Saddling Up the Horse



It says there have been 34 visitors to my blog so far today and that is amazing as nothing has posted in almost a month. Like everyone I was busy with the holidays. January is an odd one. Welcoming it as a fresh start I try to sort through any files from the previous year both paper and digital to be ready for taxes, have a clean and orderly desk with room in it (!), and a tidy computer with fresh files for the New Year. That is the ideal anyway. I try to have a life in addition to all that but do hope by the end of the month I’ll be ready to rock 2014.

After Christmas Our Ohio Pioneers and the stacks of books had been sent off to family. My copy was still in pieces and there was a very messy guest/assembly room to reclaim. The door was closed on the mess. As of this morning it is accomplished. The book is on the shelf and the room looks great. Guests are welcome once more. So, what’s next?

The book, or rather workbook, is a work in progress. The introduction promised that more information on each of our families would be added every month. "Welcome to the family of the month club!" reminiscent of the fruit of the month, wine of the month, etc. This month it's time to finish the Cullins family of Muskingum County, Ohio. What fascinating stuff! I’ve run into references to Melungeons, a mixed-race group of mysterious origin from Appalachia, mention of Jamestown, and even John Smith and Pocahontas. Good grief, maybe there were vampires back there as well! (Okay, just kidding. If you haven't followed the Twilight series that comment makes no sense at all.)

Are any of these related to my family? I don’t know yet, but what interesting possibilities they present.  There's still a lot of work to be done. Of all the Ohio pioneer families we had this Cullins family is most like the one depicted in Conrad Richter’s Awakening Land Trilogy. They entered Ohio very early and carved out a homestead in the wilderness.

So folks, that’s where I’m at. Just saddling up the horse for a ride through the year. (No, not a literal horse, that beauty at the top of the page isn't mine. I snapped a photo of him while working on Sandy Hikes San Diego, at the lovely and rugged Daley Ranch near Escondido, CA. Two riders were ready to go up one of the many trails best accessed on horseback. Looking further into these Ohio families will be an interesting journey, and it brings up the desire, once again, to travel to Ohio. Today the TrekOhio website posted on Facebook a fabulous winter hike. Check it out!

I received a note on my hiking blog that the musical links were great. There isn't anything relevant to my genealogy work at the moment except that wonderfully cool, mellow music that has been keeping me company - Jack Johnson's album Brushfire Fairytales. Enjoy!

Credits: TheJackJohnsonShow YouTube, Jack Johnson - Drink The Water, Album – Brushfire Fairytales

Ghost Town



Sometimes a little bonus falls into your lap, or onto your computer, as it were.  I couldn’t believe what I found this evening while going over my list of Ohio videos.   I’ve mentioned Ohio ghost towns before but Whoa! This place was mentioned in my Belmont County post back on August 10^th   I had no idea there was a video of it on YouTube. Amazing.

I mentioned in my post that after her husband John died, Mary Moore and four of her 13 children moved to Belmont County. In 1825 they walked from Maryland through the forest and down Zane’s Trace, still not much more than an improved Indian path, when Mary stopped and decided she wasn’t going any farther and that this spot on Stillwater Creek near Sewellsville would be her home.

Marker for Crabapple Presbyterian Church
1800-1948

As Spiritseeker01 mentions in the introduction to the video – communities like this were abandoned when the coal mines gave out in this Appalachian area. This is all that’s left of Mary’s Sewellsville.  It must have had nothing when she stopped in 1825 and it is going back to nothing in 2013. Even Mary eventually abandoned Sewellsville to move closer to her son near the Crabapple Presbyterian Church in Wheeling Township. Mary is buried in the Crabapple Cemetery.

Still I can’t help feeling that Mary wants us to remember her as an intrepid pioneer woman.  I’d love to follow her path from Maryland and see where her property was by Stillwater Creek in the woods.

This second video is Beethoven's Ode to Joy and winter scenes from near Athens, Ohio - not far from Crabapple Church and Cemetery.  It has lovely photos and music but it is long; so only watch as much as interests you.



Credits: Spiritseeker01, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orKYYLtYGZs
Athens Ohio Snow Day, Ben Irwin, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0bQxLlsnSI&list=PL7FF6AC6FBBCEDE82
Photo: Crabapple Pres. Church, findagrave.com, FamTreeHunter
Image Credit: Ghost With Sign Clip Art from Vector.me (by liftarn)

Steel Valley and the Rust Belt

Youngstown Sheet & Tube and Viaduct

When it came to picking a more serious look at Ohio this video/musical statement about the changes in Youngstown floated up to the top of the list and watching it again hit me in the gut even harder than the first time.  The city has a rich and interesting industrial past but it's had to move on.  It sits on the border of Ohio and Pennsylvania in the Appalachian county of Mahoning.  It is part of what was called Steel Valley and is now part of what is called the Rust Belt.  Mike Eakin’s choices in this video are excellent – from the gritty, haunting music to the fade-ins contrasting old and new scenes in this deindustrialized area – to his final graffiti message – Don’t Forget.

[If this video appears black at first, click on it. For this, and all the videos, know that you can make it full screen by clicking in the bottom right corner, and return to normal to continue the blog with the Esc key.]

This video was posted in March 2010.  Please take the time to visit Mike's page and read his comment on the video.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZvJ1EUlM-o

Source: YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZvJ1EUlM-o 
Youngstown, Ohio, Rise and Fall of Steel Valley, Linkin Park, Mike Eakin
Photo of postcard: Wikipedia commons

Why Oh Why Ohio?

19 counties – mostly agricultural or Appalachian, with a couple of large metro areas -- Columbus, the capital, and Cincinnati, which some people consider part of Kentucky . . . they are representative and yet they are not.  My journey didn’t touch on the draining away of industrial prosperity – the steel industry – almost any kind of industry that’s left a rust-belt, joblessness, and poverty.  I didn’t look at Youngstown, or Cleveland, or Dayton, or Akron.  I didn’t look at big city slums with large, black, and often angry populations and a black middle class that’s losing ground; and I didn’t explore the white-bread marshmallow small towns dwindling in populations as joblessness increases with a white middle class that’s losing ground.  I haven’t looked at rotting city centers or once bustling farm towns that are now ghost towns. I could give a nod here to other ethnic groups they are there in small numbers but this is not California, or Florida, or Texas – this is Ohio and it is a story mostly told in black and white that was once red all over.

Remember that children’s joke – ‘what is black, white, and red [read] all over?’  The answer was 'the newspaper.'  What an apt parallel.  Newspapers are going the way of Ohio mining and industry.  I haven’t taken a definitive look at Ohio’s colleges and universities, or the sports teams – other than that Kentucky team – the Reds – just kidding, Cincinnati!
  The truth is that Ohio as it stands today is not my family’s story. All those families, probably 25 – 30 of them, began arriving in the late 1700s and by 1850 most of them had moved on. They were farmers and loved the land and the siren call of westward movement and the promise of a fresh start in Indiana and then Iowa.  They settled, they built, and they contributed to Ohio and left.  It is the age old saw – the one thing Ohio can count on is change – but liking what they were makes change inevitably painful.  Ohio is being reinvented – hopefully carrying through all the things that make it wonderful – while adding a trait that will make it great – adaptability. 

I’ve grown to love Ohio -- all of it – the black and white of it – it’s history and it’s potential. I ache for what Native Americans lost in Ohio – it was and is a beautiful and bountiful land that was their home.  For many of them it was an adopted home, as they had already been pushed westward from the east coast. That is not a story unique to the North American continent.  It is the age-old story of the Celts and the Picts, the Angles and Saxons, the Vikings and the French, the Normans and the English, the Romans and everyone else. In one way or another we've all been  conqueror or conquered. And that brings us back to that one thing we can count on - change. And, that thing that will help us to remain great -- adaptability.  That is the story of the human race.

All I know of Ohio was handed- down to me from those long-ago families and what is on the Internet. So . . . I went looking for Ohio on YouTube.  I found a lot of mediocre stuff – like I would find for any area of the country – after all people are trying new wings on YouTube. No one springs up an Emmy-Award-quality video producer without trial and error. After a couple of long sessions of sifting through chaff I found some gems. I’m going to share these in the next few posts.  Some of them are long and you needn’t watch past your point of interest.  Others you will want to watch to the end.  All have an Ohio flavor as seen through the eyes of Ohioans themselves. Let’s start with humor. 

As found on YouTube/melaniepinnay· at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vAIzilTl-I   Carol Burnett & Jane Lynch on Glee (which, of course, takes place in Ohio!), from the musical Wonderful Town, music by Leonard Berstein, Lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green.
Clipart - www.microsoft.com/clipart

Harrison County, Ohio - Anniversarys



Harrison County Courthouse

This blog started with our Robb family and Harrison County a year ago (one year!). During the year I reread Conrad Richter and it seems this is the area the Luckett family walked into from Pennsylvania. No wonder the books rang true for me.  I need further research, but our Karscadden (Skadden) and Moore families probably arrived pretty much as did the characters in The Trees.  The Robb family arrived in the mid-1800s from Northern Ireland during a period of settlement and growth that evokes The Fields.

The county abounded with game and fish. It was hilly, rugged and beautiful. There were natural resources, such as coal, to be discovered. And, if you could wrest the land from the trees there was rich soil for crops and the raising of sheep. There was hope and promise.

Reading the reality of today is a little sad. This is Appalachia. Virgin forests were cut. Coal mining

Appalachian Ohio in green

took over rich farmland. The area lost population after the land was mined and stripped for its coal.  The unemployment and poverty levels are higher than average. That being said there is so much of value and so much promise. There are ample wilderness areas for hunting deer and wild turkey (I’m a proponent of hunting with a camera, but if you need game for food the animals are plentiful.) There are three large lakes behind dams in Harrison County making it a recreational jewel. I can imagine the fishing and boating are rather fabulous.  

Gen. George Armstrong Custer

Like many of the Ohio counties, Harrison has a strong abolitionist past. There are some quirky and eclectic famous sons. This place produced Clark Gable, who can forget that famous line - "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.", and General George Armstrong Custer who died with his men at the Little Big Horn. Edwin Stanton, President Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of War, hailed from the area; in fact there seemed to be a strong Harrison County presence around the embattled Civil War president. This wasn’t just a rural area filled with country folk. Franklin College turned out educators, ministers and attorneys ready to spread the doctrine of abolition. “Graduates of this small institution included eight United States Senators, nine Members of Congress, several governors, and twenty state legislators.”*  Franklin also produced the first African American college graduate in Ohio.**

What would I do if I had a chance to go to Harrison County?  I’d spend a few days exploring nature, boating, fishing and relaxing – maybe even find a 4 wheeler. I’d spend a few days more visiting villages, museums, and looking at cottage crafts.  Then I’d get serious about genealogy – courthouse, cemeteries, plat maps, and local experts – I’d have field day! 

*Harrison County Community Improvement Corp. - http://www.harrisoncountyohio.org/index.htm
**Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_College_(New_Athens,_Ohio)
Photos: Wikipedia Commons

Belmont County

Belmont County Courthouse in St. Clairsville

A good part of the day I was sitting in San Diego County but immersed in Belmont County, Ohio. In this mostly rural county that is located in Ohio’s section of Appalachia I could picture a lovely fall-ish day with golden leaves and strolling through the pumpkin festival with a friend, going out to

Dickinson’s and returning with great photos of Texas Longhorn cattle, visiting a country church and Crabapple Cemetery. We might catch a boat ride on the Ohio River and stop in Wheeling, West Virginia for dinner. The next day I wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to see Dysart Woods – an unglaciated primeval oak forest.

I’d stop at the Underground Railroad Museum and purchase a lovely glass vase at the Imperial Glass Museum as a memento of the trip. I’d stop at the impressive county courthouse in St Clairsville and then go to Flushing and Stillwater Creek near Sewellsville to see if I could find the locations that 

William Dean Howells

were once family owned.  I have a feeling it would be a very nice weekend.  I found no mention of 'the birthplace' of William Dean Howells, Belmont County's most famous son. Certainly there must be a nod to the Dean of American Letters, the shaper of modern American literature, and editor of the Atlantic Monthly. He died in 1920 and possibly there aren't enough who remember his large presence in the literary world; but I hope somewhere, maybe a library, there is a nod to this great man and a complete collection of his work.

My 4^th great grandparents John and Mary Scarborough Moore were Marylanders who married at St. John’s Parish in Harford County Maryland, where they settled and raised a family of thirteen children. When John died at the age of 49 in 1825, Mary and most of the children turned toward new lives in the wilderness of Ohio. The children ended up in various counties but Mary and her sons, Joseph and Amos, and her daughters, Charity and Emily settled with their families in Belmont County. At first Mary located at Stillwater Creek near Sewellsville. I can see her walking along Zane's Trace and deciding she'd traveled far enough. Later on she made her home with Joseph, who lived east of Flushing. The Moore’s were Presbyterians and they lived near the Crabapple Presbyterian Church.  Mary was buried in Crabapple Cemetery.

My third great grandparents were George Carscadden (often shortened to Scadden or Skadden, or spelled Karscadden) and Margaret Ann Moore.  They settled in Harrison County and raised 6 children in addition to the three girls from Margaret’s earlier marriage to John Moffat.  It was George and Margaret’s daughter, Susanna, who married John Clarence Robb. My mother’s maiden name was Robb and these are her people.

Photos:  www.arc.gov  Appalachia Counties; Wikipedia