52 Ancestors: #6 In Search of Elizabeth, wife of David WITHROW

I don’t know how many of you faced the same situation as I did when you read about the optional theme for Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors 52 Weeks Challenge for this week, but I have had Carole King’s So Far Away stuck in my head since the first reading of the February themes. The Tapestry album takes me back to the time of junior high school (and, yeah, that was so far away also!). This was the first album that I owned that I memorized every lyric and every note of the piano. Remember how disappointed you would be when you bought an album because you liked a song from the radio, and then found that you didn’t really care for the rest of the album? For me, at least, that wasn’t the case with this one. I LOVED. Every. Single. Song. I usually either listen to NPR on the radio or play some music while I’m writing; and because the dogs were tired of hearing me sing, I chose Carole King’s Tapestry as my soundtrack for today. How fitting then, that today is the 44^th anniversary of the release of that album?

This year I wanted to make it a priority to track down more information on my direct maternal line. Because finances were an issue, I opted to have the autosomal DNA test done instead of the mtDNA test. I may have found more answers to the maternal direct line with the other route, but after discussing with others – perhaps not. I tested with Ancestry originally and when doing a search for the surname Withrow within the trees, I find I have many matches within locked trees and, alas, so far no responses.

As it turns out, I am spinning my wheels at my 5^th great-grandmother, Elizabeth, wife of David Withrow. What I do know about Elizabeth are a bunch of probably and maybes. She was probably born around 1782 and maybe in Pennsylvania. She probably died somewhere around 1830 in Columbiana (now Carroll) County, Ohio. She probably married David Withrow around 1795, maybe in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. David was probably born between 1765 and 1771 in Pennsylvania. Precious little is known about him also. I know that there were was a Withrow that came over from Scotland in the early eighteenth century, but so far I haven’t been able to connect to that line.

This past week I have centered my researching on Beaver County, Pennsylvania and, once again, in East Township, Carroll County. At some point, I imagine that I just might become an expert on these two areas! We find David Withrow in South Beaver Township, Beaver County, Pennsylvania in 1804 where he has signed a petition asking for the township to be split because it is too large to easily attend township meetings or to work on the public roads without travelling a far distance.

We also find two other familiar people that have added their names to the petition, Charles Phillis and Jacob Hackathorn. Charles Phillis was the father of Catherine Phillis, mother-in-law of Mary Amna Myers. Jacob Hackathorn, who signed, was the father of Christian Hackathorn and son of Reinhard Jacob Hackathorn. It is quite apparent that these ancestors of mine rendezvoused in Beaver County, Pennsylvania at the edge of the frontier and hopped on land in Ohio as soon as it was relatively safe to do so and as the land started to open up to settlement. And, it seems, they beat feet to the area around what is now East Township, Carroll County.

In my search for Elizabeth, I have been forced to concentrate on finding where her husband, David Withrow was. We see that he is still in Beaver County, Pennsylvania during the 1810 census.

David Withrow also fought in the War of 1812 in Findlay’s Battalion of Pennsylvania Volunteers, so we have to assume that they were still in Pennsylvania at that time.

And although I haven’t found David and family in the 1820 census as of yet, we do find him in an 1821 tax record in Columbiana County, Ohio (now Carroll).

Here we see the land patent (along with two others entered into with a Hardgrove, not pictured) and a land plat, although it appears from the dates that he was living in this area before he owned the land.

While looking at the household members in the 1830 and 1840 censuses, it appears from the ages of those listed that Elizabeth passes away some time between those censuses. I have yet to locate the graves of David or Elizabeth, but there are Withrows at Glade Run and Mechanicstown (in nearby Fox Township) cemeteries. Following are family group sheets detailing the children of David and Elizabeth Withrow:

I methodically started researching each of these children in a search for clues about Elizabeth and was quite happy to find something in a book about Knox County, where son, James had moved to with his family because this answered the question of when David and Elizabeth had relocated and also proved to me that David’s wife was, indeed, named Elizabeth.

At this rate, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trace my direct maternal line back to one of the “Seven Daughters of Eve”. In the meantime, I’ll keep searching for Elizabeth and her family. If you see her, let me know. I feel as if I’m so close to finding her, but yet…so far away.

Sources:

Hill, N. N., and A. A. Graham. History of Knox County, Ohio, Its past and Present, Containing a Condensed, Comprehensive History of Ohio, including an Outline History of the Northwest; a Complete History of Knox County … a Record of Its Soldiers in the Late War; Portraits of Its Early Settlers and Prominent Men … Biographies and Histories of Pioneer Families, Etc. Mt. Vernon, O.: A.A. Graham, 1881. 838-39. Print.

Bausman, Joseph H., and John Samuel Duss. History of Beaver County, Pennsylvania: And Its Centennial Celebration. New York: Knickerbocker, 1904. Print.

Ancestry.com, 1810 United States Federal Census (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010), http://www.ancestry.com, Year: 1810; Census Place: Ohio, Beaver, Pennsylvania; Roll: 45; Page: 458; Image: 00031; Family History Library Film: 0193671. Record for David Withrow. http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=1810usfedcenancestry&h=412141&indiv=try.

http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/details/patent/default.aspx?accession=0069-083&docClass=CV&sid=v4efsogt.s1i