Fascinating story and so well researched. How amazing to have such well documented resources to help piece the story of William and his family.
I have ancestors that were impacted by the 1906 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in Italy. The ensuing drought and disease led to the eventual decision to leave Italy and give up on the unpredictable life of a farmer.
What I have found over and over, is that it is not likely all of your favorite ancestors kept a diary but others did. I have found diaries for travelers on ships, along trails, in the same towns, etc. The hard part is finding them and the best method is to find history books for your area of study that have gigantic bibliographies. Now the first thing I do when reading a new book is to start at the back to see how "good" the bibliography and endnotes are.
Prior to steamboats, I think a lot of the time people would use a flatboat pulled by an animal on the riverbank to more easily transport stuff down the rivers. May have been an option for your folks. :-) Very cool how you have connected a volcanic eruption far away to your ancestors' stories. On another note, I seem to find a lot of connections to Abbeville, South Carolina, in my own research and have long wondered if there's any connection to the town with the same name in Abbeville, Louisiana, haha.
The mouth of the Ohio R. where it empties into the Mississippi R. is a “steamboat graveyard.” Extremely dangerous area. Flatboats went down the Ohio, portaged at “The Falls on the Ohio” and landed at Shawneetown. Then it was an arduous (swampy) journey by land to Kaskaskia. As a child I grew up literally on the original Shawneetown Trail in my backyard. The travel west from Ohio to Illinois changed every few years so in identifying the likely specific route it depends greatly on the exact year. In 1816, the great majority of traffic was over the route described. In 1830 everything changed with snag clearing, lock and dam at Louisville and improved (not as likely to explode) steam engines; travel was ruled by steamboats on the Ohio.
I think both Abbeville towns are named after the French town of the same name. Abbeville, SC was initially settled by French Huguenots. There were many French in early Louisiana of course.
That cholera that killed your family members, and so many of mine in Quebec, was also the result of the eruption. Apparently the eruption led to the mutation of a new strain of cholera that spread throughout the world over the next decades.
Yes, there are several books on the topic that make that point. Several of my other articles deal with the devastation of cholera and T.B. that were the pre-eminent killers in 19th century southern Illinois. This is the kind of detail that gets cut out in the interest of brevity, unfortunately. The cholera was absolutely horrific.
A question, any idea where his farm was located? in Israel township. Mine is section 16. You probably have a map. As you may see my William Simpson farm location.
39°36'47.7"N 84°48'33.0"W Put these coordinates into google maps. It will take you to roughly the middle of the 160acre farm that William Morris settled and then lost. Israel Township, Preble Co. R 1E T 6N, section 18 SW 1/4, located in Miami River Survey. The southwest corner of the farm would be the state line and Gray Rd. I would love to have your thoughts on the soil quality, difficulties with farming it, etc. I visited in 2024 but got confused and I was too far north I realized only later. I saw a lot of baseball sized rocks. The Simpsons and Morris’s were practically neighbors. If it wasn’t for that volcano, you and I would probably be neighbors today.
A combination of sources. The travel diary is from several different published sources that just happened to travel the same route the same year. The Morris family history was written in 1920 and the other records are from personal research from BLM, census, Preble county and Randolph County histories. The Preble County history is particularly good and covers a lot of detail on the early settlement and Israel township. Your library there in Eaton is a gold mine. I apologize I don’t have all this written down in one place, but if you look at the footnotes on the various articles I have written, a lot of it is there. I am in Florida for the next six weeks and do not have my full library with me of course. I’ll try to put some things together for you.
Fascinating story and so well researched. How amazing to have such well documented resources to help piece the story of William and his family.
I have ancestors that were impacted by the 1906 eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in Italy. The ensuing drought and disease led to the eventual decision to leave Italy and give up on the unpredictable life of a farmer.
What I have found over and over, is that it is not likely all of your favorite ancestors kept a diary but others did. I have found diaries for travelers on ships, along trails, in the same towns, etc. The hard part is finding them and the best method is to find history books for your area of study that have gigantic bibliographies. Now the first thing I do when reading a new book is to start at the back to see how "good" the bibliography and endnotes are.
Prior to steamboats, I think a lot of the time people would use a flatboat pulled by an animal on the riverbank to more easily transport stuff down the rivers. May have been an option for your folks. :-) Very cool how you have connected a volcanic eruption far away to your ancestors' stories. On another note, I seem to find a lot of connections to Abbeville, South Carolina, in my own research and have long wondered if there's any connection to the town with the same name in Abbeville, Louisiana, haha.
The mouth of the Ohio R. where it empties into the Mississippi R. is a “steamboat graveyard.” Extremely dangerous area. Flatboats went down the Ohio, portaged at “The Falls on the Ohio” and landed at Shawneetown. Then it was an arduous (swampy) journey by land to Kaskaskia. As a child I grew up literally on the original Shawneetown Trail in my backyard. The travel west from Ohio to Illinois changed every few years so in identifying the likely specific route it depends greatly on the exact year. In 1816, the great majority of traffic was over the route described. In 1830 everything changed with snag clearing, lock and dam at Louisville and improved (not as likely to explode) steam engines; travel was ruled by steamboats on the Ohio.
I think both Abbeville towns are named after the French town of the same name. Abbeville, SC was initially settled by French Huguenots. There were many French in early Louisiana of course.
That cholera that killed your family members, and so many of mine in Quebec, was also the result of the eruption. Apparently the eruption led to the mutation of a new strain of cholera that spread throughout the world over the next decades.
Yes, there are several books on the topic that make that point. Several of my other articles deal with the devastation of cholera and T.B. that were the pre-eminent killers in 19th century southern Illinois. This is the kind of detail that gets cut out in the interest of brevity, unfortunately. The cholera was absolutely horrific.
A question, any idea where his farm was located? in Israel township. Mine is section 16. You probably have a map. As you may see my William Simpson farm location.
39°36'47.7"N 84°48'33.0"W Put these coordinates into google maps. It will take you to roughly the middle of the 160acre farm that William Morris settled and then lost. Israel Township, Preble Co. R 1E T 6N, section 18 SW 1/4, located in Miami River Survey. The southwest corner of the farm would be the state line and Gray Rd. I would love to have your thoughts on the soil quality, difficulties with farming it, etc. I visited in 2024 but got confused and I was too far north I realized only later. I saw a lot of baseball sized rocks. The Simpsons and Morris’s were practically neighbors. If it wasn’t for that volcano, you and I would probably be neighbors today.
Excellent article David. What source of information did you use for the Morris family ? Sounds like perhaps a diary. Thanks for sharing.
A combination of sources. The travel diary is from several different published sources that just happened to travel the same route the same year. The Morris family history was written in 1920 and the other records are from personal research from BLM, census, Preble county and Randolph County histories. The Preble County history is particularly good and covers a lot of detail on the early settlement and Israel township. Your library there in Eaton is a gold mine. I apologize I don’t have all this written down in one place, but if you look at the footnotes on the various articles I have written, a lot of it is there. I am in Florida for the next six weeks and do not have my full library with me of course. I’ll try to put some things together for you.