple led the rugged life of the small farmer whose existence was not made much less backbreaking until the advent of motorized equipment in my generation, the fourth from theirs. Many volumes have been written about the way our ancestors lived in the 1700's and 1800's. May I suggest you read some of them. I'm sure you will discover much of interest.
Since so many of your remote ancestors were Scotch-Irish, here's just a little about that race hoping it will incite you to find out more about them. There is plenty in book form, particularly concerning their role in the development of the United States. The Scotch-Irish were Lowland Scotch who settled in North Ireland more than three hundred years ago. The Lowland Scotch peoples were a conglomerate of the various invaders from across the Channel and the North Sea and the aboriginal Picts and Britons. They were an industrious, sturdy people, excellent artisans, good farmers, the soldiers of Wallace and Bruce, faithful followers of John Knox, Presbyterians. North Ireland had been almost depopulated of its native Irish by constant internecine war and revolts against the ruling English. The British rulers decided to resettle North Ireland with friendly colonists, choosing Scotch and some English. Of course, friends of the crown got possession of the land, the colonists becoming tenants of the big landowners. The newcomers revolutionized the economy of North Ireland, became aggressive competitors of English producers. To protect their own interests, the British government imposed severe restrictions on the Irish linen and woolen trade. Rentals were arbitrarily raised to the point that farming became unprofitable. Religious oppression added fuel to the discontent of the Scotch settlers and migration to America began in the early 1700's. Famine struck in 1717, in 1727, again in 1740-41, speeding up the outflow. Hundreds of little vessels were engaged in that traffic, ships carrying one hundred to two hundred passengers. In those days it was long voyage from Ireland to America, sometimes taking as long as five months. Passengers had to supply their own food for the trip and if the passage took longer than expected, food shortages were serious. It is estimated that a hundred thousand Scotch-Irish had left for America by 1776. The early arrivals settled in the eastern counties of Pennsylvania and on the seaboard of other coastal provinces. The Scotch-Irish led the movement to Western Pennsylvania, climbing over one mountain range after another, fighting Indians as they went, many victims of Indian tomahawks. The southwestern counties of Pennsylvania became Scotch-Irish strongholds. As the country became more densely populated, the young folks, struck out for themselves, settling still newer lands farther west. Apparently, most of your Scotch-Irish ancestors settled in Fayette County, from whence my Grandfather Dougan and his family came to Ohio. The more you read about the Scoth-Irish, the greater the lift you will get from the knowledge that some of your forebears were of that sturdy breed.
John Franklin Shilts, my father, your great-grandfather, was born July 19, 1841, I presume in Holmes County, Ohio, as I think his family had come to Holmes County a bit earlier. My mother, Elizabeth Dougan Shilts, was born February 16, 1850, about six years after her parents had settled on the farm in Killbuck Township, Holmes County, Ohio. My parents were married November 25, 1880, by Rev. Henry Fulton at the parsonage. When married my father was thirty-three, my mother thirty. To them were born William Delbert, your grandfather, September 15. 1881; Olive Esther, November 4, 1883; Walter Jay, September 13, 1886; and Laura May, January 7, 1889.
Father was a little under six feet tall, weighed around 175, not as powerfully built as his father, Henry, but still a pretty rugged individua1. He was eighteen at the close of the Civil War. He often told me he wanted to enlist but that his father objected. He went to a primitive public school, not too many years after the State had initiated its tax-paid school system. He told me the first school building to which he went had slab seats supported on pins driven into the logs in the walls. It was, for at least part of the time he attended, a so-called "singing school," the lessons recited in "sing song" fashion. I doubt if he had instruction in any subject other than reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic. His formal education ended with the grade school and a country one-room school at that. Had he wanted to go further he could not have done so as there was no high school in the county in his youth and none until one was established in Millersburg around 1880. There were private academies operating in adjoining counties but, even had he wanted to go to them, his father could not have afforded the expense. However, somehow he aqquired enough learning to pass the examination for a teacher's certificate. In those days Holmes County had an examination board of three, usually old teachers, who conducted examinations twice a year, at which all who wanted jobs as teacher had to appear and write out the answers to the questions posed by the examiners. Those who were beginners had to be satisfied with a certificate good for one year only, regardless of grades. Later, as more experience was accumulated, better grades could get the applicant certificates for eighteen months, two years, three years, or five, good for one county only. I now have two of his old teacher certificates. The earlier of the two was issued in 1876, giving him license for one year to teach in District Common Schools of Holmes County. Evidently he barely passed that examination for his grades were low in some subjects, only fair in others. The other certificate I have was issued in 1878 for eighteen months. His gradeS in that examination were:
Orthography 85
Reading 85
Writing 85
Arithmetic 100
Geography 94
Grammar 90
History 65
Theory and Practice 90
I do not know definitely what he was doing before he started teaching, probably helping his father in the cooperage trade and doing his share of the farmwork From a little card he gave a pupil, fortunately preserved, I find that he was teaching in the spring of 1875. By the time he began teaching there had been great improvement in the Ohio public school system. There were still some log schoolhouses but most had been replaced with frame or brick buildings but the country schools were as yet only one-room affairs. Boys and girls were not classified by grades as now, just roughly rated by the reader studied. The classes ranged from primer, to first reader, and so on up to the sixth. The emphasis was on reading, writing, spelling, and arithmetic, although by the time the pupil had advanced to the fourth and fifth reader there were classes in grammar, geography, and American history. Boys and girls of all ages from six to twenty and over attended those old schoolS during the winter term. In the spring term, if any, only the young kids attended, the older boys and girls being needed at home for farm work. Some of the older boys went to school in the winter for the sole purpose of making trouble for the teacher, to run him out if they could. So school boards tried to select male teachers for the winter term, men with sufficient courage and physical ability to keep order. The teacher was janitor and fireman, the old-fashioned wood stove the source of heat. Toilet facilities consisted of two "Chick Sales" [an eponymous euphemism for an outhouse] out back. Slates were standard equipment for study of writing, arithmetic, and spelling, no equipment or books provided by public funds, What the pupils had their parents bought. Books were handed down from the oldest child to the younger ones, so by the time the younger children inherited the readers, spellers, and arithmetics the books were in foul shape. At Christmas, the teacher was expected to "treat" his pupils, usually with hard candy. If he didn't "treat," he ran the risk of being locked out until he repented. But hard candy was cheap.
Certainly Ohio country schools from 1850 to 1890 were far inferior to our modern schools in housing, in equipment, in courses of study, and few teachers had the college training required of today's teachers. Yet many of our country's most eminent men got no formal education beyond what they received in the old one-room county schoolhouse. Studies were confined to the essentials, there were no fringe courses. Boys learned how to write legibly and to spell correctly difficult words, that was why they were kept in school. McGuffey's Readers, Ray's Arithmetic, and Harvey's Grammar are the best remembered of the textbooks used in Ohio public schools in those days. Probably no other textbook has had an influence on the future of the United States at all comparable to that of the McGuffey Readers. The McGuffey series started with the chart from which the alphabet was learned. It was a thick paper board about thirty inches by twenty-four inches in size. The teacher pointed to the letters, pronounced them, and required the lads to pronounce after him. That process was kept up until the youngster could correctly name each letter and identify it wherever found. Then come the primer, first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth readers. The pupil advanced by easy stages from the easy, simple, childish lessons in the primer to the most difficult reading, that with the hard words in the fifth and sixth. Good manners, thrift, courage, morality were taught the youngsters from the carefully chosen selections of prose and poetry to which they were exposed. They at least had the opportunity to learn the correct usage of English from reading, occasionally memorizing extracts from the classics. Some of the stories, particularly those designed to point a moral, were McGuffey's own composition. In the fifth and sixth readers you find extracts from the works of Shakespeare. Thackeray, Ruskin, Addison, Johnson, Longfellow, Bryant, Dryden, Pope, Scott. Goldsmith, Emerson, Franklin, and dozens of others. There were selections from the great orators such as Burke, Pitt, Calhoun, and Webster, often memorized by ambitious boys for their oratorical contests. Many Bible extracts were used to emphasize the basic religious tone of the whole series. McGuffey awakened in ambitious boys and girls the desire to read the works of the authors, represented in the readers. It is not an overstatement to say that McGuffey's influence fired many a boy to seek a college education even though he had to work his way through. Ray's Arithmetic was Ohio's standard mathematical textbook and the man who mastered that and could solve the problems in the last few pages of Ray's Higher Arithmetic was equipped to handle almost any business transaction as far as the mathematics of the deal was concerned.
My father continued his teaching until the winter term of 1881. He evidently met my mother while he was teaching at a school near her home. I was born in a log house where they lived while he was teaching in a country school some miles out of Killbuck. So he probably was engaged in teaching from 1875 or earlier to the spring of 1882.
Mother was a rather slender woman with dark hair which was only streaked with gray when she died at the age of eighty-four. Her education was not nearly so good as my father's. She wrote a hesitating, labored hand, read very little other than the Bible and the newspaper. She was of a very quiet, retiring disposition, her entire life devoted to home and family. As a girl and young woman she helped her father with the farm work in the field. Neither my father nor mother had much musical ability.
They never danced, believed it wicked. Grandfather Dougan had an organ on which Mother sometimes played simple pieces. Uncle Robert Dougan played the organ well and Aunt Laura, his wife, was an accomplished musician. My parents led a very quiet life, did little visiting except occasional trips by buggy to relatives who lived close by - only a few miles - but that trip took hours to go and return. They did no entertaining as we know it. In that secluded atmosphere there was little chance for youngsters to become juvenile delinquents. But Mother was ambitious for her children, wanted them to have better educations than she had been able to get. Neither my father nor mother played cards, nor used liquor nor tobacco in any form. Father belonged to the Disciple Church and Mother originally to the United Presbyterian, Gnndfather's church. The family regularly attended services at the United Presbyterian church and took us kids to that Sunday School until Grandfather ceased attending services after the organ was installed. Thereafter the family went over to the Disciple Church and they were regular attendants so long as they lived at Millersburg. Theirs was a happy congenial married life. I can't remember a cross word spoken by one to the other. They were far from being rich, but they lived as well as their neighboring farmer friends, better by far than those whom in those days we called poor. Mother may have visited her relatives in Pennsylvania when young but I am sure my father never got beyond the borders of Ohio. The only office I can recall my father holding was membership on the local district school board. Had he aspired to office in county or township he could not have been elected for he was a Republican in a solidly Democratic County.
I have an account book Father kept in 1887, 1888, and part of 1889. From it one can pick out significant bits of information about farm life in Ohio in those years. He made records of purchases and ans sales, wages paid hired hands on the farm and girls for housework. Farm hands were paid $1.00 per day, girls $1.00 to $1.50 per week. He saved a record of the work he did each day, of the Church attended on Sunday, sometimes the United Presbyterian, then the Disciple. He made notes of visits to Aunt Margaret Linn's home, to Uncle Robert Dougan's, to Uncle Ransom Shilts, and a couple of times to Aunt Eliza Heidy's at Howard where he went by train. He tells of going to Daniel Shilts's (his great-uncle, son of old Matthias) ninetieth birthday party and to his funeral eight months later. He went to his brother Ransom's infare-belling of newly weds. I'm personally interested in his record of having paid $3.25 for a suit for Bert (as I was always called by the family). A little later he paid $3.00 for a wagon, also for Bert. He attended the Farmer's Institute, held in Millersburg, a two-day session addressed by well-known farmer lecturers. The Farmer's Institutes did much good by instructing farmers in better use of the soil, new varieties of grains, fertilizers, in short pointing the way to a better life on the farm. He told of attending the County fair where there were displayed farm machinery, prize-winning animals, fruits, grains, baked goods, needlework, all the common things that could interest the farmer. Of course every day of the fair there were harness races. He recorded the names of neighbors and relatives whom he helped with their farm work. All through 1881 he would spend whole days clearing trees and brush off land he wanted to use for crops. I can remember seeing him at work in the clearing, cutting down trees, splitting rails out of the better lengths, grubbing out underbrush, burning out stumps, generally getting the new ground ready for the plow. One or two days a year he worked on the dirt road through the farm in payment of the road tax.
In those years the family's most regular source of income was from eggs and butter. Chickens ran all over the place, made nests wherever they pleased and one of my first jobs was looking for eggs and bringing them in before the hen had a chance to accumulate enough to "set" on. Father never had more than eight or ten milk cows, mostly Jerseys for they were good butterfat producers. I'm sure the sanitary conditions under which our cows were housed in the barn would not satisfy present-day dairy inspectors. Father took the eggs and butter, sometimes cream, to market in Millersburg at the stores where he bought groceries. The accounts do not disclose the price received per dozen, but I seem to recall that he sold eggs for as little as 5¢ a dozen. The list of items for household use purchased at stores includes sugar, coffee, coal oil, stoves and stove pipe, dry goods, boots, dishes, thread, combs, cheese, hats, soap, not much else. I find no mention of clothing purchases designated specifically for himself. I don't think his grocery purchase ran over five or six dollars per month, egg sales about equaling grocery bills. Mother often told me that her egg and butter sales paid my way through high school. Only for a few items can prices be learned from the accounts: sugar 6 1/2¢ per pound, broom 2.5¢, haircut 20¢, St. Jacobs Oil 50¢, boots $1.40, axe 75¢, single harness $4.15, baking powder 15¢. The larger purchases he recorded were of farm animals, horses, cows, sheep, hogs. He paid $103.50 for a carriage, $40.00 for a mower, and $70.00 for half interest in a binder. I well remember that carriage - a two-horse surrey which could carry the whole family, and it had a fringe on top. Sales of wheat and hogs produced the major part of his income, but they were seasonal items. His accounts list occasional sales of chickens, turkeys, wool, sheep, potatoes, berries, dried fruit, clover seed, hay, and corn fodder. The record shows a sale of wheat at 82¢ a bushel (it went lower), hog, at 4¢ a pound, steers at 3 1/2¢. If Father's records are complete and they appear to be reasonably accurate, in the year 1887 he took in on sales of farm products $490.21 plus a net gain of $100.00 on sale of two horses and purchase of one. Measured by today's minimum wage that was terribly low income, but it must be remembered that the family lived off the products of the farm. Every month two or three bushels of wheat were taken to the mill to be ground into flour. Practically no meat purchases appear in his records. Hogs were butchered each fall, occasionally a steer. Chickens and turkeys were raised so stewed or fried chicken was served on special occasions and a turkey would grace the table on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Peaches, cherries, pears, and berries were canned. Sweet corn, apples, and peaches were sun-dried for winter use. No vegetables were bought, in fact, fresh vegetables were not available in the stores when the growing season was over. In spring and summer, the garden provided vegetables, in winter we had no green foods. The nearest approach to fresh vegetables in winter were the pumpkins, squash, turnips, and apple from the cellar. Father liked hunting so in season we sometimes ate rabbit and squirrel. Corn was ground for meal and all through the year meals were often made on mush and cornbread. - pone we called it. Vinegar was made from fermented cider. We always had plenty of milk, eggs not often for egg was a cash crop. We had no luxuries but the necessities were amply provided - we lived as well as our neighbors, knew little or nothing about how the rich folks in the cities lived, so had no complaints about our lot.
Father was old-fashioned enough to hold that youngsters should obey and that a sound licking in punishment for an offense was really a favor done a boy. I well remember the time he gave me a good thrashing for setting fire to a brush pile too close to the barn. But he was never harsh with us. Mother used to tell me that I didn't recognize father the first time he appeared minus the beard he had theretofore worn. During the rest of his life he wore a sandy mustache.
During Grandfather Dougan's life Father worked the farm shares - 50-5O so far as the crops were concerned. The accounts seem to indicate that Father got all the butter and egg money and that he owned the stock. Grandfather owned his own driving horse. The account book was started within a month after his father's death and many entries deal with the settlement of the estate. I do not know whether or not Father was the executor of the estate but some entries would seem to indicate that he was. Grandfather Henry must have owned two farms, the Killbuck property and the hill farm near Millersburg. In the settlement Father obtained the farm near Millersburg, the accounts showing payments made to his brother and sisters in settlement of their interests. When Father took over that farm from the estate it would not have been over one hundred acres in area. Later he purchased two adjoining pieces increasing the acreage to a little over one htuu1red fifty. He referred to this property as the Home Farm and operated it in addition to the place on which we lived. I remember that he cleared off one field on that farm to get some rich new ground, the rest of the place having suffered severely from poor farming practices. He held on to that farm until after he moved to Carroll County around 1907 when he finally disposed of the one hundred fifty acres for $3000.
Father was one of two administrators of the estate of his cousin Henry D. Shilts, son of Daniel. I have the Account Guide he kept as administrator, which contains the inventory of the persoaa1 effects, stock, tools, etc. in the estate. The goods seem to have been priced below real values for a copper kettle at $1.00, a buggy at $1.00, a plow at $2.00, a grain drill at $5.00, a mowing machine at $5.00, sheep at $3.00 each, and so on through a long list, would seem to indicate either deliberate underpricing or a very low level of commodity prices. The latter may be the answer for the estate was settled in 1893 at the bottom of one of the country's worst depressions. But the accounts show $3382.86 in bank and on hand and twenty-six notes owing the estate, nearly $2000 of the paper classified doubtful or worthless. The other administrator must have kept part of the record for there is nothing in Father's account to show disposition of the land or what was realized from the sale of the personal effects.
Olive tells me that Father did some debating as a young man and that he occasionally conducted services in the Killbuck church he attended. I recall that for years he was a deacon in the Discip1e Church in Millersburg.
My own boyhood memories give you a glimpse of living conditions on a small central Ohio farm in the 1880's and 1890's. Farm houses had no window or door screens in summer or storm doors or windows in winter. Flies were a pest in summer, bred profusely in the manure piles in the barn yard, were caught on sticky fly paper hung up around the kitchen and other rooms. Newspapers cut into strips, fastened on a rod made a fan used for shooing flies away from the table during meals. Each winter manure was piled up around basement windows to keep the temperature in the cellar above freezing. The outdoor backhouse or privy constituted the daytime toilet facilities, the chamber pot under every bed took care of nocturnal needs. Our house had a rain barrel under a downspout so we could have a supply of soft water for washing. Our water for drinking and cooking came from a spring, people living distant from a spring depended on wells and cisterns. The town business streets were lined with hitching posts and every house had one, to which horses could be tied up. The sunbonnet was the customary headgear of the farm women. They used shawls, had no sweaters. The broad-brimmed straw hat was the usual summer headpiece. In the winter many men wore knitted stocking caps which could be pulled down over the ears. In winter men wore felt boots - a thick felt knee-length stocking-like affair with rubber, ankle-high shoes covering the feet. Telephones were unknown in farm homes in the 80's and very rarely found until after the turn of the century. When a doctor was needed someone had to ride to town to summon him. Horse and buggy was necessary equipment for the doctor, his only way of making his country rounds.
