Thompson

Chapter 123

The Chenoweth Family, E. R. Dorseys, Dunhams, the C. I. and Burr Swans


THIS INSTALLMENT of the Pike County History will be of special interest to those who bear the names or who are descended from those who bore the names of Hobbs, Dorsey, Chenoweth, Swan, Dunham, Clark, Daigh, Turner and Vertrees.

Elder David Hobbs and his good wife, Penelope Payne, were in the very forefront of an emigration that in early times came to Pike county, Illinois from the Severns Valley and the Nolin settlements of Kentucky, in the region where Abraham Lincoln was born. The Hobbs families were followed by the Hodgens, Larues (La Rues), Van Meters, Vertreeses, Haycrafts, Millers, Bruces, Bells, Harts, Swanks and descendants or kinsmen of the Helms, Churchills, Browns, bushes, Percifuls and others who in the very early days of Kentucky peopled the county of Hardin, from which later was set off the county of Larue'.

In the preceding chapter was related the story of Jephtha Hobbs, first born of Elder David Hobbs' children; also the story of the marriage of Elder David's eldest daughter, Matilda, to Bennett Franklin Dorsey, descendant of William Dorsey of the American Revolution and of a line that traces back to the ancient D'Orsays of France.

Bennett F. Dorsey and Matilda Hobbs had two children, namely, Edgar Ralph Dorsey, born May 9, 1859 at Wolf Grove stock farm a mile northeast of Perry, and Asa Lester Dorsey, born on the same farm March 22, 1861.

Edgar Ralph Dorsey on December 31, 1877 at the bride's home in Chambersburg township, married Rachel Anna Chenoweth, a daughter of Miles B. Chenoweth and Anna E. Allen, he a native of Bartholomew county, Indiana, she of Madison county, New York. The groom was 18, his bride six days younger. The ceremony was a double one, the other couple being W. Douglas Smith and the bride's friend, Anna O'Neill, whose father was then the only Catholic in Perry township. The Reverend T. W. Cottingham officiated.

Miles B. Chenoweth, father of Rachel Anna Chenoweth, who at 78 is residing with her daughter, Mrs. Dot Dorsey Swan, in Pittsfield, was a son of Abraham Chenoweth, early settler in Pike county, he a son of Major William Chenoweth, Virginia born June 10, 1760, who served in the Revolutionary War and appeared on Pottenger's Creek in Kentucky in August (or September), 1779, entering land in nelson county for his war services, under a warrant issued by Patrick Henry, governor of Virginia. Major Chenoweth's wife (mother of the early Pike county Chenoweths, Abraham, Jacob Van Meter and James Hackley Chenoweth) was the famous "Widow Hinton" of early Kentucky annals, whose first husband, John Hinton, was drowned in the Ohio river during the migration of the Van Meter family from Monongahela to the falls of the Ohio (where now is Louisville, Kentucky) in 1779. John Hinton's widow was Mary Van Meter, a daughter of the elder Jacob Van Meter, hundreds of whose descendants have peopled Pike county and the surrounding region.

Major William Chenoweth (Mrs. Anna Dorsey's great grandfather) was a son of William Chenoweth (spelled "Chennerworth" in the early records of Baltimore county, Maryland) and Ruth Calvert, daughter of the House of the Lords Baltimore. This William Chenoweth was a son of John Chenoweth and a grandson of an elder John Chenoweth (spelled "Chinoweth" in the early records), "Gentleman Blacksmith and Surveyor," who was born at St. Martins in Meneage, Cornwall county, Wales (now England) about 1682-3. He married Mary Calvert, a daughter of Charles Calvert, the third Lord Baltimore, about 1705, at the time when there was great religious strife in England. This may be the reason why no record of their marriage can be found in England or America, for if a priest performed the ceremony, which is most likely, he would not have made a parish record of it, John being a protestant and Mary a Catholic. This probably also accounts for the lack of any parish records of the births of their children, which are obtainable only from Bible diaries.

There is no record of the sailing from England or of the arrival in America of this first Chenoweth in the new world. It is known, however, that he came and settled on Gunpowder river, near Joppa, Baltimore county, Maryland, on an estate belonging to the Calverts, which was called Gunpowder Manor, and which probably belonged to Charles Calvert and was heired by his daughter, Mary Chenoweth. At any rate, the Chenoweths lived there almost thirty years and raised their family of eight children, one of them being John Chenoweth, Jr., great great grandfather of Mrs. Dorsey. Because of the Chenoweths' long residence on the Gunpowder river estate, it became known as Chenoweth Manor.

This first Chenoweth in America was a "skilled blacksmith," which interpreted in understandings of today, means he was a manufacturer, for in those days every article used that was made of iron was made in the blacksmith shop, including farm implements, plows, wagons, harrows, axes, hammers, shovels, spades, all kinds of chains, and even nails which were made by the blacksmith and sold at 25 cents per hundred. Many men worked in the shops and there were always apprentice boys learning the trade. Such was the life of the first American Chenoweth and his sons while the farming of their vast estate was done by Negro slaves.

Miles B. Chenoweth's mother (grandmother of Mrs. Anna Dorsey) was Rachel Chenoweth, her husband's third cousin and daughter of Arthur Chenoweth and Elspa Lawrence, he a son of Arthur Chenoweth, Sr., who was a son of the first John Chenoweth, the "gentleman blacksmith," and Mary Calvert, daughter of the third Lord Baltimore. This Arthur Chenoweth (great great grandfather of Mrs. Dorsey) is said by some to have been the first Chenoweth born in America. He married Saphirra or Safira (family name missing in the records of St. Thomas' Parish, its chapel built in 1743 above Pikesville on the old pike and first known as a "chapel of ease for the forest inhabitants." Lord Baltimore made Thomas Cradock the first rector in 1745).

Arthur Chenoweth, son of John the Blacksmith, was born near Joppa in 1716. His son, Arthur (father of Rachel who married her third cousin, Pike county Abraham Chenoweth), was born March 31, 1740. He served in the Revolution, being a corporal in Rawling's Regiment, which was formed by resolves of the Continental Congress on January 23, 1779. Miles B. Chenoweth, father of Mrs. Dorsey, is therefore shown as descended from the Lords Baltimore on both his father's and mother's side, being also descended on both sides from American Revolutionary stock. He died at Chambersburg May 14, 1904, aged 77, and is buried in Dorsey cemetery at Perry.

Edgar Ralph Dorsey and Rachel Anna Chenoweth for fifteen years after their marriage lived at Wolf Grove, near Perry, with his parents, Bennett and Matilda Hobbs Dorsey. Father and son were among the first importers of thoroughbred horses in the United States. The son organized stock companies in the central states, selling them thoroughbred horses for local breeding. On the fair circuits, both father and son became recognized in the judging ring, judging horses, hogs and sheep.

In 1901 they closed out their stock, and Edgar and his wife moved to Kansas, where he operated a 320-acre wheat farm near Girard, maintaining also a stable of stallions. For fifteen years, until 1920, Edgar Dorsey was advertising solicitor for Senator Arthur Capper's publications in several states. In 1927 he had business reverses, and then suffered a stroke from which he never fully recovered.

Edgar Dorsey and Anna Chenoweth had five children, namely, Dot, Bennett Franklin, Nellie Anna, Asa Bruce and Miles Edgar Dorsey.

Dot Dorsey, born at Perry November 6, 1878, attended the Illinois Female College at Jacksonville (now MacMurray College) a year, taught school in the Perry neighborhood and on March 29, 1898 was married to Burr Harrison Swan, a son of Christopher Irving Swan and Caroline Cordelia Dunham of Chambersburg. The groom was named for his grandfather, Burr Harrison Swan, a native of Kentucky, who is buried in Brown cemetery near Chambersburg.

Christopher Irving (C. I.) Swan was born at Chambersburg February 10, 1850, a son of Burr Harrison Swan and Mrs. Sophia (Hickman) Loer. He attended the Chambersburg school and the State Normal at Bloomington, taught at Chambersburg eight years, then at Perry Springs, was made principal of the Perry schools, and in 1882, in which year he was elected county clerk of Pike county, he moved to Pittsfield. He was elected county superintendent of schools in 1886 and upon expiration of his term of office in 1890 he purchased an interest in the Pike County Banner, a Democratic newspaper published in Pittsfield, becoming editor of that paper. In 1893 he sold the newspaper to A. C. Bentley and C. W. Caughlan and they continued its publication, changing the name to the Pike County Times. In 1898 Mr. Swan took his family to Bee county, Texas, where he assumed management of Texas ranch lands owned by R. T. Hicks and T. N. Hall.

Caroline Cordelia Dunham, who became the wife of C. I. Swan on August 1, 1875, with the Reverend T. J. Cottingham officiating, was a daughter of John Hezekiah and Mina Redfield Dunham, being one in a family of five children, four daughters and one son. Sisters and brothers were Mrs. Emma Barnum, Mrs. Frances Fenton, Mrs. Mary Eva Webster and Horace Edwin Dunham.

The girl, Caroline Cordelia, was born August 1, 1851, just north of Newburg Corner on the Pittsfield-Detroit road, where her grandparents, John Dunham and Ann C. Pettis, settled in 1838. John Dunham, the pioneer settler, was the youngest son of Hezekiah Dunham who was a native of Saratoga county, New York, a Baptist deacon and a soldier in the Revolutionary War. He died in 1810. John was born in Saratoga county January 1, 1793. In February, 1816, he married Ann Pettis, a native of Grand Isle, Vermont, where they were married. They came to this western country in 1838 and settled near Detroit, in Newburg township.

C. I. Swan and Cordelia Dunham had five children: Burr Harrison, Frances (Mrs. Russell Hunter) of Colorado Springs, Colorado, John Edward (who died in Beeville, Texas, in May, 1929), Christopher Irving, Jr. of San Antonio, Texas, and Mina (Mrs. Irl F. Cherry) of Beeville, Texas.

C. I. Swan died August 18, 1918 and is buried in San Domingo cemetery near Normanna, Texas. His wife survived until May 9, 1935, dying at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Irl F. Cherry, in Beeville; she was buried beside her husband. She was 83. Attending Newburg school in her childhood, she later taught school there, and after moving to Texas she taught in a small college at Portland, near Corpus Christi.

Burr Harrison Swan, owner, editor and publisher of the Pike County Republican from March 1, 1901 until his death in 1927, was born at Chambersburg April 30, 1876. He was a veteran of the Spanish-American War, being a sergeant with Company A, 5th Regiment, Illinois Infantry, at Chickamauga, Tennessee, April 25 to October 1, 1898. He served as county and probate judge of Pike county 1918-1922, the first Republican elected to a county office in this strongly Democratic county in 44 years. He was appointed under President Harding as postmaster at Pittsfield, serving from 1922 to 1925, when he resigned to give his full time to his newspaper, which under his direction became a powerful organ of the Republican party in Illinois. He died in Passavant hospital in Jacksonville October 13, 1927 and is buried in the West cemetery at Pittsfield.

Burr Harrison Swan and Dot Dorsey were parents of five children, Helen, Dorsey, Dorothy, Maxine and Priscilla Swan.

Helen Miriam Swan was born in an apartment over the print shop wherein was published the Pike County Republican, the printing office being immediately north of the present offices of The Republican. She lived only two years and three months, her death occurring September 27, 1902, in the room in which she was born.

Dorsey Swan, born also in the apartment over the printing office, died at birth. He and the sister, Helen, are buried in the West cemetery at Pittsfield.

Dorothy Leonora Swan, born in Pittsfield in the family apartment above the editorial offices of The Republican June 1, 1905, graduated from Pittsfield high school in 1922, and attended Brown's Business College at Jacksonville and then Pennsylvania College for Women in Pittsburgh (now Chatham College). She was married to Walter Preston Miller, a native of Washington, D. C., at the home of her parents in Pittsfield, September 1, 1925, with the Reverend William H. Hill, then pastor of the Pittsfield Congregational church, officiating.

Mr. Miller was a son of Mr. and Mrs. Clifton I. Miller of Bristol, Tennessee. The father was in the governmental service at Washington as inspector in the postal department, at the time Walter Preston was born. The Millers are of the South, nevertheless Preston's grandfather was on the side of the Union in the Civil War, attaining the rank of colonel in the Union Army. He owned large acreages in eastern Tennessee, including the site of present Johnson City.

Mr. and Mrs. Miller, following their marriage, went to Miami, Florida, where the groom was then a linotype operator on the Miami Tribune. Before his marriage, he had been employed in New York City and had there studied piano, and pipe organ in Boston conservatory. He and his wife, leaving Miami, were employed for a time on the Palm Beach World at Boynton, Florida, going thence into the Government Printing Office at Washington, D. C. At the death of Mr. Swan in 1927 they came to Pittsfield where both are now associated with her mother, Mrs. Dot Dorsey Swan, in the publication of the Pike County Republican.

Maxine Valencia Swan, born in the old Dickson house on West Washington street in Pittsfield on May 6, 1907, was graduated from Pittsfield high school and Chicago Normal School of Physical Education. She taught in the Denver (Colorado) schools 1925-26, resigning to teach in the Pittsfield schools 1926-27. On September 1, 1927, the second anniversary of her sister Dorothy's wedding, she was married to William Frank Oatman of Arpin, Wisconsin, a native of Dundee, Illinois, and a son of William F. Oatman and Alicia Whittaker. They were married in the Christian church in Pittsfield by the pastor, the Reverend Russell E. Booker.

The groom was engaged in the milk products business, manufacturing casein, at Arpin. They now live in Geneva, Illinois. They have two children, John David Oatman, born June 15, 1928 at Pittsfield, and Rachel Chenoweth Oatman, born February 4, 1931, at Marshfield, Wisconsin.

Priscilla (Peg) Swan, born in an apartment in the Pittsfield House Hotel, February 4, 1916, graduated from Pittsfield high school, then attended Colorado College at Colorado Springs and Gem City Business College at Quincy, Illinois. She was married on Easter Sunday, March 28, 1937 to Merle Stenson Nesbit of Macomb, Illinois, a son of Mrs. G. M. Garrett of Joslin, Illinois. His father had died when he was young. The wedding was in the Church of the Holy Faith in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the ceremony being said by the rector, the Reverend C. J. Kinsolving. The couple resides in Macomb. Mr. Nesbit is a salesman for Irwin Paper Company of Quincy.

Dot Dorsey Swan, since the death of her husband in 1927, has continued the publication of the Pike County Republican, the county's oldest newspaper, being assisted by her son-in-law and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Preston Miller.

Bennett Franklin Dorsey, second child of Edgar R. Dorsey and Anna Chenoweth, was born March 5, 1882 at Perry and died December 25, 1882, aged nine months and 20 days. Death resulted from diphtheretic bronchitis. Burial was in Dorsey cemetery at Perry.

Nellie Anna Dorsey, born April 10, 1888, third child of Edgar and Anna Dorsey, was teaching in a government Indian school in what is now Oklahoma when the old Indian Territory became a state. She married Edward Campbell, a teacher and a mortician. Both died at Girard, Kansas, her death occurring in 1908 soon after the birth of a daughter, Sondra Dorsey, who then was reared by the grandparents and who is now a member of the Swan household in Pittsfield. Mr. and Mrs. Campbell are buried in the Dorsey family lot in Prairie Rest cemetery at Girard.

Asa Bruce Dorsey, born at Perry May 31, 1890, fourth of the children of Edgar Dorsey and Anna Chenoweth, married Lillian Ellen Dunkle of Girard, Kansas, and they had two daughters, Lillian Nelle and Doris Constance Dorsey. Asa was a farmer, stock-raiser and a licensed auctioneer. He died at the age of 27 of typhoid fever and is buried in the family lot at Girard. His widow later married Charles I. Grissom of Carthage, Missouri, a World War veteran, who tenderly reared and educated the two daughters. Lillian Nelle married Richard R. McConnell and they reside in Carthage. Doris married Wesley Wayne Daniels and they have one son, Wesley Wayne, Jr. They lived in Mt. Vernon, Missouri.

Miles Ed Dorsey, latest born of the children of Edgar Dorsey and Anna Chenoweth, born April 13, 1895 in Perry, married Augusta May Tucker of Walnut, Kansas, shortly after his return from the World War, he having served as embalmer in the base hospital at Brest, France. They have three children, Eva May, Miles, Ed., Jr., and Barton Ernest Dorsey. They live at the family home in Girard, Kansas, where Miles has a funeral home and furniture store.

Edgar R. Dorsey died at the home of his daughter, Dot Dorsey Swan, in Pittsfield December 2, 1937, and is buried in the family lot in Girard. Mrs. Dorsey lives with her daughter in Pittsfield. She and her husband had lived together 60 years, lacking 29 days.

Asa Lester Dorsey, second son of Bennett F. Dorsey and Matilda Hobbs, married Carrie B. Clark May 5, 1879, the Reverend J. T. Smith officiating. She was a daughter of Job Clark and Hester E. Gilham, who settled in Pike county in May, 1857, in Perry township. They had one son, Bennett Job Dorsey, born at Perry May 6, 1880. Mr. and Mrs. Dorsey later separated; she died at Perry May 30, 1917. The family histories of the Clarks and Gilhams have been related in an earlier chapter.

Asa L. Dorsey on October 25, 1899 again married, his second wife being Nellie Daigh, daughter of Harrison Daigh and Margaret Turner, who were married in Pike county April 25, 1867. Harrison Daigh, a native son of Perry where he was born February 10, 1845, was a son of James M. Daigh and Elizabeth Pool, he a native of Virginia, she of South Carolina. Leaving the Old Dominion, James M. Daigh came to Illinois in the 1820s, settling in the wilderness in what is now either Christian or Sangamon county. Coming later to Pike county, he was one of the pioneers of this section. Attracted by the discovery of gold in California, he crossed the plains in 1849, returning to Illinois in 1852 and again setting out for California in 1853 by way of new York City, where he took passage on a sailing vessel bound for San Francisco. He engaged in merchandising in the Golden State until the spring of 1855 when his life's labors ended in death, when he was 55 years of age. His wife had died in Pike county in 1853, aged 45. They had twelve children, five sons and seven daughters.

Harrison Daigh lost his mother when he was nine years of age, and his father when he was ten. Three years later he left Pike county and went to DeWitt county where he hired out as a farm laborer in the summer and in winter fed cattle for his board and for the privilege of attending school. He was thus occupied until 1862 when, although but 17, he enlisted in the cause of the Union in the Civil War, enrolling on July 27 that year as a member of Company F, 99th Illinois Infantry, remaining with the famous pike county regiment until honorably discharged in August, 1865, being mustered out at Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

His wife, Margaret Turner, whom he married after the war, was born June 25, 1849, a daughter of Thomas Turner and Elizabeth Haughey, both natives of Ohio in which state they were married and their eleven children were born. Mrs. Turner died September 21, 1858 and Mr. Turner again married, his second wife being Rebecca Shelton, by whom he had four more children. The Turners, on removing from Ohio to Illinois, settled in Perry township where Mr. Turner farmed until a few years before his demise, living retired in the village of Perry until his death on September 21, 1888 at 76.

Harrison Daigh, following his marriage, farmed in Perry township until the spring of 1868 when he removed to DeWitt county, residing there until the fall of 1869 when he again returned to Pike county and became identified with its agricultural interests. In 1875 he moved to the village of Perry, continuing however to give attention to farming and handling also the mail route between Perry and Griggsville. In his family were thirteen children of whom Nellie Daigh, second wife of Asa L. Dorsey, was one.

Asa L. Dorsey and Nellie Daigh had two daughters, Olive Marie and Corinne. Olive married Marshall H. Sweeting; they have one son, Robert Lee Dorsey Sweeting, born May 11, 1925. Corinne Dorsey married Robert Curfman, son of Samuel M. Curfman and Myrtle Kimmel, and they have two children, Ann Louise and Samuel Roger Curfman.

Asa L. Dorsey died at Perry September 11, 1935 in his 75th year. He is buried in Dorsey cemetery.

Of several of the descendants of Elder David Hobbs and Penelope Payne there is little record. John Hobbs, third of the children, married and settled in the eastern part of Illinois, where he had a large family. Bennett Hobbs, fourth of the children, married Mary (family name missing) and had several children. He enlisted for Civil War service and his wife lived at the Bennett Dorsey home at Perry, with two of her children, Henry and Myrtle Hobbs, the latter of whom married George Spires and had two children.

Luther Hobbs, fifth child of Elder David, stayed for a time with his sister, Matilda Dorsey, at Perry, going later to the eastern part of Illinois, where he married and had several children.

Campbell Hobbs, sixth child of David and Penelope, also lived with his sister Matilda following his mother's death, and at a tender age went off to war in the 1860s. Some time after the war he went to Smith county, Kansas, and took up government land. William F. Hobbs, a son of his father's brother, Nicholas Hobbs, had settled in Smith county. William had a daughter, Kate, who married her cousin Cam, and they had two sons. Campbell died soon after the birth of the second son. He is buried in Smith county, Kansas.

Vetura and Artemisia Hobbs, seventh and eighth of the children of Elder David, both died young.

Emma Hobbs, last born of David's children, lived for some years with her sister Matilda at Perry, being a member of the Bennett Dorsey household when Edgar R. Dorsey was born in 1859. She later taught school in Atchison, Kansas, where she met Henry Manchester, a resident of Huron, Kansas. They married and went to housekeeping on his farm at Huron. They had three children, Ray, Myrtle and Blanche. Blanche married and had one child. Ray located in Oklahoma. Henry and Emma Manchester both died at Huron, Kansas, and are buried there.

Nancy Hobbs, born in the Severns Valley of Kentucky, October 26, 1812, was the latest born of the five children of Hinson Hobbs and Sarah Shipman. She was the only sister of Solomon, Sr., Nicholas, Elder David and William Hobbs. Her father dwelt in a log cabin on the Ohio river, where now is Cincinnati, in the time of General St. Clair's disastrous expedition against the Miami Indians in the wild Ohio country in 1791.

Nancy Hobbs, coming with her pioneering family to this western country more than a hundred years ago, here married Jacob Sneed Vertrees, son of John Vertrees and a grandson of Captain John Vertrees who marched with George Rogers Clark in the dark days of the Revolution, shooting the falls of the Ohio (where now is Louisville) during an eclipse of the sun. Thence he headed into the vast and appalling wilderness of the old Northwest Territory, entering with Clark, under the rattlesnake banner of Virginia and the orders of Governor Patrick Henry, the village of Kaskaskia in the Illinois country, thus paving the way for an extension of the boundaries of American dominion.