Thompson

Chapter 80

The Children of Harvey Elledge and His Second Wife, Mary Scott Jennings


THE CHILDREN and grandchildren of Harvey V. Elledge and Hannah Rogers (who are also descendants of Pioneer Daniel Shinn and Mary Hackett, settlers in the Pike county wilderness of 1820) are scattered in many states. Of some, the addresses are unknown; of some, it is not known whether they still live. Known addresses include the states of Iowa, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, California, Arkansas, Texas and Georgia.

One son of Harvey and Hannah, named Benjamin, in honor of a long line of Benjamins in both the Elledge and Shinn families, died very young and is buried in the old cemetery near the pioneer town of Orleans, in Appanoose county, Iowa.

Another son born to the Elledges was given the name of William Riley, a name likewise bestowed upon his second cousin, William Riley Willsey of Pike county, born in the same year; the mothers of these two, Malinda Rogers Willsey and Hannah Rogers Elledge, were own cousins, daughters of David Redmon and Thomas Jefferson Rogers, both early emigrants from Kentucky and Indiana to Pike county, Illinois.

William Riley Elledge, born at Orleans, Iowa, June 20, 1853, married Fluvia Ellen Fees, born September 8, 1851. William Riley followed his father's trade of stave-maker in Iowa, but later moved to Colorado and engaged in mixed farming. He was known as "the man with the long whiskers." He never cut his beard but wore it braided and coiled next his breast. It measured over eight feet in length at his death in 1921. On very rare occasions he would allow it to be seen, and only a few of the close friends of the family were aware of its length. Some of his family have a photograph of him, taken with his beard released. He was described as a very fine-looking man, with a lovable personality.

His children: Charles Vivian Elledge of Henderson, Colorado, born August 8, 1874, married Catharine Belle Emory March 11, 1900, and they have three children, namely: William Lorenzo, born February 14, 1901, married Nelle Leona Eyerly, September 14, 1927, and they have two children, Robert William, born August 29, 1928, and Maxine Leon, born November 25, 1934; George Everett Elledge, born January 12, 1904, married Blanche Latorra October 23, 1927, and they have two children, Everett Charles, born July 27, 1928, and Joseph Grant, born January 3, 1931; and Charles Kenneth Elledge, born February 7, 1908, unmarried.

Junetta Elledge of Henderson, Colorado, born June 5, 1877, married Edward Powers February 20, 1898, and they have three children: William, born April 3, 1899; Jesse, born August 22, 1905; and Maggie, born December 6, 1912, all unmarried.

David Burton Elledge of West Lynn, Oregon, born November 24, 1879, married Marion Simmons May 19, 1909, and they have two children, Burton, married, and Helen, born in February, 1915, single.

Flossie May Elledge, R. F. D., Box 166, Ridgefield, Washington, born April 4, 1882, married Frank Smith, August 7, 1901, and they have one child, Howard Smith, born October, 1910, unmarried.

Clara Belle Elledge, 022 Porter Street, Portland, Oregon, born December 26, 1884, married Frank L. Jones, February 19, 1903, and they have three children: Ella Jones, born January 18, 1904, married and has three children; Ruby Jones, born July 4, 1906, married and has one child; Charles Jones, born 1912, unmarried.

Benjamin Franklin Elledge, address unknown, last heard of in Los Angeles, California, born June 9, 1890, married Marie (last name missing) in 1922, one child, William Elledge, born April 3, 1923.

Amos Edward Elledge, 9508 East Colfax Avenue, Aurora, Colorado, born April 15, 1894, married Martha Johnson, June 28, 1913; three children, Ethel Elledge, born March 1, 1915, married and has one child; Martha Johnson Elledge, deceased; Amos Elledge , Jr., married Lela Grabbe in 1922 and they have one child, Edward Earle Elledge, born August 20, 1923.

Fluvia Ellen Fees Elledge died March 18, 1913; William Riley Elledge died September 6, 1921; both died in Colorado.

The Numerous living descendants of Edward Boone and Martha Bryan and of Pike county Daniel Shinn and Mary Hackett, above named, all reside in the states of Colorado, Washington and Oregon.

Charles Rogers Elledge, second son of Harvey V. Elledge and Hannah Rogers, was born near Orleans, in Appanoose county, Iowa, November 5, 1857; he is still living in Cincinnati, Iowa. On August 22, 1880 at the age of 23, he married Miss Matilda Staley, daughter of James Staley, who operated a steam grist mill east of Centerville, Iowa, which was an early landmark and long known as Staley's Mill. The bride was 17. It was a double wedding, with another couple, Mr. and Mrs. P. M. Hamilton, now of Los Angeles, also entering into wedlock. The two grooms and the two brides-to-be made the journey to the place of the wedding in a large wagon. Following the wedding, Charles and his bride located on his father's farm, later moving to a farm of their own where they stayed for a few years, moving then to Cincinnati, Iowa, where they operated a general store. In 1918 they moved to Centerville, Iowa, and started the Elledge grocery store there. At Centerville on August 22, 1930, they celebrated their golden wedding anniversary.

Mrs. C. R. Elledge is a native of Appanoose county, Iowa, as is her husband, she being born there March 2, 1863. They have spent their entire married life in Appanoose county, except six months in Nebraska. They became parents of six children, four living, as follows: Leroy, married and living in Centerville, Iowa, where he is manager of a shoe store, and father of two children, Leslie and Shirley Elledge; Alda, who married Alex M. Bowie and resides at San Benito, Texas; Frederick B., married and superintendent of schools at Coulter, Iowa, and father of two children, Mary and Virginia Elledge; and George H. Elledge, at home.

Charles Rogers Elledge first followed his father's trade of stave-making, but later became a harness maker and for a number of years was associated with his brother Edward in the general merchandise business, at one time being in this business alone at Centerville. He is a leader in the Christian church of his home town and a teacher in the Sunday school. He is said to have been a great favorite of his maternal grandmother, Phoebe Shinn Rogers (daughter of Pike county pioneer Daniel Shinn), who lived in Iowa long after the death of her daughter, Hannah Rogers Elledge.

Mary Emmaline Elledge, only daughter of Harvey Elledge and Hannah Rogers, was born in Iowa where she married Fresia Hibbard, moving then to Arkansas, where her husband operated a saw mill until his death. Living children are Pearle, married and living in Arkansas; Forrest, who lives with his mother at Weiner, Arkansas; and Lola, married and living near her mother. Four children died young.

Edward Kindred Elledge, youngest child of Harvey Elledge and Hannah Rogers, was born in Iowa December 8, 1865, and is now proprietor of a general merchandise store in Cincinnati, Iowa. He married Miss Laura Peugh, a school teacher from Exline, Iowa, and their six children are: Dr. Lloyd Elledge, graduate of Iowa University, married and practicing medicine in Veterans' Hospital at Savannah, Georgia; Inez, unmarried, graduate of Ames, Iowa, Normal College, engaged in teaching; Luceille, unmarried, graduate of the same school and also a teacher; Herman, University of Iowa, pharmacist in his home town of Cincinnati; Frank and Russell, both University of Iowa men, partners in dentistry in southern Iowa, both married and with families.

Hannah Rogers Elledge died March 13, 1866, when her last son, Edward K., was a baby. She was a daughter of Thomas Jefferson Rogers and Phoebe Shinn, and a granddaughter of Daniel Shinn and Mary Hackett. Her mother, Phoebe Shinn Rogers, following the death of her husband, returned to Pike county and at Pittsfield, on February 2, 1880, married as her second husband, Christopher Zumwalt of Hardin township, a son of Henry Zumwalt and a native of Missouri. Christopher died the following year, in July, 1881, and Phoebe, then 63, returned to Iowa where she died in the early 1900s, at the age of nearly 90, her birth having occurred in the year that Illinois became a state, in 1818.

Hannah Rogers had two brothers, Thomas J. (named for his father) and John, the latter bearing the name of a distinguished English ancestor, the Protestant hero of the Reformation, who was met by his faithful wife and her ten children as he went gloriously to the stake for his faith, on February 4, 1555, first of the martyrs to perish in the "fires of Smithfield." William Riley Willsey of Maysville remembers well these two sons of Thomas J. Rogers and Phoebe Shinn. Both Thomas, Jr. and John were born in Pike county and went with their parents and Harvey and Hannah Elledge to Appanoose county in Iowa in 1850. They were several times back to Pike county in later years. Both became successful sheep raisers in Iowa. Both married girls from Orleans, Iowa, and both had large families, described by Evelyn Elledge Boone as "talented and fine-looking children to whom the younger Elledge felt as near as to their own cousins."

When the Indian reservations in South Dakota were reduced and that land opened for settlement, Thomas J. Rogers and several of his children went to Stanley county and filed on wild government land. Rogers took out a few hundred sheep to experiment with them in that cowmen's paradise. The adventure was unsuccessful, coyotes and wolves being then too plentiful. He returned to Iowa, but one of his sons remained in South Dakota and died there some two years later. Two of Harvey Elledge's daughters, Laura Maude and Evelyn Thayne, also homesteaded government land in the same neighborhood in South Dakota.

Thomas J. Rogers, son of Thomas J. Rogers, Sr. and Phoebe Shinn, was born in Pike county September 26, 1841. He died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. William Blosser, in Moulton, Iowa, in 1930 at the age of 89. He was a member of Company B, 2nd Missouri Cavalry, in the Civil War, and was one of the last three survivors of that company. He was a member of the G. A. R. post at Moulton until it was disbanded.

Harvey Elledge, following the death of his wife Hannah, and left with a baby boy, Edward, secured the services of a lovely girl widow, Mary Scott Jennings, who had a son James about the age of Edward, as a nurse for Edward and as housekeeper for the family. On June 30, 1866, he married his young housekeeper. The boy James was adopted by his foster father and raised as his own son.

Mary Scott Jennings, Harvey Elledge's second wife, was of Boone descent. Her mother's maiden name was Sarah Miller Stover, and she was probably descended from Sarah Boone Stover, a daughter of George Boone and Mary Maugridge (he a weaver by trade), who left Devonshire, England, August 17, 1717, arriving at Philadelphia October 10 that year, where they were met by three children who had preceded them to the new world, namely, George, Squire (father of Daniel and Edward) and Sarah. Sarah, in 1719, married Jacob Stover, a German immigrant.

Mary Scott Jennings' father was Robert Jennings, who died on his Roanoke (Va.) plantation October 20, 1843, leaving a widow and seven children, two of whom, Mary Scott and James, were twins less than a year old. Eight years later, in 1851, the widow and six of her children (three of them being then married) accompanied by a number of Virginia neighbors and relatives, came in a covered wagon caravan from Roanoke to Appanoose county in southern Iowa, where two of the Jennings boys had been the preceding year and had been pleased with the prospect of securing government land.

This covered wagon caravan of Virginians was about three months making the trip; they halted near Orleans, Iowa, where the Rogers and Elledge families had settled a few months before. Coming with the Jennings family to Iowa (so far as the Elledge daughters are now able to recall) were the families of Howell, Hays, Davis, Willett, Ellis, Wallace and Edwards. The latter (Edwards) was the school teacher in the early settlement. The immigrants took up government land in Appanoose county and the town of Orleans was thus established; only the early cemetery, the Christian church and a few old log houses remain as testimony that it ever existed.

Sarah Miller Stover was born, raised and married at Roanoke, Virginia, and her eight children were born there. One daughter died in 1838, at the age of two, and another, Elizabeth, married Philip Shetzer and did not come to Iowa. Her great grandson, Leonard Muse, is now state senator and a prominent attorney of Roanoke, Virginia.

Mary Scott Jennings' mother sold her Virginia plantation slave before coming to Iowa, a man by the name of Pritchard, reputed a cruel master, being the purchaser of the young ones. It is said that her slaves came to her and begged her to stay in Virginia and buy them back. The old Jennings family Bible, now in the possession of Mary Scott Jennings' daughter, Evelyn Elledge Boone of Hibbing, Minnesota, contains, in addition to the family record, the names and birth dates of a number of persons whom Evelyn remembers being told were the slaves of her grandparents, Robert and Susan Jennings.

Sarah (Susan) Jennings in 1861 answered the dying call of one of her old plantation slaves, the aged mammy who had nursed the twins, Mary Scott and James, and who, near death, wanted once more to look upon "Miss Susan" before she died. Answering this dying request of her old slave, she went back to Virginia and on the trip contracted a cold which developed into "galloping consumption," from which she died within a year, her death occurring March 27, 1862.

Sarah Jennings was an admirer of Abraham Lincoln and knew him well; among the keepsakes she left, and now possessed by her granddaughter, Evelyn Elledge Boone, is a photograph of Lincoln and his family, given to her personally by Lincoln.

Among the brothers and sisters of Mary Scott Jennings who settled at Orleans, Iowa, were John Preston, Thomas M., Michael S., Sarah, Lucy and James E., the latter being Mary Scott's twin brother. Thomas later lived at Shelbina, Missouri, and is buried there.

Others of the Jennings family, uncles and cousins of Robert Jennings, had migrated westward in an early day, some of them settling first in Ohio and later coming on to Pike county, Illinois. Among these early comers was Baylis Jennings, who in the 1830s settled near Atlas and later on the bluff road about five miles southeast of Pleasant Hill. Three members of this Jennings family intermarried with three members of the pioneer family of James Galloway and Ursula Lewis, she reputed the first white child born in old Missouri Territory, a daughter of Samuel Harding and Mary (Barnett) Lewis. In these intermarriage, Thomas Smith Jennings married Mary Ann Galloway. Tabitha Jennings married Samuel Hardin Galloway, and Sarah Jennings married Joseph Galloway. Tyre and Williamson Jennings were among the early Jennings immigrants. Williamson Jennings was a witness to the will of Joseph Jackson (who married Malinda Scholl Elledge) in 1841. He went to the California gold fields in 1850 and was still in the mines there when the Jackson will was probated in 1855, according to an affidavit of Tyre Jennings.

James, baby son of Mary Scott Jennings and adopted by Harvey Elledge after his marriage to the mother, grew to manhood in Iowa and there married Ella Fleming and became the father of seven children, all living in Iowa.

First child of Harvey Elledge and Mary Jennings was Laura Maude Elledge, who has contributed much genealogical data for this history. She was born on a farm near Moulton, Iowa. She married Charles Gruzebeck and lived at Ironton, Minnesota. They have had four children, two of whom are living, namely, Clinton Gruzebeck, a railway expressman at Faribault, Minnesota, who married Helen Walsh and has three children; and Alta Gruzebeck, who married George Taylor, a chemist with the Lerch Laboratories at Ironton, and who has had seven children, three dying in infancy, the four living being Jean, Charles, Dorothy and Teddie, all at home.

Carl Boone Elledge, second child of Harvey V. and Mary Jennings Elledge, was born in Iowa near Moulton May 23, 1876. He married Miss Winifred McGray, a school teacher, and they have two children, Marie and Mark Elledge. Carl Boone is at present in Canada.

Evelyn Thayne Elledge, valued contributor to this history, was born on a farm near Moulton, Iowa, September 26, 1881, a daughter of Harvey V. Elledge and Mary Scott Jennings. She graduated from the public schools of Moulton and served her apprenticeship in newspaper work, both mechanical and reporting, on the Moulton "Sun" and "Tribune." She taught school, edited a small weekly paper, and homesteaded land in Stanley county, South Dakota. Receiving the patent to her land in 1907, she went to Pierre, South Dakota, the state capital, to become city editor of the Pierre "Capital Journal." In Pierre, she met and later married Everett Eugene Boone, an interior decorator with the Andrews Decorating Company of Clinton, Iowa, who were decorating South Dakota's new capitol building at that time.

Says Evelyn: "Although the relationship to the Boones of Kentucky was only a fine old tradition in the minds of the youngest of the Elledges, she insisted on calling her new friend ‘cousin,' until July 17, 1912 he became ‘husband.'"

Thus, after more than a century and a half, an Elledge daughter in the North gave up the name of Elledge to take that of Boone, even as a Boone daughter in the South in the time if the Revolution had given up the name to that of Elledge, the Elledge daughter in the North being a great great granddaughter of that Boone daughter in the South.

Everett Eugene Boone can boast not only Boone but also Lincoln descent. He was born in Marble Rock, Iowa, March 20, 1879, a son of Sidney Wiley Boone and Nancy Olive MacKinnon. His father, born February 15, 1845, died April 29, 1904, was a son of Thomas Boone and Rebecca Pendergast. Thomas Boone's father was William Boone, son of George Boone and Deborah Howell, and William Boone's wife, Everett Eugene's great grandmother, was Sarah Lincoln, ancestress of President Lincoln. George Boone, Everett Eugene's great great grandfather, was a brother of the elder Squire Boone who married Sarah Morgan and became the father of the noted family which included Daniel and Edward.

Sidney Wiley Boone (Everett Eugene's father), with two of his brothers, Milton and Warren, and a cousin, James Boone (son of William, a brother of Thomas), were members of Company G, 32nd Iowa infantry, in the Civil War, of which company Edwin Raszell was captain. The cousin James was killed in battle September 26, 1863, and is buried at Little Rock, Arkansas. Sylvester Milton, one of the brothers, fell in action on January 3, 1863, and is buried at Cape Girardeau, Mo.

To the union of Everett Eugene Boone and Evelyn Thayne Elledge, representatives of widely separated but nevertheless related families, three children have been born, all living, namely: Mary Olive, born December 9, 1913, at Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, now a junior in the University of Minnesota; Eugene Thayne, born August 12, 1915, at Edmonton, and Wiley Viven, born August 27, 1917, the two boys associated with their father in business at Hibbing, Minnesota.