Aaron Ordway and Susannah Johnson Ordway

Let’s keep going back in the family tree – (Fred, Lemuel, Richard, Harrison, and now Aaron) to my four greats grandfather, Aaron Ordway, born in Rumney, Grafton, New Hampshire, very close to the Vermont state line, on July 2, 1769.  He married Susannah Johnson, daughter of Willis Johnson and Jemima Smith Johnson, who was born in New Hampshire on May 11, 1774.  Just think… a few years before the Revolutionary War. 

When we visited in Strafford, Orange County, Vermont, we found quite a few of the birth records for the children of Aaron and Susannah, as this was where they settled after their marriage.  Many of these records are now online, but finding the records in the very old books was much more fun. 

So as far as I can determine, these are the children of Aaron and Susannah Ordway:

1.       William Ordway, born November 16, 1792 in Strafford

2.       Willis Johnson Ordway, born September 4, 1794

3.       Aaron Ordway born August 29, 1796

4.       Isaac Ordway born September 7, 1798

5.       Tamar Ordway (female) born April 18, 1800

6.       Abraham Ordway born April 11, 1803

7.       Mariah Ordway born August 13, 1805

8.       Lydia Ordway born October 7, 1807

9.       Harrison Ordway* born October 24, 1810

10.   Harvey S. Ordway born c 1819

11.   Benjamin, birthdate unknown

A sample page from a vital records book in Strafford.  This is really not original, but was copied from the original at some point a long time ago.  If you enlarge this, you will be able to spot some of the birth records for Aaron's children.

Most of the children of Aaron and Susannah were born in Vermont, except for perhaps the last three.  According to the censuses of 1800 and 1810 of Strafford, Vermont, the family resided there with their growing brood of children.  By 1820, the family had moved into New York, as the 1820 census for Genesee, Ontario County, New York showed Aaron there with wife and some of the children.

I have never been able to find Aaron in the 1830 census, but by 1840, the family was settled into Elk Township, Warren, Pennsylvania.  The census shows Aaron Ordiway as head of household, aged 70 – 80, with his wife,a ged 60-70 and one male, aged 20 – 25, probably Harvey.  Also some of the sons show up as neighbors as head of their own households: Harrison, Isaac, and Benjamin.  Up until 1850, only the head of household was named on the censuses, so we have to speculate, using the hash marks in various age groupings, which family members were living in the household at the time.

We visited Warren, Pennsylvania  on a research trip and, looking at  records in the archives there, we found the Ordways buying and selling land in Elk Township, sometimes as individuals and sometimes in partnership.



 

Some researchers have placed Aaron’s death in 1849.  I have found no record of his or Susannah’s deaths.  I’m sure that I just haven't looked in the right place yet.  Many of the children moved on to Lorain County, Ohio, but efforts to find the record there have not been successful.  Also no record of death was found in Warren, Pennsylvania.  In fact, I personally think Aaron might be listed in the 1850 census, living close to daughter, Mariah Ordway Ross and husband, Joel Ross.  If you have some proof of a burial place for Aaron and/or Susannah, I hope you will contact me.

We definitely had some New England determination and the quest for adventure in the Ordway family.  To leave Strafford, Vermont, Aaron’s childhood home, and travel with a large extended family around the Great Lakes from New York, to Pennsylvania, to Ohio and eventually, some went to Michigan and a few to Missouri, was quite a feat in those early days.  It was a poor, rough pioneer life for these folks.

A Newly Discovered Photo

I am always amazed at how this blog has reached across the miles...sometimes not very many miles...to others who connect to our families.  Many thanks to a newfound relative, Gary, a descendent of the Thomas C. Ordway family in Putnam County for this great photo of Thomas.  I am so grateful to have this photo to put with the story of this Civil War ancestor.

Read more about Thomas C. Ordway on this blog.

Jason Kline Memorial Golf Outing

                                 Hey, Golfers!

Come join us at the first

Jason Kline Memorial Golf Outing on

Saturday, September 17th.

Four Person Golf Scramble

Wapakoneta Country Club,

18781 Ohio 501, Wapakoneta, Ohio

Registration - 8:00 a.m.

Shotgun Start - 8:30 a.m.

Great Prizes!  Good Food! 
All proceeds to benefit the Jason Kline Memorial Scholarship.

$50/person or $200/team
- Includes green fees, cart, lunch, team prizes, proximity prizes, and more.

OR

SPONSOR A HOLE for the Jason Kline Memorial Golf Outing

 We are asking $50.00 to sponsor a hole.  All proceeds go to the JASON KLINE SCHOLARSHIP FUND.

 Hole sponsorship will get you a custom sign with your company name on one of the tee boxes.

Email me to request a team form or a sponsor form!
(Click on Dianne on this page for email.)


From Jennie Kline:

Other donations may be made  by making check payable to the Wapakoneta Area Community Foundation with Jason Kline scholarship in the memo and mail to Wapakoneta Area Community Foundation, PO Box 1957, Wapakoneta, OH 45895.  The scholarship in Jason's name is given annually to a Wapakoneta high school senior...thanks to many kind donors, the first was awarded in May 2011. Thank you!

It's Fair Week Here



Defiance County Fair circa 1910

It's Defiance County Fair week and friend Mary and I will be there for a few days teaching classes on using the internet for genealogical research.  We are using the mobile computer lab sent by the regional library, allowing room for ten people per session.  We are scheduled for one hour each at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday (20th) and Sunday (21st).  Our sessions are sponsored by the Defiance County Genealogical Society and we have some nice goody bags to give to all our participants.  And, if you've ever wanted to start your family history, we can help you get started!
No preregistration.  See you there!

Where Have You Been?

Bet you thought I'd disappeared for good...
No, still here.
But I've been struggling to finish up some other projects and entertaining some grandchildren as they wind down their summer vacation.

Here's a view of my list:

1. I'm reading my book for September's book club meeting - The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.  It's considered junior fiction, but it is so engrossing.  I still have about a hundred pages to go and I'm taking discussion notes as I read.  The narrator is Death and the scene is Nazi Germany just before and during WW II.  The setting is a small town in Germany, Molching, where the Jews have been driven out.  But one Jew is hidden there, in the dank, cold basement of the book thief's home.  The book thief is a young girl who steals books, her most treasured possessions.  The book has so many levels and the descriptions of the sights and sounds and happenings in Molching are wonderful.  I am at a turning point in the story.  I am hoping the Jew will be safe from the inspecting Nazi officers...but I don't know...yet. 
2. I just finished 22 pillowcases to send to ConKerr Cancer for pediatric cancer patients.  Today Gracie and I packaged each case individually and she named each one.  I hope they bring a smile to some children's faces.  Also managed to whip up three Christmas stockings for the tornado survivors - to be sent to Craft Hope. 

3.

I'm scheduled to give a talk at my genealogy society in September.  I have most all the research done and piled on the dining room table in some semblance of order, but I need to get my powerpoint together.  I've been putting it off.  But now the weeks are counting down, so as soon as school starts, that has to become a priority. 

4. We've been taking a few field trips in these last days before school starts.  We walked the canal trail at Independence and visited the fair this week.  I think we've hit all the parks in a 20 - 30 mile radius this summer.  It's a good thing that summer is ending because I'm running out of ideas!

5. I'm working on a story about the next Ordway grandparents - Aaron and Susannah Ordway, gggg grandparents, who were originally from Vermont, but they worked their way into New York, then Pennsylvania and Ohio.  I've never found their burial place.  It is taking me awhile to piece together information we gathered in Warren, PA and Strafford and Tunbridge, VT.  Eventually the story will appear here!

So I am coming back with more family history soon.

Another Post With the Help of Two Guests

I'm going to leave the Ordways for this post and go back to the Delph family...just for now.

It was again my lucky day when another shirt-tail Delph/Ordway relative contacted me and surprised me with some great photos, too.  (Thanks, Sarah!)  They were just what was needed to enhance this next story from guest writer, Jim Delph.  Jim had written in an earlier post about some of his experiences with my great grandpa, Lem Ordway, and Lem’s son, Philip Ordway.  Here is a short continuation of that story:

Jim writes…

My Time With Phil Ordway and the Silo

Around 1949 or 1950, my dad hired the Malinta Silo Company to build a silo on the farm.  Phil Ordway, my first cousin, worked for the silo company.  I was about 14 and Phil was about 50.  It took several days to build the silo, and I was around the project a lot.  All the workers put up with me, especially Phil.  All the equipment, including a dump truck, would stay on our farm, and the workers would ride to work together.  This was again a ride to Malinta.

Phil Ordway and one of the Malinta silos

At least once, I stayed at Uncle George’s home (George Delph) to hang out with George Jr.  I liked to talk to Phil, too.  He had a lot of funny stories, some life lessons, and he talked about politics freely.  Phil Ordway was a Democrat to the core.  Remember, my Grandma Delph did not like Lincoln, and Aunt Sue liked Roosevelt. The New Deal had put electricity on remote farms like theirs.  Therefore, I was a Democrat also.  What does a 14 year old know?  What I didn’t tell Phil was that one time I took the company dump truck to see my friend, Jack McPherson.  It was a weekend and I was home alone.  I was lucky that no police saw me or other parents reported me. 

I didn’t get to see Phil much after the silo was built, but another job of his brought us together years later.  As a high school senior in 1954, I thought I wanted to be a teacher, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to pay for college.  An article in U.S. News & World Report said seniors would be drafted by the time they were 22 or 23.  The advice in the article was to get the military service out of the way and then go to school on the G.I. bill.  So when I turned 18, I told the draft board I was ready to be drafted and my brother Bob did the same.  We served in the Army from 1954-1956… In September of 1957, I started at BGSU, married and we had a son, all wonderful happenings, but the G.I. bill pay

of $120.00 a month fell short.  I picked up part time work where I could…

Some Wood County Democrats helped me get a job with the Ohio Highway Department.  My job was to deliver items from the Bowling Green headquarters to area county highway garages.  Phil Ordway worked at the Henry County Garage.  Michael Disalle was Ohio’s governor, so it paid to be a Democrat at that time.  I would get to see Phil most every day.  I even told him then about borrowing the Malinta Silo Company dump truck.  However, after that job ended, I didn’t see him much.  The last time was when his daughter, Phyllis, brought him to my sister’s home.

The Daughters of Harrison and Philena Ordway – Malissa, Julia, and Harriet

My great-great-great grandparents had five sons (Thomas, Richard, Middleton, Benjamin F, and Alonzo A.),  but also there were three daughters to complete the family.  Searching for the women in a family is always more difficult because of marriages and name changes and this family was spread across two states.  

The oldest daughter was Malissa Lydia Ordway, born June 3, 1847.  Malissa married David Herring Gunter on November 28, 1866 after David came back from serving in the Union Army.  Their story is told well in the History of Henry County, Ohio, Volume 1, page 220:

“David Herring Gunter was born in Richland County, Ohio, on December 22, 1842, to Martin Gunter and Mary Jones.  As a small boy, he came to Henry County with his mother and sisters in 1849, after his father was drowned in the Blanchard River while working as a logger.  They settled in what is now Malinta, Ohio, and he lived in that vicinity until his death on January 8, 1919.  As a young man, he enlisted in the Union Army and served from 1861 to 1865 in Company I, 125 Regiment of Ohio Infantry.  After being mustered out of service, he engaged in farming as his occupation.

His first marriage was to Malissa Lydia Ordway, who died a few years later, leaving an only son, David M. Gunter, who married Rosie Hitts and had the following children: Glenava, Arthur, Lester, Bertha, Zelma, Dayton and twin Clayton, Burl, Marjorie and Jessie.  Many of descendants are still living in the vicinity”

So Malissa Ordway died quite young, in March of 1870, at the age of 25.  She is buried in Hoy Cemetery near Malinta.  After her death, it appeared that David H. and his young son, David, moved in with his mother who had remarried.

The 1870 census for Monroe Twp, Henry County, taken on June 30^th showed

Hill, Michael, age 69, a farm laborer and his wife, Lidie, 58 with two girls, Louisa, 16, and Libbie, 13 and David H. Gunter, 27, a farm laborer and son, David, aged 2.

The Henry County History goes on to say that David Herring Gunter married a second time around 1880 to Jennie Maria Carey and they went on to have eight children: Clara, Lillie May, Ada, Robert, Walter, Ruth, Ammasa and Maude.  Does the name Ammasa Gunter look familiar?  Later, my great aunt Fay Ordway would marry him. 

Malissa’s sister, Julia Ann Ordway, born July 7, 1849, married Rufus Norton and after starting out life in Henry County, they moved to Lenawee County, Michigan.  Together they had two daughters, Minnie and Cora Belle.  When the 1880 census was taken in Ogden Township, Lenawee County, Michigan, Rufus was reported as sick with lung fever (pneumonia).  Rufus was 35 and living with Julia, 31, his wife, and daughters, Minnie, aged 9, and Cora Belle, aged 8.  Rufus died in 1886. 

Although  I can not find her in the 1900 census, I did find a death record for Julia who died at Baldwin, Lake County, Michigan on March 13, 1908, at age 58. 

I have been on the trail of daughter, Minnie, who married Arthur Carr, but she is elusive.  Her sister, Cora Belle, married Charles C. Carroll in Baldwin, Michigan on February 1, 1890.  She died young, at the age of 25, on May 11, 1898, preceding her mother’s death.

The youngest  daughter of Harrison and Philena was Harriet R. Ordway, commonly known as “Hattie”.  I have found very little on her except that she was born March 4, 1854 and married George Webben on June 1, 1876 in Henry County, Ohio.  After that, the trail has been cold.

If anyone has knowledge of these sisters, I would love to learn more about them.