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James Elliott/Mary Elizabeth Morrison Family

    My paternal grandfather James Elliott was born in Gwennap, Cornwall, England in 1845. He was a miner and migrated with his brothers Abram and William to the United States .   The brothers worked in Mines in Michigan where Abram was killed in a mining accident.  James and William then went to Black Hawk, Colorado about 1870 to work in the Gold mines.

    My paternal grandmother Mary Elizabeth Morrison was born January 15, 1845 in Danville, PA. Her father died when she was young and her mother, Theodosia Fitzsimmons Morrison, married a man by the name of Benjamin  Deen, Dean, or Deem according to the following Census and they had six sons.

1850  Danville, Montour Co., PA Census

1860  Danville, Montour Co., PA Census

    Mary was very active in the St. Paul's Methodist Episcopal Church and it was here that a she met Gideon Shoop and his wife Elizabeth, hence came the name of Shoop she gave to my Father.  She taught school from the time she was about 17 in Michigan and this is where she meet James.  She went to Colorado to marry him on the train by herself, which in those days was a very dangerous thing to do.  They were married in Denver, Colorado in the parlor of the American Hotel by Rev. Lewis Hamilton.  They were both 27 years old. 

    In 1882 they bought eighty acres of railroad land and later added another forty acres of homestead land in Timnath, Colorado.  They raised cabbage alfalfa, beans, onions and wheat.  They lived in a two room log house and they had little money or horses or implements to work with.  In 1886 James was in agony for a few days with a pain in his stomach.   On October 8, 1886 he died of a broken appendix.  He was the first person buried in the Timnath Cemetery.

    Mary stayed on the farm and raised her six  children.  The strenuous years that followed were a constant struggle to make ends meet, sickness and educating the children.  One year the only cash that came in was $13.00 from potatoes they sold.   In a trunk for years was a candy Valentine heart that James had given to Mary before they were married.  Periodically, she would show it to her children.  Then one day she discovered someone's little teeth marks had nibbled at the candy.  She cried and broke it into pieces and gave it to the children as a special treat.

    One day when Shoop was very small, he disappeared.   Soon the whole family were hunting and calling him.  One little neighbor girl couldn't say Shoop, so she was calling out "Touppe, oh Touppe".   Finally Mary set out following his little bare footprints and tracked them to a neighbor.  There sat little "Touppe" watching Mr. Dixon hollow out a turnip to make a cup.

    The folklore above were written in letters from Ruth Vail, Helen Daugherty and Susan Elliott and given to Mable Guntle Elliott and later passed on to Eloise Elliott Brannan.

James Elliott and Mary Elizabeth Morrison

�1997-2006 by Paul and Phyllis Dale
Date this page was last edited 10/15/2011