Thompson

Chapter 54

KINSMEN OF POCAHONTAS WERE ENGLISH ANCESTORS

OF SAUNDERS FAMILIES


THE SAUNDERS FAMILY came early to America. The name was implanted on this side of the Atlantic early in the seventeenth century. From England, prior to 1632, came George Saunders, youngest son of the second known John, pioneering adventurer of one branch of the English family. Later, in 1638, came John Saunders, born in 1613, New World pioneer of another branch, setting sail on the good ship Confidence, from Melchitt Parke, Wiltshire, via Southampton, with Roger Eastman, William Cottle and Robert Ring as his servants. From this John is descended the Pike county branch of the Saunders family.

In an old Bible, printed in the sixteenth century and owned in 1888 by Richard Saunders of New Kent county, Virginia, is recorded the line of descent of this famous English family that sent its emissaries to the New World colonies. In England the family traces back to the martyr, Lawrence Saunders, born at Cambridge, England, July 9, 1510, youngest son of John and Jane (Lawrence) saunders, who was educated at Eton College and ordained in the beginning of King Edward's reign in 1537, and who, defying Queen Mary who was putting to death all who dared preach. Protestantism was arrested and, refusing to revoke his religion, was burned at the stake February 18, 1555. He had married Elizabeth, daughter of John Kiltwell of Plymouth, England, and their eldest son, John, born July 6, 1539, married Jane, daughter of Ralph Catchaside of Plymouth. Their youngest son, George, born May 1, 1574, married Elizabeth, daughter of Rollo Woodward of Huntington, England, in 1607, and came to America, to the Virginia Colony. Woodward, youngest son of George, born in Virginia Colony April 24, 1632, married Barbara, daughter of William and Nancy (Holmes) King, and settled near New Kent, Virginia. From this line of descent came the late Dr. Bacon Saunders, M. D., Sc. D., LL.D., one of the leading surgeons of the South and pioneer of modern surgery in the state of Texas, born at Bowling Green, Kentucky, January 5, 1855, the eldest son of Dr. John Smythe and Sarah Jane (Claypool) Saunders.

Of the same English ancestry was John Saunders, American pioneer of that branch of the family which settled in the south of England, in the county of Wilts, and reached out thence to the New World. On the same America- bound ship with this John Saunders, in 1638, came John Rolfe, who settled in Salisbury, Massachusetts.

John Saunders and his wife, Alice Cale (or Cole), had a son John who married Hester, daughter of John Rolfe, in 1638. The Rolfes were kinsmen of that earlier comer to America, the young Virginia planter, John Rolfe, to whom the dusky daughter of Powhatan, Pocahontas, plighted her faith and who, "the first Christian ever of her nation," accompanied her husband to England in 1616. As Lady Rebecca, she charmed the English nobility and aroused the jealousy of King James against Rolfe, the king fearing that, "having married an Indian princess, he (Rolfe) might lay claim to the crown of Virginia." Later in England, as Lady Rebecca was preparing to return to her wilderness home, she died, leaving a son, Thomas Rolfe, from whom some of the most distinguished families of Virginia have been proud to boast their descent. Among them are the Bollingers (Mrs. Edith Bollinger Galt was married to President Woodrow Wilson in 1915), the Murrays, Guys, Whittles, Robertsons, Elbridges and that branch of the Randolphs from which sprang John Randolph of Roanoke.

To John Saunders and Hester Rolfe was born a son James in 1643; he married Hannah Tewksbury October 20, 1687. Henry Saunders, a son of this marriage, was born at Haverhill, Massachusetts, on August 6, 1688. He fathered a son, William, at Haverhill in 1720.

James Saunders, son of William, was born at Salem, New Hampshire, July 12, 1751; he died in 1830. His wife, Elizabeth Little, daughter of Henry Little, was born at Newbury, Massachusetts, March 1, 1756. To them was born a son, Caleb Saunders, first of the family to come to Pike county, Illinois.

Caleb Saunders was born September 4, 1798, in direct line of descent from John Saunders and Hester Rolfe. He married Sarah Lancaster of Boston, daughter of William Lancaster and Mary Brigham. Sarah Lancaster was born in Boston May 13, 1807. Charles Saunders, a son of Caleb Saunders and Sarah Lancaster, who married Amanda Wilson, a granddaughter of Abraham Scholl, was born in Boston, June 19, 1831. Four years later (1835), his parents settled in Pike county, Illinois, near present Maysville. Caleb Saunders and his wife Sarah are both buried in Griggsville cemetery. Their son Charles long resided near Pittsfield; following his death, his wife, Amanda Wilson, a descendant of the Scholls and Boones, resided in Pittsfield at 214 East Perry Street, next door to the late Dr. Clyde B. Ingalls, who was also a Boone descendant.

Caleb Saunders was the youngest of twelve brothers. One sister, Betsey, was younger than he. She married a Woodbury. Mrs. Sarah S. Jones of Griggsville a daughter of Caleb and Sarah Saunders, says her father never spoke of his sister except as "Sister Woodbury." Mrs. Jones remembers having seen only two of her father's brothers, Daniel Saunders of Lawrence, Massachusetts, and Dr. Henry Saunders of Schenectady, New York, both of whom visited the Saunders family here in Pike county in an early day. The brother (she thinks his name was James) went to sea and was never heard of afterward.

Mrs. Jones, who is nearing 92, thinks she is the only one now living of the immediate descendants of the thirteen children. She doubts if there is one Saunders left in the East, unless it be granddaughters of her Uncle Daniel. She relates that her maternal grandfather, William Lancaster, died of apoplexy when his daughter Sarah (Mrs. Jones' mother) was 15 years old. He was supposed to be wealthy and the family had lived in great style in Boston. At his death, it developed that his means were limited and the family then scattered and Sarah's parents afterward went to Salem, New Hampshire, to live. William Lancaster's widow after some years married a man by the name of Merrill.

Three sons had been born to Caleb and Sarah Saunders before they came into the West; all three were born in Boston. William Lancaster Saunders, the first-born, lived with the family here until he was 21, and then, in 1850, went to California where he died December 13, 1856. Charles, born in 1831, went to the California gold fields in 1850 with his brother William, returning early in 1854. He died near Pittsfield in 1909 and is buried in Pleasant Grove cemetery. Samuel, the third son, went to California in the spring of 1854 and died in San Rafael in that state.

Three daughters were born after the family settled in Pike county. Elizabeth went to California and died in San Francisco in 1867. Mary married Eugene Seymour of Hannibal, January 12, 1876, and settled in Alabama where she died about 1921. She left a son, Alfred Seymour, who resides in Huntsville, Alabama.

Sarah, the youngest daughter, was born in a log house on the place where Cecil Nelson now resides at Maysville. She was born December 23, 1844. Her father had entered the East half of the Southwest quarter of Section 18 (Griggsville township) from the government on December 23, 1835. William E. Lancaster entered the South 40 of the West half of this quarter section (on which the Maysville church now is), February 2, 1836. John H. Steele entered the other 40 in this quarter May 5, 1836. Lancaster deeded his 40 to Walker Cree, February 15, 1840.

Mrs. Jones remembers distinctly the early neighborhood around present Maysville. Near neighbors to her father's family were the families of Thomas Bates and Walker Cree, and those of Osgood, Sharpe and Dickinson. She remembers as a girl going with her father to the "Military" for wood, riding the running-gears of a wagon behind an ox-team. The "Military" was unsettled woodland of the Military Tract, southwest of present Maysville. Her father went to mill in Frye's Hollow, one time the milling center of this region. He would sometimes be gone two days to mill, leaving early of a morning and returning home late in the evening of the second day. Once it was impossible for a long period to obtain wheaten flour and she remembers how tired she became of the everlasting cornmeal.

Mrs. Jones recalls how frightened her mother was of Indians, although few of them appeared on Griggsville Prairie after she (Sarah) was born. Those who did cross the Prairie in those days were said to be enroute to Washington to visit the Great White Father. Buffaloes, herds of them, heading out of the west and northwest toward the Illinois river, occasionally crossed Griggsville Prairie when she was a child. She remembers that her teachers in the old log school at Maysville always allowed the whole school to gather at the windows to see the bison herds go by.

Early school days on the Prairie are among Mrs. Jones' most vivid recollections. Just east of the present Maysville school house, at Warwick Lane, stood the early log school room, where she says, "Ruth Tyler taught me my letters." The seats were logs sawed in halves, with the flat side up and pegs stuck in for legs. A great stove that took cordwood lengths heated this rude temple of learning. Teachers, most of them (there were exceptions), were of the ox-gad type, with strong arms and little learning. There were about twenty pupils in this early school.

Ruth Tyler was Sarah Saunders' first teacher. The Tyler family lived in early days where Mrs. Ethel Burlend now lives in Griggsville. Ruth taught one term; then came Ed Osgood, a young teacher whose hearing was defective. During his term, whispering and disorder flourished. Sarah's father and Walker Cree and Thomas Bates were directors of the school. One day came the director, Thomas Bates, to visit. He noted the disorder. He took the school himself, and ruled it with a rod of iron.

Thomas Bates and his daughter Elvira are the early teachers who stand out most vividly in Mrs. Jones' memory. They were highly educated for their day. To their teaching Mrs. Jones attributes her educational start. Thomas Bates attended Oxford. He was a stern old master, unsparing of the rod. He had a son Thomas who was a pupil in his school. One day young Thomas and a companion ran away. They were apprehended and returned to their parents. Thomas Bates, Sr., announced one morning to the Maysville school that his runaway son was home again and that at two o'clock that afternoon he would thrash him before the school. The appointed hour arrived; young Thomas was haled forth and while the whole school sat in stunned and shivering silence, the schoolmaster gave his recreant son a beating that mrs. Jones, after all these years, still remembers with horror.

Thomas Bates when his teaching days were over, lived in Griggsville and ran a small grocery there. Young Thomas, the lad who received the fearful beating, long years after became a noted Chicago attorney, associated with one of the leading "legal lights" in the metropolis. When word reached him that his father was ill — dying — at Griggsville, he hastened to the old schoolmaster's bedside, arranged for nursing, and did all for his father that filial devotion could suggest. The old "master" is buried in Griggsville cemetery.

Another incident of the early log school room and its "strong arm" masters is recalled by Mrs. Jones. One day a girl pupil named Nancy McKinney transgressed the ironclad rules of the then master. He seized the girl and informed her he was going to hang her to the stove-pipe. He made the necessary preparations for the hanging, while the school looked on in terror. The girl finally collapsed from fright, thus ending the incident. That was a great many years ago, but Mrs. Jones still clings to the belief that there should have been a hanging that day — but not of the McKinney girl.

Mrs. Jones remembers a day in her father's home when her father was reading his newspaper and, suddenly looking up, surprised the family with a recital of what he had just read. "It says here," said he, "that one might sit here in this room and without raising one's voice above an ordinary tone, talk and be heard and understood in s store in Griggsville." "Now, father, you know that's not true," was the family's response to the newspaper yarn.

Caleb Saunders did not live to see the marvel of which he read but his daughter, herself a doubter in that incredulous age, has lived to see not only the telephone but the still greater marvel of the radio.

Sitting in the pleasant home of the Stones in Griggsville on a recent afternoon, recalling incidents of early days on Griggsville Prairie, this alert lady of 91 wondered if a child born today and living as long as she, may be permitted to witness changes as remarkable as she has witnessed.

Sarah S. Saunders married Charles W. Jones August 7, 1866. On October 9 that same year, her father, Caleb Saunders, died. Her mother, Sarah Lancaster Saunders, survived for many years, her death occurring at Griggsville on April 6, 1900. Caleb Saunders and his wife are both buried in Griggsville cemetery.

Charles W. Jones, prominent Griggsville bookkeeper and clerk, was a son of Nathan W. Jones, one of the founders of Griggsville and the man who named the town, naming it for one of the co-founders, Richard Griggs. Nathan Jones and his wife, Hannah P. Glazier, whom he married in 1823, were both natives of Massachusetts, he having been born in Worcester county in that state in 1803. He emigrated in 1830 to Jacksonville, Illinois, where he served as steward of Illinois College for one year. In the winter of 1831 he returned East by way of New Orleans and New York, on account of high water, and in the spring brought his family to Jacksonville, and later in 1833, to the site of present Griggsville. There he bought land and in 1834 joined in laying out a town, in which he built the first frame house on the knoll where Abraham Scholl had built the first log cabin in 1825.

In company with Joshua R. Stanford, Jones kept the first store in Griggsville, taking in trade the first year nine bear skins from bears killed within ten miles of the town. He owned the warehouses at Griggsville Landing for a number of years, and was an extensive grain merchant, being the first who paid cash for grain in that section of the country. He and the elder James Winn cut the first harvest in present Griggsville township without liquor.

The Jones ancestry is of New England stock and of English origin. They are referred to in Bancroft's History of the United States. George W. Jones, a son of Nathan W. and a brother of Charles W., was Pike county circuit clerk 1860-64 and was again elected to that office in 1876 to succeed Jason A. Rider. Other brothers and sisters of Charles W. were William H., who died in California in 1851, in his 20th year; John W.; John H., once assistant treasurer of Illinois and later confidential clerk in the grain inspection bureau at Chicago; Sarah, who married James H. Chase and lived in Buffalo, New York; Lucy T. and Henrietta H.

Charles Jones and Sarah Saunders became the parents of two daughters and one son. Etta, the first-born, died April 24, 1877, at the age of ten. Charles, born March 5, 1869, married Mabel Perkins of Red Wing, Minnesota. He died at Minnesota, April 19, 1935. The youngest child, Mrs. Clara B. Stone of Griggsville, was born November 3, 1874; she was married to Fred Arthur Stone, June 26, 1901. Mr. Stone, prominent Griggsville merchant, died January 11, 1927. Mrs. Jones resides with her daughter, Mrs. Stone, and the latter's brother-in-law, Will Stone, on Quincy Avenue in Griggsville. Charles W. Jones, husband of Sarah Saunders, was born May 11, 1845 and died April 7, 1915. He is buried in Griggsville cemetery.

Charles Saunders, brother of Mrs. Jones, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, June 19, 1831. He was four years old when his parents came to Pike county and settled on Griggsville Prairie near the site of present Maysville in 1835. He remained at home until he was 19, then in 1850, joining one of the caravans to the West, he started for the California gold fields in company with his brother, William Saunders. They reached "trail's end" July 29, 1850. In the gold fields they worked a claim along with William Dunham and Moses Spicer, these four comrades of the gold rush days all hailing from the Maysville vicinity.

A letter written home to his parents, Lewis and Sarah A. Dunham, by William Dunham in 1850, is of historical value here, not only for its references to the little Maysville group but also for its review of conditions that confronted most of the great number of Pike county emigrants to the gold fields at the time. Dunham had left here on August 8, 1850. His letter:

"Hangtown, Eldorado Co., Calif., September 1, 1850 — Dear Father and Mother and all: We landed here August 13th in Weaverville, Calif. We got along very well but it was a long, tiresome journey. It was very cold crossing the mountains. There were four of our men had the mountain fever. When we reached the Humboldt river we had all of our horses and mules except two which were drowned, and that night we had two stolen by the Indians.

"The Indians were very bad along the river. The alkali nearly used the horses up. It took the skin from their mouths. It was the worst river I ever saw. The grass was even poison. We laid at the sink three days and then started across the desert about 4 o'clock and traveled until about 10 o'clock. Then we stopped and fed and traveled on for a while longer. Then four of us laid down and went to sleep and slept until morning.

"We started for our wagons and reached them about 8 o'clock and when we got there old ‘leather head' had given every bit of water to the horses. Then I ate one slapjack and started on and traveled until about 4 o'clock before I came to any water and there they had water for sale at a dollar a gallon. I took six bits worth. It was about eight miles from the river. I stayed there about two hours and started for Sulphur Springs, four miles from there. I stayed about two hours and started for the river. There I called for my supper and what do you think it was? They had some beef boiled and some soup made without thickening. I paid four bits for it.

"About 12 o'clock the boys came in with the mules. They left the wagons back eight miles. The next morning we swam the river and took our horses a mile and a half down the river to grass and left them two days before we brought them back. We followed up the Carson river to the mountains. It was then ten miles over the first mountain and twelve over the second. It was six miles to the top and very rocky and the snow was fifteen to twenty feet deep. We found some good grass on the mountains by going off the road about a mile.

"I will just state to you that I am on the south fork of the American river, four miles from Hangtown and fifty miles from Sacramento. Mr. Bucker and I went to hunt his father-in-law and I came across the Saunders boys. They got in the 29th of July, 1850, with all their horses. We are working together and have a claim twenty feet square to each man; there are four of us — Will and Charles Saunders, Moses Spicer and myself. We all laid a claim and bought cradles and picks. Cradles sell from twenty to thirty dollars. The boys that talk of coming out here had better stay at home as long as they can make their board.

"I will just say to George Wilson (son of William H. Wilson and Matilda Scholl) that he had better stay at home, for it is the place you read about. If not, you may shoot me with a pack-saddle. Prospectors are as thick as hair on a dog's back. As long as you can make your board at home, stay there. We make about five dollars a day but it costs so much to live. I will tell you the price of some things per pound:

"Flour 16 to 18c, pork 25 to 30c, beans 25c, potatoes 20c ($12 a bu.), sugar 40c (2 ½ lbs. For $1), rice 25c, corn meal 25c, onions $1, apples and peaches 50c, beef 25 to 30c, cheese $1, butter $1.25, crackers 25c, saleratus 50c, soap 50c, candles $1, molasses $4 a gallon, milk $1.60 a gallon."

Charles Saunders and William Dunham (writer of the foregoing letter) started home from the gold fields by steamer to Panama in November, 1853, and on December 2 were shipwrecked off the coast of the island Anicapa, 350 miles from San Francisco, and were not rescued for five days. Before the writer as this is written is Charles Saunders' water-stained note and account book, which he carried in his pocket, a relic of that shipwreck. Despite the water-soaked condition of the book, most of the entries therein, in the hand of Charles Saunders, are fairly legible. These entries, many of them, relate to the daily life and barter of the gold camps, the purchases of oxen and receipts therefor, expense accounts revealing the fabulous prices charged for food and feed, and, finally the sale of the Saunders & Dunham oxen and other equipment when they were breaking up camp to return home.

Typical of these numerous entries is the following, dated at Placerville, California, October 11, 1852: "Received of Saunders & Dunham $810 for nine yoke of oxen branded thus (here is a drawing of the brand) on the left shoulder, the title to which I warrant and defend - W. N. Trark." Other items show the high cost of living, for instance these expense items on a trip to Pilot Hill in January, 1853: "Eight oxen to hay 6 nights, $45; six days board, $36; 250 lbs. hay, $12.50 (rate of $100 per ton)." Breaking up camp in 1853, they sold their numerous oxen at about $100 a head, the highest price noted being $240 for one yoke. On October 22, 1853, they sold to one J. Chambers 12 oxen for $1200 and on November 10, 1853 they sold to the same buyer 17 head for $1700.

Shipwrecked on December 2, 1853, Saunders and Dunham on the following December 9 took passage on another ship for Panama. Again all on board had a narrow escape from death when an overheated boiler blew up aboardship. They finally reached home on January 12, 1854.

Charles Saunders in 1859 married Marinda Browning and for a time resided in Missouri. Their son, William Percy Saunders, now residing on Section 31, in Griggsville township, at Dutton Station, was born in Browning, Linn county, Missouri, in 1860. He married Mary Hines, a daughter of William Hines and Elizabeth Wilson, and a great granddaughter of Abraham Scholl; she died and he then, on October 19, 1899, married Ida M. Webb at Griggsville, she a daughter of Isaac Webb and Jane Dean, Nathan English, M. G., officiating.

On November 13, 1866, Charles Saunders was again married, his second wife being Amanda Wilson, second daughter of William Howerton Wilson and Matilda Scholl. John K. Cleveland, for a quarter of a century a noted justice of the peace at Perry, an early blacksmith there and later the senior member of the mercantile firm of Cleveland & Williams, performed the wedding ceremony.

Charles Saunders and Amanda Wilson became the parents of two daughters and two sons who reached maturity. Mary, the first born (born September 13, 1867), married James A. Davis March 31, 1889 and resided for many years in the city of Pittsfield, where she died July 31, 1934. Alfred Lawrence Saunders, who became a telegrapher, was born December 27, 1880 and died January 14, 1913; he is buried in Pleasant Grove cemetery, in Newburg township. Dr. William Howerton Saunders, who has supplied much interesting matter for this history in connection with his mother's people, the noted Scholl family, is a practicing dentist with offices at 2301 West Broadway, Council Bluffs, Iowa. Annette, youngest of the Charles Saunders children, lived with her sister, Mrs. James A. Davis, in Pittsfield until the latter's death in 1934; she now lives in Omaha, Nebraska.

Dr. William H. Saunders, born in Boston, Massachusetts, June 19, 1831, died at Dutton Station, near Pittsfield, Illinois, November 24, 1909, aged 78. His widow, Amanda Wilson Saunders, born at Griggsville August 15, 1842, died in Pittsfield September 7, 1929, aged 87. She and her husband are buried in Pleasant Grove cemetery, north of Pittsfield, in Newburg township.

Charles Saunders, born in Boston, Massachusetts, June 19, 1831, died at Dutton Station, near Pittsfield, Illinois, November 24, 1909, aged 78. His widow, Amanda Wilson Saunders, born at Griggsville August 15, 1842, died in Pittsfield September , 1929, aged 87. She and her husband are buried in Pleasant Grove cemetery, north of Pittsfield, in Newburg township.