Sunday, November 30, 2008
Above is a photograph of my grandmother Hopper when she was a little girl. She was born on October 30, 1918 in Milford, Clermont County, Ohio and died October 1, 1977. Growing up, she was a tomboy who rode her own horse, played golf, and starred on the girl's high school basketball team. After high school she attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio where she studied to become a teacher. During World War II, she worked as a clerk for the Army in downtown Cincinnati. After the war, she married my father, Louis James Hopper. She then became a mother -- raising my my father, my Uncle Mike, and my Aunt Cindy. When they were in high school, she then took a job as a proof reader for a local printing company that primary published textbooks.
Above is a photo of my great Uncle Van Lloyd wearing the flying helmet, scarf and leather jacket that he wore when he flew bi-planes as part of Lend-Lease to train British pilots during World War II. A large copy of this photo used to hang in the original Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. It was used as a poster during World War II to encourage people to buy war bonds, with probably many people mistaking Uncle Van for Charles Lindburgh since they looked similar in their flying outfits (thought I think Uncle Van was much more handsome)> For his efforts, he was made a Knight of the British Empire by King George at a ceremony held in New York City after the war. Both before and after this, he was an airline pilot with Essair Airlines, then Braniff Airlines.
Above is a photograph of my grandmother with her brother (i.e. my Great Uncle Van).
My grandmother's brother -- my Great Uncle Van - married my grandmother's college roomate - my Aunt Jeanette, who after college taught school for many years in Hawaii. My Great Uncle Van, on the other hand, became a pilot and an early aviation pioneer. He became interested in flying when he was visiting the Hunsicker family farm in Relief, Ohio with his mother -- and saw a Curtis Jenny biplane crash.
My Great Uncle Van went on to become an airline pilot -- first for Essair Lines - then for Pioneer Airlines when it merged with Essair - then with Continental Airlines when it acquired Pioneer Airlines. He was one of the first pilots to fly a DC-3. During World War II, however, he went back to flying biplanes (primarily Stearsman biplanes) when he became the chief pilot for a flying school to train British pilots as part of lend-lease. For his service during World War II, he was knighted by King George of Great Britain.
My great-grandfather on my father's side was Ernest Emery Lloyd (standing in photograph above). His parents were Harvey Phillip Lloyd and Louisa Emery. His mother died when he was young and his father had to arrange for Ernest and his brothers and sisters to live with other families so that he could farm. Ernest was placed first with the Ball family and then with the Philip Gatch family. He worked and retired from the Union Central Life Company, but his real love was farming. After marrying my Great-Grandma Lloyd (maiden name Hunsicker - see Hunsicker ancestors below), in his spare time he farmed the family farm in Milford, Ohio.
Harvey Phillip Loyd was the father of my great-grandfather Ernest Emery Loyd. He was born in 1850 at the family farm on Klondyke Pike above Perintown. After the death of his father, Harvey and his brothers and mother went out to Kansas to homestead, but Harvey returned to the family farm in Clermont County, Ohio while his brothers stayed in Kansas. Harvey married Louisa Emery, daughter of James Emery and Sally Ann Brown. James Emergy was descended from Conrad Emery from Wolfenbuttle, Germany who settled in Hunterdon, New Jersey and his wife Margareth Hummerich. Sally Ann Brown, on the other hand, was descended from Joseph Kerr who was awarded a land grant in Clermont County from Thomas Jefferson.
Abel Loyd is our earliest Loyd ancestor in the family bible and whose grave in Greenlawn cemetery in Milford we also visited on Memorial Day. We know that he was born on January 15, 1810 - but are not sure where he was born or who were his parents. It is my theory, however, that he was the son of David Loyd who was one of the first settlers in Clermont County, Ohio and was the grandson of James Loyd - who was from Winchester, Virginia and received a land grant in Clermont County, Ohio for his service in fighting during the Revolutionary War. His wife was Mary Stuart. Meanwhile, the wife of Abel Loyd was Amanda Shumard (see below).
Several generations of our Shumard ancestors operated grist mills in Mt. Holly, New Jersey. One, Nathan Shumard, served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and fought at the Battle of Monmouth. It was his son, Francis Shumard, who moved to Clermont County, Ohio (possibly to settle on the land grant awarded to his father for service in the Revolutionary War).
Our earliest known ancestor on my great-grandpa Loyd's side of the family was William De Shumar, a French Hugenot (protestant). Because of religious persecution during the reign of King Louis XIII, in 1625 he and his two brothers were forced to flee France and migrated first to Italy and then to England. After they reached England, they changed their name to Shumard. William joined the parliamentary army under Cromwell fighting against England King Charles I. He met a daughter of a nobleman from Holland named Oara when she was attending school in England. They married without her family's permission, with William then chartering a ship so that they could emigrate to America sometime around 1630. They settled in Mt. Holly, New Jersey.
GREAT-GRANDMA ON MY MOTHER'S SIDE - Above is a picture of my father with my great-grandma on my father's side. Her maiden name was Helen Ruby Hunsicker - and her nickname was Nelly. She was born in Lexington, Kentucky but spent the most formative years of her childhood in Macon, Georgia. Eventually, her family moved to the family farm in Milford, Ohio where she then lived the rest of her life. After her father died, she married my great-grandfather, who previously had been helping to take care of the farm. When she was only 13 years old, she attended Ohio Weslyan University in Delaware, Ohio where her sister (my great aunt Ollie) Olive Mae Hunsicker had been appointed a professor of business. During one summer vacation, both her and Aunt Ollie worked as camp matrons at the newly formed Yellowstone National Park -- before there were park rangers and the army maintained the park. During this summer, they witnessed Nez Percz Chief Joseph and his band fleeing from the army and grizzly bears who camp right into the camp to be fed (without attacking the people!). Later, Grandma taught school briefly - and then wrote a monthly column for Century Magazine, a national magazine similar to National Geographic in quality - and corresponded with such famous individuals as Edmund Hillary, the first man to climb Mount Everest, and the publisher of National Geographic Magazine. She also kept a diary for almost all her life. She and Grandpa had two children - my mother and my Uncle Van.
TAYLOR KERN HUNSICKER AND WIFE, FLORA VANETTA SMITH - My Hunsicker great-grandparents, and the parents of my grandmother Helen Hunsicker, were Taylor Kern Hunsicker and Flora Vanetta Smith. They met while he was working on the B&O railroad in or near Byers, Ohio (see below) and she was working as the first woman's telegraph operator in Vigo, Ohio. Flora's mother Driscilla Ryland had divorced our great-grandfather William Reuben Smith and moved to Vigo, Ohio with her daughter Flora while their son Van contined to live with Grandpa Reuben Smith. Our great-grandmother Flora Vanetta Smith then dressed as a man in order to become hired as a telegraph operator on the B&O Railroad. After they were married, they moved to such places as Huntington, W.VA. and Lexington, Kentucky (where my grandmother Helen Hunsicker Lloyd was born). They eventually moved to Macon, Georgia where Taylor Kern Hunsicker became the station master. They then retired to Milford, Ohio where they bought the family farm at 951 Walnut Street in Milford, with the house having previously been built by a riverboat captain. It was across from Governor Patterson's house in Milford. Above are photographs of Taylor Kern Hunsicker and his wife Flora Vanetta Smith.
JONATHAN HUNSICKER AND HIS WIFE MARY ANN JONES - Above are pictures of our ancestors Jonathan Hunsicker and his wife Mary Ann Jones. Cindy has a coverlet sewn by Grandma Jones (see her ancestry below - i.e. descent from Gabriel Jones and U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall). Jonathan Hunsicker was born on July 12, 1810 in Winchester, Virginia. He was apprenticed to the family's neighbor James Kern, for whom the town of Kernstown was named, to learn how to build Conestoga wagons. Later he was to name his son, Taylor Kern Hunsicker, after both James Kern and the Taylor who owned the Taylor hotel in Winchester (which Stonewall Jackson is often pictured in front of) and who founded the medical college in Winchester. After his apprenticeship ended, Jonathan Hunsicker moved to Harper's Ferry to help build the new B&O railroad - the first railroad in America. He lived there during the Civil War - with our ancestor Taylor Kern Hunsicker being born in 1848 before the Civil War. After the Civil War, Jonathan Hunsicker and his wife and all his children moved to Byers, Ohio (or Byer Junction). This was east of Chillicothe and was where the B&O Railroad split with one line going to Cincinnati and another going to Columbus. At that time, both lines were single tracks, so Byer was an important junction to make sure that the trains were switched to the right track - and to refuel and provide water for the trains. Almost all the homes in the small town of Byers were built by Jonathan Hunsicker and his sons who continued to live there or nearby and work for the B&O railroad. My grandmother used to take our mother every summer to visit our Hunsicker relatives in Byers, including Jonathan Hunsicker and Grandma Jones Hunsicker until their deaths. On a visit to Byers, I once met an elderly lady who remembered our great-grandfather Taylor Kern Hunsicker and our great-grandmother Flora Vanetta Hunsicker (her father was head of the telegraph operators). She told me how it was only a week before my visit that the last of our Hunsicker relatives in Byers had passed away. On another visit to Byers, when Linda was looking at the tombstone of Jonathan Hunsicker and removing the vines so that she could read it - it toppled over and almost crushed Linda and Kristin (since apparently the vines had been what was holding the monument up). It is a large obelisk type monument - that might still be laying on the ground since we were unable to lift it - but it might have been put back upright by the township who maintains the Byers cemetery.
THOMAS HUNSICKER - Our first Hunsicker ancestor to migrate to America was Thomas Hunsicker who arrived in Philadelphia on October 1, 1754 on the ship Phoenix. The second to the last signature on the passenger's list shown above is his signature - followed by the signature of his oldest son, Daniel Hunsicker. He was from Wolfersheim, Germany and settled initially with his family in LeHigh, Pennsylvania. They then moved, however, to Winchester, Virginia where the elder Thomas Hunsicker was one of four people who founded Stine's Church near Summit's Point just outside of Berryville, which was the first German church founded in Virginia. Linda, Kristin and myself were able to meet a Mrs. Cunningham in Winchester, Virginia who owns a chest brought over by our Thomas Hunsicker and his church certificates that he had to send over to Germany for in prove his church membership and thus found Stine's church. Since she is not a Hunsicker descendant, maybe someday our family can acquire these family heirlooms from her. We are descended from another son of Thomas Hunsicker - i.e. Thomas Hunsicker, Jr. He became a master tailor (as was his father) and owned a home in downtown Winchester near Fort Loudoun and George Washington's office during the French and Indian War. I don't know where he is buried, but his wife (also our ancestor) and all of their children except for Jonathan Hunsicker, our great-great grandfather, are all buried together in Mount Hebron cemetery in Winchester, Virginia (near the graves of Revolutionary War general Daniel Morgan and Christian Streit, the first German minister of the area - who married all of our relatives).
My ancestor Gabriel Jones was the first lawyer in the Shenandoah Valley, was the lawyer for Lord Fairfax, was the executor of Lord Fairfax's will, was the law partner for the young Thomas Jefferson when Jefferson first began practising law and loaned Jefferson enough money to get Jefferson financially through the period of the American Revolution, was a delegate to both the Continental Congress and the Virginia Convention that ratified the U.S. Constitution, and was the political mentor to George Washington who along with James Wood (the founder of Winchester, VA) helped him to get elected to his first public office (the House of Burgesses) - with George Washington once traveling all alone from the country down through the mountains of what is now West Virginia just to meet with his old friend and mentor Gabriel Jones at his home at Port Republic hear Harrisonburg before Washington returned to his Mount Vernon home.
My ancestor Mary Ann Jones - descendant of both Gabriel Jones and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Marshall - who married my ancestor Jonathan Hunsicker
My ancestor John Marshall, the most famous Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme CourtDESCENT FROM CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN MARHSALL AND GABRIEL JONES - On our Hunsicker side of the family, we are directly descended from U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall. Crediting with establishng the judicial branch as the third branch of our government, he is considered as important as any founding father - even though he never signed the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution. It was his decision in the case Marbury v. Madison that established the principle of judicial review. He did serve under George Washington during the Revolutionary War and afterwards became one of the strongest supporters of Washington and his presidency. Washington offered him several different cabinet posts, but Marshall refused to give up his successful law practice in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Finally, however, he did agree to become Secretary of State under President John Adams. During the end of Adams' presidency, Adams appointed Marshall as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and for a brief period of time he held this position as well as the position of Secretary of State - the only person to ever hold a cabinet position while being a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. His success as Chief Justice was accredited to not only his political acumen, but also to his geneality. He had known George Washington while growing up since his father, Thomas Marshall, was a fellow surveyor of Washington's. Upon Washington's death, George Washington's nephew Bushrod Washington, who was also a justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, gave John Marshall all the papers of George Washington. John Marshall preserved these papers and used them to write the first comprehensive and documented biography of George Washington. We are descended from Marshall's daughter, Anna Maria Marshall, who married our ancestor William Strother Jones. William Strother Jones was the grandson of our ancestor Gabriel Jones. If one goes to the magnificent new Museum of the Shenandoah Valley, the first individual discussed is our ancestor Gabriel Jones. This is because he was the first lawyer in the Shenandoah Valley. In this role, he was the first elected delegate to the Virginia House of Burgesses from Frederick County, became the attorney for Lord Fairfax, and became a political mentor and friend to George Washington - and helped George Washington to get elected to his first public office. Once George Washington travelled alone in the winter down through the entire length of West Virginia just to visit our ancestor Gabriel Jones on Washington's return from the Ohio country (see Washington's diary of his trip to Ohio in 1784). When Thomas Jefferson graduated from law school at the College of William & Mary, he joined Jones as a junior law partner. Later, Jones was to lend Jefferson a large sum of money that allowed Jefferson to financially survive during the Revolutionary War. Jones himself was elected to the Continental Congress and was a member of the Virginia ratifying convention that ratified the U.S. Constitution. Our ancestor and Gabriel Jones' grandson, William Strother Jones, and Anna Maria Marshall had a son, Richard Jones, who lived on Apple Pie Ridge in Winchester, Virginia and received a pension for serving in the Mexican War (as described in our family bible pages). He was my great-great-great-great grandfather. His daughter, Mary Ann Jones, married our ancestor Jonathan Hunsicker in Winchester, Virginia. Aunt Cindy has a coverlet sewn by Grandma Mary Ann Jones Hunsicker. Above is a picture of our ancestor Gabriel Jones (with his well known patch over his eye - painted by the famous painter Gilbert Stuart) followed by pictures of our ancestors Grandma Jones and U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Marshall.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Gravestone in the Factory Point Cemetery in Manchester, Vermont of John Smith
Gravestone in the Factory Point Cemetery in Manchester, Vermont of Mary Bull, wife of John SmithMy first two Smith ancestors were John Smith and his wife Mary Bull of Manchester, Vermont. He is certified as a veteran of the Revolutionary War by both the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and the Sons of the American Revolution, with him having helped start and then serve as a Captain the Green Mountain Boys. For this reason, there is a statue of him in the middle of the square in downtown Manchester, Vermont. It was his son Abraham "Essence" Smith that moved to Ohio, and that I am descended from, with the last person named Smith in our family being my great-great-grandmother Flora Vanetta Smith who married Taylor Kern Hunsicker (see below). It is also from my Smith and Foster ancestors that I am descended from Charlemagne and much of European royalty (again, see below).
My great-great-grandmother, Flora Vanetta Smith, was the daughter of William Reuben Smith and Driscilla Ryland. She was born on the family farm in Relief, Ohio just above Beverly - along the Muskingham River. She became the nation's first woman telegraph operator during the Civil War by dressing up and pretending that she was a man. Through this job, she met and married my great-great-grandfather, Taylor Kern Hunsicker. As a railroad man, they moved from job to job, When a depression gripped the country, they briefly lived on the farm in Relief with her father, William Reuben Smith, but afterwards Taylor Kern Hunsicker was able to obtain a job as a stationmaster in Macon, George. They eventually bought a small farm and retired to Milford, Clermont County, Ohio where, after the death of Taylor Kern, Flora Vanetta continued to live in the house on the hill in Milford with her daughter, my grandmother, and my grandma. Flora had a love of music and played the hammer dulcimer.
WILLIAM REUBEN SMITH - my great-great-great grandfather who served in the Union Army in the Civil War, helping to protect the B&O Railroad line that ran through Ohio east to Baltimore and Washington, D.C., transporting troops and supplies for the Union Army. He built and owned the family farm at Relief -- just above Beverly -- in Washington County, Ohio along the big bend of the Muskingham River where the Ohio Power Plant is now located. The farm house he had built was still standing until just several years ago, with Ohio Power using it for storage. My great-grandmother would take my Great Uncle Van, brother of my grandmother on my father's side, by train to visit Grandpa "Billy" Smith every summer. His father was Abraham Smith (see below) and he married Driscilla Ryland, who later divorced him and took their daughter Flora Vanetta Smith to live with her in Vigo, Ohio.
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