Tag Archives: Guernsey County Ohio

The Search for Stouts Begins

Isaac Stout ( 1800-1877)

When I wrote about my great-grandfather, “Doc” Stout’s brother Frank (John Franklin Stout), I discovered a tidbit about Isaac, their grandfather. According to a biography of Frank in a book about Omaha, where he settled, I read that Frank was of Dutch stock and his father, Isaiah walked from New Jersey to Ohio. However, their grandfather, Isaac lived all his life in New Jersey.

The Questions

Where does the idea come from that the English Stouts were Dutch? Well, that search uncovered the most interesting of my many fascinating female ancestors. But first–a few generations in between Doc Stout and that 8th great-grandmother.

Although my mother and her mother and her grandmother were in touch with the Stout family of Guernsey County, Ohio, they never regaled me with stories about the ancestors in the Stout line. Undertandably, they focused on our Pilgrim ancestor William Bassett and the builders of the How Tavern in Sudbury Massachusetts. I’m sorry that my mother missed out on some very interesting people. The Stouts have a rich history in New Jersey before they went West.

Isaiah, the father of “Doc” Stout and my 2x great-grand father, arrived in Guernsey County Ohio about 1839. He was only seventeen when, according to that history of Omaha, he walked all the way from New Jersey to Ohio. But surely he was walking alongside wagons carrying other families? If so, who were they and why did he head for Ohio?

Isaac Stout (1800) — His Beginning

To try to understand these questions, I needed to go look back at 2x great- grandfather Isaiah’s family–his father Isaac (my 3x great-grandfather) and Isaac’s brothers, uncles, and aunts.

4x great-grandparents Isaiah and Catherine Kennedy Stout had seven children, all born in New Jersey, and all boys. (I will tell their story in the future). They named Isaac, the first child, for his grandfather. And yes, you are seeing the beginning of a naming penchant that would make life difficult for family historians from then on. The numerous Stout families all seemed to name a son Isaac and another one Isaiah for many generations.

Isaiah Stout (1822) and His Siblings

At twenty-two, (December 19, 1822) Isaac Stout married Mary Ann Johnson, my 3x great grandparents . Their first child–you guessed it–named for his grandfather Isaiah— born in 1822, would later walk to Ohio, and among other accomplishments, become my 2x great-grandfather.

Ann Elizabeth (Eliza) Stout (1825)

The young couple, Isaac and Mary Ann, must have been devastated when they learned the condition of the second child, Ann Elizabeth, known as Ann Eliza in census records. Born in 1825, she continued to live at home until 1839, despite the fact that later census reports classify her as “idiotic.” By 1839, her mother had died when she was seven and her father had remarried the same year–1832.

It is very sad to contemplate the condition of care given to people in need. However, I can understand that with four other children, having a girl who was incapable of normal life would be beyond their abilities. Particularly when she reached her teens. We have to remember that developmental disabilities were not understood and there were no social workers or psychologists to help the parents.

I can’t help wonder if the first son, Isaiah’s, decision to leave home at seventeen might have been related to the family sending Ann Eliza away, since it was the same year.

From the time she was fourteen years old she lived on a “Poor farm” with others who had “defects.” She lived in the township of Hillsborough, within an hour’s buggy ride from her parents home in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

I’m guess that she was intellectually disabled, the more recent name–“retarded.” But since the catchall term of the time was “idiot”, that is how she is classed on census forms. In 1880 the schedule of “defectives” shows two “idiots”, two crippled and one “sunstroke and rheumatism” and one “insane.” Other Poor Houses or Institutions in the county housed paupers or insane.

Ann Eliza Stout, fourth on this 1880 Scedule of Defective, Dependent and Delinquent Classes.

Sadly, the first census with her name, 1850 when she was twenty-five years old also shows a two-month-old named Isaac Stout, most probably her child. I have been unable to find any further information about this Isaac Stout, who does not show up on subsequent census reports. If he survived childhood, he may have been adopted by someone who changed his name.

Ann Eliza lived until 1888, her entire life spent in these “poor farms” where various farmers and their families provided shelter for a dozen or more “defectives.”

George I Stout (1827)

The third child in the family, George I (sometimes transcribed as George J) was only five when his mother, Mary Ann, died, so spent most of his childhood with his step-mother.

He married about 1849, and he and his bride, Susan Davidson, moved in with his in-laws, where his first child, Mary, was born in 1850. They had two more children, George in 1855, and Sarah in 1852. George never left North Brunswick, New Jersey, where he died about 1856 when he was not quite thirty.

The probate papers for George, filed in New Jersey, show that he was a partner in a business called Runyan and Stout. I could not find information about his partnership, so do not know what business he was in. By the time debts and claims were paid, the estate was insolvent and many creditors were paid on the basis of a few mills per dollar owed.

By 1860, Susan was remarried.

Isaac Stout (1830)

Next, in 1830, baby Isaac Stout arrived. Isaac, perhaps following in the footsteps of his brother, headed west. Since he would have been only 9 or 10 when Isaiah left for Ohio, I doubt that he went along on that trek. I also have some nagging doubts about whether the California Isaac Stout in the 1860 and 1870 census reports and Find a Grave are the same as the Isaac Stout from New Brunswick, New Jersey. There is another Isaac Stout born about the same time in Indiana. So this Isaac is still a bit of a mystery.

If I have the right Isaac, and he did go to Contra Costa California, he died at the age of forty-three and is buried there . Another young death in this small family.

Isaiah’s Father Remarries, Stays in New Jersey

Isaiah was ten when his mother died and his father remarried about 1832. Although the record is not crystal clear, I believe he married Esther/Hester Bennett. This assumption comes from a marriage license and census reports. I also believe she was probably a widow and Bennett was her first husband’s name. However, I cannot prove that yet.

According to census reports, Isaac had two children with Ester in 1836. Mary J. about 1834 and Julian about 1836. I have not found definitive information about Julian, who is marked as a female on the only census where I see the name. I did find a Julian occupied as seamstress in a city directory, and also searched for female names close to Julian with no results.

In 1880, Esther Stout, then 76 years old, was living with Mary J. and her husband Edwin Stewart. I have had to add this information after I originally published this post, partly because another Esther married another Stout in the same generation, and both of their names vary from Esther to Hester and back again. But chiefly because of a census report that gets the prize for most errors or one particular person. Beware, if you are studying an 1880 census report for New Brunswick New Jersey.

The census taker, James Price, who seems to have good hand writing, puts Edwin’s name as Edward; and makes a very funny mistake on occupation (which I have confirmed is actually Hatter). He also changed Edwin’s age from 52 to 32. Well done! Not.

And the prize for most errors on a single person in a census goes to…..

Isaiah’s father, Isaac, died at the age of 77, October 1, 1877 and is buried in New Jersey. He had done nothing in his life to draw the attention of the authors of various books about his region or books about the Stout family. I assumed he lived all his life as a farmer. However, an 1850 census does show an Isaac Stout, 51, cabinetmaker and his wife Esther in Brunswick, New Jersey. There is also an index of craftsmen that lists an Isaac Stout as cabinet maker but it has no dates. It was quite possible that he both had a farm and was a cabinetmaker, as I have seen with some of my other ancestors.

Coming Next

Next I will look at Isaac’s brothers and sisters to see if any of Isaiah’s uncles could have been responsible for the young Isaiah’s travel to Ohio.

How I Am Related to Isaac Stout and Isaiah Stout

Vera Marie Badertscher is the daughter of
Harriette Anderson Kaser, who is the daughter of
Vera Stout Anderson, who is the daughter of
William Cochran (Doc) Stout, who is the son of
Isaiah Stout (1822), who is the son of
Isaac Stout (1800)

Notes on Research

United States Census Reports, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880, New Brunswick Middlesex, New Jersey; 1850, Somerset, Hillsborough, New Jersey.

U.S. Federal Census – 1880 Schedules of Defective, Dependent, and Delinquent Classes,

New Jersey State Census Report, 1905 Pasaaic, Patterson, New Jersey, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington, D.C.; Nonpopulation Census Schedules for New Jersey, 1880: Supplemental Schedules of Defective, Dependent, and Delinquent Classes; Year: 1880; Publication Number: A3469 , Ann Eliza Stout, Accessed at Ancestry.com

New Jersey, Marriage Records, 1670-1965, Ancestry.com, Edwin Stewart and Mary J. Stout , Accessed at Ancestry

New Jersey Marriages, 1684-1895 , Dodd, Jordan, Liahona Research, comp , Somerset, N. J., Isaac Stout and Esther Bennett, 1832, Accessed at Ancestry

New Jersey, Deaths and Burials Index, 1798-1971, Hillsborough, Somerset, NJ, Ann E Stout , Ancestry.com

New Jersey, Wills and Probate Records, 1739-1991, Probate Records, 1794-1945; Indexes, 1804-1972; Author: New Jersey. Surrogate’s Court (Somerset County); Probate Place: Somerset, New Jersey , George Stout, 1827, accessed at Ancestry.

U S Federal Census Report, 1860 and 1870, Contra Costa, California, Isaiah Stout.

California, Voter Registers, 1866-1898, California State Library, California History Section; Great Registers, 1866-1898; Collection Number: 4 – 2A; CSL Roll Number: 10; FHL Roll Number: 976458 , Isaac Stout. Accessed at Ancestry.com

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/103256455 , Isaac Stout, 1873, Contra Costa California

Family Politics#2: Harrison Campaign of 1840 and Col. William Cochran

Col. William Cochran 1793-1898

As I mentioned in the biographical sketch of Col. Cochran, he was part of a pioneering family in Guernsey County, having arrived when he was about nine years old. (The family settled in a section of Belmont County that soon became part of the new Guernsey county, carved out of Washington and other counties.) His family would have known most everybody in the territory, which helped William when he become involved in political activity. His service in the Ohio Militia would have expanded his contacts. The two paragraphs below are copied from my earlier biographical sketch:

As a young man, William enlisted in the Ohio Militia. According to an article about the history of the county in The Guernsey Times (1893) “He received his title of colonel in the Second brigade of the Fifteenth division of Ohio Militia, General James M. Bell commanding the division.”

Although none of the articles about him, including his obituary refer to the War of 1812, there is a War of 1812 marker with his gravestone in the Stout farm cemetery in Guernsey county. And there is a Pvt. William Cochran listed as being a member of Captain Cyrus Beatty’s Company from Guernsey County who served from October 23, 1812 to February 22, 1813. William would have been nineteen at that time. I assume that was his company, but how he got from private to Colonel, I’m not sure. And I have found no evidence that William, Captain Beatty, or Major General Bell saw military action during their time in the militia.

William Cochran served as a tax collector before Ohio’s 1852 constitution formalized the collection of taxes, and might well have received his appointment from the Whig politicians, numerous in the county. As a tax collector, he certainly must have been intimately aware of the economic woes of the farmers of the country. Under Martin Van Buren’s presidency, the country was experiencing a horrendous depression. That lit a fire under the Harrison campaign for president.

William Henry Harrison

The 1840 election of William Henry Harrison was notable for several reasons.

The new Whig Party had formed in opposition to Andrew Jackson in the 1830s, By 1836 they were ready to run a candidate against the only other major party, The Democratic party. However, the Whigs could not quite get their act together and the party ran three candidates–William Henry Harrison, Hugh White and Daniel Webster. With the opposition vote splintred, the Democratic presidential candidate, Martin Van Buren won.

During Van Buren’s presidency, a severe depression wracked the country, and the Whigs took advantage of discontent with the incumbent by uniting around William Henry Harrison in the 1840 election.

The oldest candidate to run for president up to that time, Harrison was 67 years old. This led the opponents to brand him as over the hill, and satirize him by saying give him a pension and a jug of hard cider and he would retire to his log cabin.

A campaign image of the ‘common man’ was embraced by the astute Harrison campaign as The Log Cabin Campaign, and images of log cabins, coon skin caps, and hard cider appeared everywhere. They built a log cabin for campaign headquarters in Ohio, put log cabins on wagons for parades, and handed out hard cider at rallies.

Whig campaign poster of Harrison log cabin Image from Library of Congress.*See notes on research for more information.

This was totally deceptive, as Harrison had been born to a patrician Virginia family and his father had signed the Declaration of Independence and served in the Continental Congress. The candidate himself had served as Governor of Indiana Territory and Superintendent of Indian affairs, a General in the War of 1812, and a two-term Congressman from Ohio. Nevertheless the Harrison campaign firmly established a practice in American politics of painting candidate with humble roots to relate to the common man.

The first presidential candidate to actively campaign, Harrison no stranger to military campaigns and political manueverings, did not follow the example of Washington, Adams, Jefferson and sit humbly at home.

His campaign pioneered several now familiar campaign tactics to make their candidate stick in the mind of the voter, including an effective political slogan and a memorable song in addition to the log cabin image. Today all that most people remember about Harrison is the slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler, too”. Tippecanoe–the battle where Harrison led troops who attacked and destroyed an Indian village in the Northwest territory, the beginning of the end for Indians in that area. Tyler–John Tyler, the vice presidential candidate.

We are familiar with the “earworm” campaign songs, like FDR’s Happy Days are Here Again. (Note the reference to the opponent as “Little Van”. Sound like something from 2016’s Republican primary?)

What’s the cause of this commotion, motion, motion,
Our country through?
It is the ball a-rolling on
For Tippecanoe and Tyler too.
For Tippecanoe and Tyler too.
And with them we’ll beat little Van, Van, Van,
Van is a used up man.
And with them we’ll beat little Van.

It goes on for 17 three-line verses, each ending with the five-line chorus, beating “little Van.”

Guernsey County in Ohio was packed with Whigs, and because William Cochran’s home township, Oxford, was a large township, it warranted not one but three committeemen for the Whig’s battle in the Harrison campaign. William was given the responsibility of the Middletown area. Enthusiasm was nearly overwhelming.

In nearby Cambridge, a flagpole was raised by the Whigs for a campaign banner. According to The History of Guernsey County,

A large poplar pole more than one hundred feet high was proposed and a call issued for the Whigs of the County to assemble at Cambridge, Ohio on the day fixed (22 Feburary 1840) to give a lift at the Tippecanoe flag raising.

(The flag stood until just before the November election when the Democrats stole out and cut it down in retaliation for a similar prank by the Whigs).

You can bet that William Cochran was there, as the flag raising was presided over by his former commander, General James Bell.

As part of a series of Articles in The Guernsey Times in 1893, Col. Cyrus P. B. Sarchet wrote the following about election activities.

The grand Whig rally at Fairview was on Thursday, October 8 1840. Of the meeting The Guernsey Times said; “The day was beautiful, and at an early hour the roads leading to town were thronged with the multitudes of the bone and sinew of the county coming out to hear and see Tom Corwin, the eloquent “Wagon Boy.” The number could not fall short of 8,000. The procession (which embraced only a part of the people there) was more than two miles long.

Note: Thomas Corwin had served five terms in Congress from Ohio as a Whig and in 1840 was running for Governor, as well as campaigning for Harrison. He was known for his clever debate and great speeches.

The same series of articles says of Oxford Township, “As the township was large it needed a good deal of stirring up to get the voters out.”

In The History of Guernsey County, the same gentleman writes this.

The Whig Central Committee stirred up the woods of old Guernsey as never before nor since making the great mass meeting at Cambridge on the 12th of September 1840 the largest gathered by any party, taking into consideration the county population at the time. They came from east and west, north and south and returned to their homes singing, “What has caused this great commotion, motion, motion…..”

Elsewhere, I have seen a drawing of a log cabin on a wagon that was used in that parade.

So my 3 times great-grandfather was indeed busy “stirring up” voters for Harrison, and I’m sure there was a lot of singing going on from the Harrison song book. My 2x great grandmother, Emmeline Cochran (Later to marry Isaiah Stout) would have been twelve years old at the time. What fun she must have had!

Apparently some of those 8,000 people were out for the parade just for the fun of a parade–and of course that number includes women and children who could not vote– but the final result was Van Buren: 2186 and Harrison 2606. A healthy margin in a campaign that swept the country and elected the ill-fated Harrison. He died less than a month after taking office. The story has been that his extremely long inauguration speech, delivered outside in bad weather did him in and he died of pneumonia.

A recent podcast by the Washington Post includes an interview with a doctor who has reviewed the cause of Harrison’s death. First, the weather was not that bad. Second, the symptoms of his death point to typhoid fever, probably from a tainted water supply in the White House. But because medicine in 1840 would not have recognized the finer points, the attending physician wrote pneumonia as the cause of death.

The death of his hero, Harrison, certainly would have been a blow to William Cochran. Even worse, the man chosen as Vice President, John Tyler, did not really believe in the Whig principles. The Whig party only lasted another twelve years, done in by inter-party disagreements between northern abolitionists and southern pro-slavery people.

RESEARCH NOTES

Hear more songs from the Harrison songbook at Smithsonian.

University of Virginia Miller Center for information on Presidents and presidential campaigns.

Valuable outline of Ohio militia in War of 1812 at this Ohio History site. http://www.warof1812.ohio.gov/_assets/docs/notesonohiomilitia.pdf

Image of campaign poster from Library of Congress. They give this further information: Summary: A Whig campaign print, showing William Henry Harrison greeting a wounded veteran before a log cabin by a river. The cabin flies an American flag with the words “Harrison & Tyler” and with a liberty cap on its staff. A coonskin is tacked to the side of the cabin, two barrels of hard cider stand by, and a farmer ploughs a field in the distance. The text below the image describes the scene: “This Log Cabin “was the first building erected on the North Bend of the beautiful Ohio River, with the barrel of cider outside and the door always open to the traveller. The wounded soldier is one of” Gen. Harrison’s comrades, “meeting him after his celebrated Victory of Tippecanoe and not only does the brave old Hero give his comrade a hearty welcome, but his dog recognizes him as an old acquaintance, and repeats the welcome by a cordial and significant shake of his tail! If the looker-on will only watch close enough he can see the tail absolutely shake in the picture, particularly on a clear day, and if it is held due East and West, so, as to feel the power of the” magnetic attraction “from the Great West.” The closing statement is a reference to Harrison’s broad base of support in the western United States.

A genealogy of Alexander Cochran and family by George C. Williston, (unfortunately this geneaology has been removed from RootsWeb.
Information about the Harrison campaign in 1840 is in “History of Guernsey County, Ohio“ by Col. Cyrus P. B. Sarchet, Illinois, (1911)The Campaign of 1840: A Series of Articles in The Guernsey Times, 1893 Compiled by Kurt Tostenson. Original author Col. Cyrus P. B. Sarchet in 1893. In my possession a photo copy of part of the compilation of articles from the Guernsey Times for the Guernsey County Genealogical Society in August 1994.

When I wrote about my great-grandfather William Stout’s sisters, Lib, Sade and Mattie, I had not found this wonderful photograph, so I want to share it now. They must be at the family farm in Guernsey County Ohio. Their names are linked to the prior articles about them.

“Aunt Lib [Elizabeth Stout Cunningham], Aunt Sade [Sarah Stout Scott], Aunt Mattie [Martha Stout Hays],” labeled by Vera Anderson “Dad’s sisters” Taken in Guernsey County, early 20th century

Challenge: Match the sisters with these earlier pictures.

Studio photograph of one of the Stout sisters–Mattie (Martha) or Sade (Sarah). Circa 1870

(Circa late 1870s)

Photographs are property of the author.

Ancestors in Aprons

Food and Family