“From These Roots We Came”

Robert Ross (Ahnentafel # 32) and his wife Martha (#33) died eight days apart in 1843. It is likely that they both died of causes related to some epidemic of the time. Robert died on Wednesday, the 22nd of February, 1843, and Martha died on Thursday, the 2nd of March, 1843. He was 61 years of age and she was 57.His will was dated the 21st day of February, 1843, so it is likely that he realized that he was sick unto death, and as many individuals of the day did, he called together witnesses to dictate his last will and testament. At the time the family was living on land in Washington Township, Tuscarawas County, Ohio. It is also likely that at the time either his wife, Martha, was not sick, or at least did not appear to be so. This is presumed by the following statement in his will: “…Then I give and bequeath to my two sons Joseph and James the land I now reside on to be divided according to quality and quantity – by their keeping their mother in suitable clothing, boarding, and lodging and providing for her wants as necessity may require.” If she had been deathly ill like him, it is not likely that the emphasis would have been placed on the sons taking care of the soon to be widowed mother.

This was a period of tragedy for the whole family. A year prior to Robert and Martha’s death, their granddaughter, Martha Anderson (their oldest daughter Rebecca’s daughter) died one month after birth. Two of Rebecca’s other children were to die young also. Her oldest daughter Mary, died in 1845 at the age of four, and her son Mathew died in 1846 at the age of 3. There were two other known children, Elizabeth, born in 1848, and James, born in 1850. and I have found no records to determine whether Elizabeth also died young, or lived to be an adult. Rebecca died on the 13th of August of 1851, and only six weeks after his mother at just under a year of age, her youngest child James, died on the 24th of September, 1851,.

The second daughter, Mary Ann (married to David McCullough) had three children, Sarah Ann McCullough (1842), Robert Ross McCullough (1843) and James McCullough (1844). Mary Ann died on the 14th of October 1846, leaving three children ranging in age from 2 to 4 years of age. Her husband, widowed after only six years of marriage, remarried in 1851. He and Mary Ann’s daughter, Sarah Ann, continued the family migration to Iowa, and Sarah lived there until her death in 1907. [ Add details on the migration of David McCullough and other family members to Iowa].

Robert’s oldest son Joseph was still living in Ohio at the time of his father’s death. Four years later he married Mary Jane Barr (28 January 1847) in Tuscarawas County, Ohio. The following year he was listed as the administrator of Robert Ross’ estate and by August of that year the final account was passed and recorded. He had two sons, Robert and Thomas J., born while they were living there.

Sometime between January 1849 (when son Thomas was born in Ohio) and the 22nd of March 1850 (when their daughter Malinda was born in Iowa), Joseph and Jane moved to Iowa. Iowa had become a state in December of 1844 and immediately thereafter, there was a large influx of immigrants to this new State. When Joseph’s family was enumerated in the 1850 U.S. Census (Sept 18, 1850), he was living in Buchanan County, Iowa. Two years after that, the State of Iowa did a census and he was listed as living in Washington Township, Buchanan County, Iowa, likely in the same location as in 1850. In 1860 the U.S. Census lists his family as living in Washington, Webster, Iowa.

I have not found Joseph or his family yet in the 1870 U.S. Census, but in the 1880 Census he was living in Adams Township in Keokuk County, Iowa. He probably had moved there as early as 1862, because his daughter Amanda was born in Sigourney, Keokuk County, Iowa in 1862. A plat map of Township 77 North, Range 12 West (Adams Township, Keokuk County, Iowa) in 1874 shows that at least by this year he owned property in the SE corner of Section ___. By 1887, the same property had been transferred to a Mr. Wright. It appears that Joseph left Keokuk County to move to Grand River Township in Adair County by the time of the 1885 Iowa State Census.

Joseph’s younger sister Isabella, married Samuel A. Hagan on the 30th of May, 1844 in Tuscarawas County, Ohio. This was a little over a year after her father’s death. I have no record of how long they continued to live in Ohio, but by the time of the 1850 U.S. Census (enumerated on the 11th of September, 1850), they were already living in Keokuk County, Iowa. It appears likely that she either came to Iowa simultaneously with her siblings, or came earlier than they did. There were numerous Hagans living in that area, and they may have simply been moving to Iowa to be with other members of Samuel’s family. It was here that Joseph later lived.

© 2008 by E. Lamar Ross and Infopreneur Publishers, LLC.