[or-roots] Fw: Re: [Q-R] Herbert's post SPRAY, LEMAR>Madison, Warren, Iowa

Paulette pswitzertatum at peoplepc.com
Wed Aug 19 16:52:49 PDT 2009


I hope you do not mind my sending this on in case it makes connections for someone on the list. It seems to me to be a marvel of genealogical prose.

-----Forwarded Message-----
>From: Tom Hill for MMNA <monthlymeetings at gmail.com>
>Sent: Jul 18, 2009 4:30 PM
>To: quaker-roots at rootsweb.com
>Subject: Re: [Q-R] Herbert's post   SPRAY, LEMAR>Madison, Warren, Iowa
>
>A Quaker-Roots post by Herbert Standing is always a delight.  I do too
>little real genealogy to add to this gem from his lifetime of work.  One
>must marvel at Herbert's connections from Ireland to South Carolina to
>Caesars Creek MM in Warren County, Ohio to Madison County, Iowa.  I did find
>that Google has digitized Mueller's Madison County history that Herbert
>mentions: < http://books.google.com/books?id=nX0UAAAAYAAJ >
>
>		Tom Hill
>
>Thomas C. Hill
>425 Walnut Street, #1800
>Cincinnati, OH  45202  U.S.A.
>and Charlottesville, VA 
>Note new e-mail address: MonthlyMeetings at gmail.com 
>www.QuakerMeetings.com  
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: quaker-roots-bounces at rootsweb.com
>[mailto:quaker-roots-bounces at rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of
>Standcedargrove at aol.com
>Sent: 10 July 2009 1:23 PM
>Subject: [Q-R] SPRAY, LEMAR > Madison, Warren, Iowa
>
>I have noted the mailing of Jennifer LeMar dated 7/1/2009 inquiring as to
>the ancestry of her husband's great-great-grandmother, Mary (Spray) LeMar,
>who  was born in Ohio in 1838 and died in Earlham, Iowa on 7 May 1895.
>George was also from Ohio, and had a cousin, Samuel Kenton LeMar who is
>listed in the records of Caesars Creek Monthly Meeting.
> 
>Since I live near Earlham, Iowa and have worked with records of Bear Creek
>Monthly Meeting and have had limited contact with members of the Spray
>family in  my genealogical research, I will endeavor to transmit what my
>records indicate,  which may help Jennifer LeMar to resolve her quest.
> 
>In 1751 a little group of Quakers took ship from Dublin, Ireland, intending
>to disembark in North Carolina.  However, it seemed that the ship's captain
>by-passed North Carolina, evidently leaving his passengers at Charleston,
>South  Carolina.  The Quakers probably journeyed up the Wateree River until
>they  found a place of settlement at what is now Camden in present-day
>Kershaw County,  South Carolina.  Here they established a Friends Meeting
>known as Fredricksburg.  A leader of this group was Robert Milhouse, who had
>several  sons, including Henry Milhouse.
> 
>About 1754, the family of Isaac and Mary (Houghton) Cook, including most of
>their large family of ten children, elected to move from their home in York
>County, Pennsylvania, with a certificate from Friends to settle in the
>Carolinas.  They may have first come to Camden and brought their Friends
>certificate to Fredricksburg MM, but the minutes of Fredricksburg,  Monthly
>Meeting have been lost.  Fredricksburg  was the only Monthly Meeting of
>Friends in up-country South Carolina at the time.
> 
>The Quaker settlement at Camden did not prosper, but gradually diminished
>in numbers.  Some of the members moved farther west to what is Newberry
>County, South Carolina and joined in the formation of a more vibrant Friends
>community, which was organized as Bush River Monthly Meeting by 1772.  Bush
>River Monthly Meeting included a number of outlying worship groups, two of
>them in Union County, South Carolina, one called Padgett's Creek established
>by  1874,  and another on the Tiger River called Cane Creek, established in
>1875.  These two Meetings formed Cane Creek MM, SC,  which was set off from
>Bush River Monthly Meeting in 1789.  The Meeting at Cane Creek included the
>families of most of the children of Isaac and Mary  (Houghton) Cook.  One of
>the Cook daughters, Rebecca Cook, appears to  have married Henry Milhouse,
>formerly of the Fredericksburg Meeting at Camden in Kershaw County, S.C.
>Henry Milhouse was a recognized minister of Cane  Creek Meeting for many
>years. Another of the Cook daughters, Dinah Cook, married  John Wilson, son
>of Christopher Wilson of New Castle County,  Delaware.. 
> 
>Another family of the Cane Creek Meeting was that of James and Sarah Spray,
>although it is not clear whether James and Sarah actually came to the
>Southland  from Chester County, PA where they had been married about 1753.
>Samuel  Spray was one of the sons of James and Sarah who was an active
>member of Cane  Creek Meeting.  He married Mary Wilson about 1788, daughter
>of John and  Dinah (Cook) Wilson.  Another son of James and Sarah who was a
>recognized member of Friends was Mordecai Spray, b. 2-3-1873.  Mordecai
>married Sarah Milhouse, daughter of Henry and Rebecca (Cook) Milhouse, about
>1793.
> 
>Mordecai and Sarah (Milhouse) Spray had the following children:
>    Anna Mary    b   3-1-1795 
>    Henry           b.  12-22-1797
>    William          b. 11-6-1801
>      Jesse          b  . 11-5-1803
>      John             b.    5-17-1807
> 
>In the years from about 1802 until 1808 there was a large migration of
>Quakers from the Carolinas and Georgia to southwestern Ohio, primarily to
>escape  the encroaching culture in the South relying upon slave labor.  The
>exodus from South Carolina and Georgia was so large that the Monthly Meeting
>organizations there could not be maintained.  Almost the entire membership
>of Cane Creek MM, SC made the move to Ohio, taking their record books with
>them to be continued by Caesars Creek Monthly Meeting set up in Clinton
>County, Ohio  in 1807.  Mordecai and Sarah (Milhouse) Spray were granted a
>certificate by Cane Creek MM, SC to Miami MM, Ohio on 3 mo. 23, 1805.
>Caesars Creek MM was set off from Miami MM.   Sarah' father, Henry Milhouse,
>was still living at the time of the migration and made the journey to Ohio,
>where he died in 1821 at the age of 85
> 
>>From 1988 to 1991 I carried on a correspondence on genealogical matters with
>Helen (Sole) Buche of East Moline, Illinois.  She had grown up east of
>Earlham, Iowa and was a graduate of Earlham High School. She had written a
>genealogical account, distributed in typescript, entitled: "Stories of
>Ancestral Families of Eli Cox and Related Lines".  She was a descendant of
>Eli Cox, son of Anna Mary Spray who had married Isaac Cox in Clinton County,
>Ohio, in 1818.  Although they had married contrary to Quaker discipline,
>Isaac and Anna Mary were allowed to keep their membership with Friends.
>Anna Mary and Isaac had three children: Henry, Anne, and  Eli,  ---- Henry,
>who may have married Ann Martin, had probably passed  from the scene by the
>time of the death of Isaac Cox in 1850.  The sister,  Ann Cox, had married
>Alfred Martin.
> 
>Eli Cox, son of Isaac and Anna Mary (Spray) Cox, married about 1844 Mary
>Mills, of Quaker ancestry but not a birthright member.  Eli Cox evidently
>lost his right of membership in the Society of Friends when he married Mary,
>a non-member.  In 1856 Eli and Mary (Mills) Cox moved their young family
>from Clinton County, Ohio to Madison County, Iowa, settling in northern
>Union Township north of Winterset, county seat of Madison County.
> 
>Eli's sister, Anna (Cox) Martin and her husband, Alfred Martin, had brought
>their family to the  Madison County area, evidently a few months before the
>Eli Cox family reached Iowa.  The Martins  journeyed to Fort Des  Moines
>(now Des Moines) to meet the grandmother, Anna Mary (Spray) Cox and the
>great-grandmother, Sarah (Milhouse) Spray who had come from Ohio to
>Burlington, Iowa by train and from Burlington to Fort Des Moines by
>stagecoach.  On 7 mo. 12, 1756 the Martin family had brought a Friends
>certificate from Caesars Creek MM, Ohio dated 5 mo. 22, 1856  to Three
>Rivers Monthly Meeting centered at Ackworth near Indianola, Iowa.  On  6 mo.
>16, 1858 Mary Cox brought a certificate dated 4 mo. 22, 1858 from Caesars
>Creek MM, Ohio to Bear Creek MM, Iowa.  (It appears that this lady was
>commonly known as "Mary" , but on census returns and formal papers she was
>recorded as "Anna".)------ On 11 mo. 17, 1858 a certificate was received by
>Bear Creek MM dated 10 mo. 28, 1858 from Caesars Creek MM, Ohio for Sarah
>Spray.
> 
>Sarah Spray appears to have been Sarah (Milhouse) Spray, mother  of Anna
>Mary (Spray) Cox.  This great-grandmother was born in 1770 and  would have
>been quite elderly at this time.
> 
>Three Rivers Monthly Meeting had been set off from Pleasant Plain MM in
>1852.  In 1856 Bear Creek MM had been set off from Three Rivers Monthly
>Meeting, holding its first Monthly Meeting session in July of that year.
>At that time, Bear Creek Monthly Meeting  consisted of Bear Creek
>Preparative Meeting in Union Township in southwestern Dallas County, Iowa
>and  Summit Grove Preparative Meeting at the present town of Stuart on the
>southern edge of Guthrie County, Iowa.  There were members of Bear Creek
>Monthly  Meeting residing near the northern edge of northwest Madison County
>in 1856, but North Branch Preparative Meeting was not organized until 1863,
>building a permanent meetinghouse three miles west of the present town of
>Earlham about 1867, with a burial ground nearby which appears to have been
>first platted about 1864. North Branch Monthly Meeting was set off from Bear
>Creek MM in 1869, consisting of North Branch Preparative Meeting and Union
>Preparative Meeting  which was moved from west of town into Earlham, Iowa
>after 1870.
> 
>Madison County marriage records list the following marriages relating to the
>Spray family:
>    G. W. LeMar married Mary Spray on the 19th of May  1858,  B.F. Roberts,
>Justice of the Peace.
>    Dayton Barnett married Sarah Spray on the 3rd of  March 1859, A. W.
>Russell, Minister. 
>    Asa Barnett married Anna Spray on the 3rd of  October  1867.  A.M.
>Heizer, Minister of the Gospel.
> 
>Dayton Barnett and Asa Barnett were sons of William Barnett and Julia Ann
>Ballard.  The Barnett family had moved to northern Madison County in 1857
>from West Newton, Marion County, Indiana.  Barnett family records indicate
>that these Barnett brothers married sisters, daughters of Henry Spray and
>Rhoda  _____.  The marriage of Asa Barnett and Anna Spray is said to have
>taken place at the home of Dayton Barnett. Although the Barnett family were
>members of Friends, Quaker discipline was becoming somewhat more relaxed so
>that members could marry non-members outside  of Meeting without the
>certainty of being disowned.  Young Quakers of this  generation seemed to
>have intensely disliked being married according to Quaker  procedure..
>After a Separation among Friends in 1877, a pastoral system was adopted by
>the Evangelical Friends and pastors could conduct marriages as was the
>general practice in other churches.  On 12-30-1869 Sarah (Spray)  Barnett,
>wife of Dayton Barnett,  and her daughter, Laura,  were received into
>membership by North Branch Monthly Meeting, indicating that Sarah had not
>been a member of Friends at the time of her marriage.
> 
>George W. LeMar is recorded in an 1879 _History of Madison County, Iowa_ as
>possessing a prospering farm, including a large orchard, in section 11 of
>Madison Township, Madison County. George W. LeMar ( b, 1835, d. 9-17-1902,
>age  68 years, 6 mo., and 2 days) and Mary LeMar ( b. 1839, d. 5-7-1895, age
>57  years, 4 mo.) are buried in the Earlham Cemetery, sharing a common
>headstone.  Nearby are buried four of their children: Alice d. 9-7-1869,
>age 1 yr., 9 mo., 2 days;  Charlie d 7-2-1870 age 1 year; Grace d.
>10-10-1895 age 17 yr., 8 mo., 9 d.; Infant (No dates).  There is a notation
>in the Earlham Cemetery records that the four children were originally
>buried in the North Branch Cemetery, but their graves were later  moved to
>the Earlham Cemetery. (The North Branch Cemetery was originally laid out
>about 1864 and seemed to serve as something of a community cemetery until
>the Earlham Cemetery was begun about 1869 with the building of the railroad
>and the rapid growth of the new town of Earlham, incorporated in 1870.)
> 
>I am quite aware of the family of Jesse and Mary (Spray) Kenworthy who
>settled on a farm about two miles north of Earlham on the southern border of
>Adams Township, Dallas County, across the line from Madison County.  They
>brought a certificate to Bear Creek Monthly Meeting on 4 mo.-17, 1861 from
>Fairfield MM, Indiana dated 2-14-1861.  My records indicate that Mary Spray,
>b. 1-27-1840 d. 1876) was a daughter of Joseph and Dinah (Wilson) Spray.
>There were many of the Quaker family of Wilson who settled in the Earlham
>area  in pioneer times.  From a genealogy of the descendants of Christopher
>Wilson of New Castle County, Delaware, I find that John Wilson, son of this
>Christopher Wilson, married in 1759, probably in Chester County, PA, Dinah
>Cook,  daughter of Isaac and Mary (Houghton) Cook.  Their son, Christopher
>Wilson III, married in 1800 Mary Cox, daughter of Thomas and Tamar Cox
>Their  daughter, Dinah Wilson, married  on the 4th of April 1829 Joseph
>Spray.  Their daughter, Mary Spray, married in 1858 Jesse Kenworthy, son of
>William and Olive (Hiatt) Kenworthy.  ----- I am inclined to believe that
>Mary (Spray) Kenworthy was a descendant of Samuel Spray who married Mary
>Cook, daughter of John and Dinah (Cook) Willson, back in South Carolina.
>The  name "Dinah" seems to have been consistently transmitted through the
>generations..
> 
>On this past Fourth of July, at the festivities at Earlham, Iowa, I happened
>to meet Byrl Kenworthy and his wife Avis.  They are both 90 years  old, but
>with good minds.  Byrl Kenworthy is a grandson of Jesse and Mary (Spray)
>Kenworthy.  They could remember that Mary's maiden name was Spray,  but they
>seemed to have no remembrance of the LeMar family.
> 
>I now tend to believe that Mary (Spray) LeMar was a grand-daughter of Sarah
>(Milhouse) Spray.  She was probably a sister or a first cousin of Sarah
>Spray and Anna Spray, daughters of Henry and Rhoda Spray, who married the
>brothers Dayton and Asa Barnett.  Jennifer Lamar seems to think that
>Rhoda's maiden name was Briggers.  This is a very unusual name and surely
>not a Quaker name. Perhaps there is an error somewhere.
> 
>The North Branch Monthly Meeting set off from Bear Creek MM in 1869 was
>divided by the Evangelical / Conservative Separation of 1877.  The
>Evangelical branch centered in Earlham became Earlham Monthly Meeting after
>about 1880.  The Conservative branch retained ownership of the North Branch
>meetinghouse, moving into Earlham about 1890, retaining the name of North
>Branch MM until it was laid down in 1908.  I am fairly well acquainted with
>the  records of both groups, not having carefully studied the Men's Minutes
>of North Branch MM, 1869-1877.  I do not have the abstracted records of
>Ackworth area Meetings at hand, nor the Hinshaw and Heiss abstracts   I do
>not  believe that the George and Mary (Spray) LeMar family is mentioned in
>the Quaker records with which I am familiar.
> 
>It is possible that the parents of Mary (Spray) LeMar are listed in the 1880
>U.S. Census of Madison Twp., Madison County, Iowa.
> 
>        ---Herbert Standing,  Earlham, Iowa.
>
> 
>-------------------------------
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