JOSEPH VERTREES, second son of John Vertrees, jr. And Nancy Haycraft, was born in Kentucky in 1804. In that state,
in 1826, he married his cousin, Lucinda Chenoweth, a descendant of the Lords Baltimore, whose daughters intermarried
with the Chenoweth "gentleman blacksmiths" of the early Maryland colony. The blacksmiths of those days
would be known today as manufacturers, inasmuch as the pioneer Chenoweth blacksmiths made everything which entered
into that industry. In those times the blacksmith was a towering figure in his community, and a leader of men.
Lucinda Chenoweth Vertrees was a daughter of Jacob Van Meter Chenoweth and Mary Haycraft, pioneer settlers in the
Perry neighborhood. Her mother, Mary Haycraft Chenoweth, was a sister of her husband's mother, Nancy Haycraft Vertrees.
Lucinda was also a great granddaughter of old Jacob Van Meter, Kentucky pioneer whose history has been recorded;
old Jacob being the father of Margaret Van Meter, who married the elder Samuel Haycraft and became the mother of
Nancy Haycraft Vertrees and Mary Haycraft Chenoweth of the pioneer Pike county settlement.
Lucinda Chenoweth Vertrees's grandfather on the paternal side was Major William
Chenoweth of the Revolution; her grandmother was Mary Van Meter (the "Widow
Hinton") of early Kentucky history, who was in the thick of some of the
fiercest Indian fighting that occurred on "the dark and bloody ground."
Lucinda's grandfather on the maternal side was the elder Samuel Haycraft,
pioneer of the Severns Valley and founder of Haycraft's Fort in what is now
Hardin county, Kentucky; her maternal grandmother was Margaret Van Meter, daughter
of old Jacob.
Lucinda's ancestral line reaches back into the dim beginnings of American
history. Her great grandfather on the Chenoweth side was William Chenoweth (Chennerworth
in the old records), a pioneer in St. George's Parish, Baltimore county, Maryland;
her great grandmother (the wife of William Chennerworth) was Ruth Calvert of
the house of the Baltimores of Maryland.
Two of Ruth Calvert's sons, Jonathan and Samuel Chenoweth, were early settlers
in Pike county, Illinois, and several of their sons and daughters (grandchildren
of this daughter of the Lords Baltimore) married and resided in Pike county.
One of Ruth Calvert's sons also married in Pike county. Descendants of the Chenoweth
name now in the county will be surprised to learn that these kinsmen (brothers
of Major William Chenoweth, who was the father of Jacob Van Meter, Abraham and
James Hackley Chenoweth) were once residents of Pike county. Their residence
here was more than a century ago but they have left their names and some record
of their doings in the county's yellowed archives.
William Chenoweth, who married Ruth Calvert, was a son of the second John Chenoweth (Chinoweth) of the American
line, who was a son of the first John and of Mary Calvert, daughter of Charles Calvert, who was the third Lord
Baltimore.
In Chenoweth history is the story of some of Lucinda Chenoweth Vertrees's
ancestors that is so interwoven with early American history as to be entitled
to consideration here.
Near Joppa, on the Gunpowder river in Maryland, was where the first Chenoweths
in America settled, and a large tract of land was granted to them for a manor;
from this place the Chenoweths scattered over America, several of them settling
in very early times in Pike county, Illinois.
The grants of land were given by England's king through Lord Baltimore. Settlers
were thereby encouraged to come to the colony. A man who could afford to bring
only himself and wife received a small farm; those able to bring more members
of their family received larger grants. Passano tells us: "One of the early
laws passed in the colony said that a Manor should be granted to any man who
could bring with him from England twenty able- bodied men, each armed with a
musket, a sword and a belt, a bandolier and flask, ten pounds of powder and
forty pounds of bullets and shots."
Chenoweth or Gunpowder Manor is known, from the record of land grants, to
have been a very large estate. The manor was a little colony that governed itself
very much as a little village governs itself. The "Lord of the Manor,"
who in this instance was Lucinda Chenoweth Vertrees's great great grandfather,
was an important personage in the colony, just as he had been in England, although
no one thought of calling him Lord, a title that was dropped on coming to the
new world.
The manor house of these first American Chenoweths was large and comfortable,
with furnishings of the best, brought from Old England. Nearby was the chapel
where the family went to service along with the servants on the estate. Around
the manor where the barns, the stables, the quarters for the slaves, for there
had to be numerous servants to keep everything in style. Some distance away
stood the small houses for the tenant farmers.
On the stream or river bank was the mill where the wheat and corn were ground
into flour for the family's use. Not far away was the blacksmith shop, where
was made everything needed in the household husbandry. The spoons used at table
were molded from pewter. Among relics of the family are spoon molds, but never
a fork, from which we may conclude that the Chenoweth colonial dames daintily
demonstrated that "fingers were made before forks" as did good Queen
Bess. The candles which shed soft light from brackets on the walls were made
in the candle molds which were fashioned in the blacksmith shop.
In those days, too, the spinning wheel and the loom hummed in the household
of Chenoweth Manor, where linen and cotton goods made at home equalled the best
and women appeared to advantage in garments of their own making. Grand indeed
was life in those days, when the Baltimores were in their glory; a life that
later was to be ended forever by the Revolution.
The Joppa of those days is no more. Joppa was then the most important town
in Maryland. Chenoweth Manor, where lived John Chenoweth, was near Joppa. The
town became a commercial center, under a law that every person who "brought
tobacco to Joppa to pay a debt should be allowed 10 per cent discount on his
bill." Thus Joppa became a great tobacco market and here the masters of
Chenoweth Manor marketed their crops. Tobacco then served as a medium of exchange
among the colonies.
The Chenoweth slaves packed the tobacco in hogsheads, with a pin fastener in each end, to which loophole pin shafts
were attached and fastened to the collar of a horse. The grower thus "rolled" his load to town and from
this the roads became known as "rolling roads." These roads poured great quantities of tobacco into Joppa
and commerce was established with the West Indies and Europe.
Today there is nothing left of the houses or wharves of old Joppa. The land
that marked its busy streets which ended at the waterfront, where ships loaded
their cargos for far markets, is a cultivated farm. In the orchard on the farm
are the cellars and foundations of the ancient court house, St. John's church,
the jail, taverns and stores. A few yards away stood the gallows tree, the whipping
post and the stocks. Along the shores of the Gunpowder are seen huge piles of
stone, remains of foundations of wharves and warehouses of the Joppa of long
ago. -From "Chenoweth History," by Mrs. Cora Chenoweth Hiatt of Lynn,
Indiana. (The author of this history, compiled in 1925, was a perfectly helpless
cripple who had not walked a step for 22 years and who could not even feed herself.)
In the period of time described above, Lucinda Chenoweth Vertrees's ancestor,
the second John Chenoweth, grandfather of Jonathan and Samuel of early Pike
county, was raised, grew to manhood, married and was rearing a family. When
the lands were divided, he decided to try Virginia. The next we learn of him,
he with his two younger brothers and their families had located in Frederick
county, Virginia, whence came his descendants, by way of Kentucky, to Pike county.
Side by side into Pike county history come marching those two pioneers, John
Vertrees the Younger, and Jacob Van Meter Chenoweth, whose children, Joseph
Vertrees and Lucinda Chenoweth, had married before the families left Kentucky.
Some further reference to this pioneer Pike county family is in order here.
Jacob Van Meter Chenoweth brought his family to Pike county, Illinois, from
Kentucky in 1832, coming with the family of his brother, James Hackley Chenoweth,
and the family of John Vertrees, Jr., and Joseph Vertrees and his family. Abraham
Chenoweth, another brother, came later, in 1836. Their uncles, Jonathan and
Samuel Chenoweth, were here earlier.
Jacob Van Meter Chenoweth bore the name of his grandfather, old Jacob Van Meter. He settled at first in the neighborhood
known now as Hinman Prairie, long before the log Hinman Chapel was built. Later (in 1836) he took up land from
the government in Section 19, west of Perry.
This grand old pioneer was born in what is now Nelson (then Jefferson) county,
Kentucky, March 2, 1784. He was cradled amid savage warfare. He married Mary,
daughter of old Samuel Haycraft and Margaret Van Meter, of Haycraft's Fort.
They had 11 children, all of whom figure in the history of Pike county to which
the family came in 1832.
The children of Jacob V. and Mary (Polly) Chenoweth were: William H., Samuel
H., Lucinda, Presley H., John H., Mary, Nancy, James H., Margaret, Miles H.,
and Hester Chenoweth.
Joseph Vertrees and Edward Boone Scholl (founder of Booneville, now Perry)
entered government land together in Section 18, Perry, in 1835. Vertrees also
entered a 40 in Section 19, northwest of present Dexter school. He sold his
40 in section 18 to John Six, Sr., in 1845. In 1846 Joseph Vertrees bought an
80 in Section 7, Perry, from his brother-in-law, James H. Chenoweth.
Among the estate records of Jacob Van Meter Chenoweth, who died in Pike county
July 29, 1851, is a small home- made account book captioned: "Jacob V.
Chenoweth's Book to Keep Accounts in for or against his Children." In this
book he kept the "dowry" records of his sons and daughters. When one
of the children married, he or she was given his or her "dowry," or
a part thereof.
On one page of this small book, under the heading, "Joseph Vertrees,
part of dowry received by wife," is the following account of Lucinda's
"dowry" when she married Joseph:
One
young mare ......................................$60
One
kettle and Dutch oven ...................... 5
One
feather bed and bedding ................... 25
One
washing tub ...................................... 2
Cash
........................................................100
One
ewe sheep ......................................... 2
One
sow ..................................................1.50
Cow
and calf .......................................... 15
Woman's
saddle ..................................... 18
One
little wheel ...................................... 4
.........
$232.50