Manlove Origins, Part 9 - Conclusions

About Using The United States Census. I’ve witnessed couples age by the decade, and their children grow up. I’ve seen families become larger, and then shrink as the kids moved on. I’ve noticed the "head of Household" eventually pass to a new one, and the aged parents placed at the end of the family list - behind the new “Head of Household” and that person's children. And in the next census they would be gone. I’ve watched generation after generation fan out in greater numbers, and realize each one of those names - hundreds of them - belonged to a person who once had hopes and dreams similar to my own. And they are all gone. The census tells a lot. They tell me names, when people were born, who and when they married, how many children they had, where they lived, and when they died. They tell me who could read and write, which ones were retarded, who was insane, and what they did for a living. They told me that the Manloves were all farmers.

Manlove was the line I was following - a male line that carried the name through time, but there were other names going all the way back to the 1600’s: Williams, Robins, Browne, Robinson, Dunning, Caldwell, Egler, and Parsons. Eight generations ending with my Great Grandparents. Her name was Nancy Parson, his was John Henry Manlove. He was born in 1858 and she six years later. The worked a farm until their older age. The 1920 Census finds them living in Connersville as “helpers” in a boarding house. She died in 1923. John Henry was renting a room in a private home for $12 a month according to the 1930 census. He died in 1932 at 72 years.

John Henry was the oldest child of James, who was the sixth offspring born to George W. Manlove and Mary Caldwell. John’s second born was my Grandmother, Dorma. She is the only Manlove I ever met, and the photo to the left is a good representation of how I remember her. She married my grandfather, John Harrison Buckingham, in 1906 and gave birth to my father six years later. John Buckingham was a “body finisher” in an auto plant in Connersville, Indiana. His was the first generation whose profession was listed as anything other than “farmer”.

Manlove Origins, Part 8 - Be Fruitful and Fill the Land

William and Jonathon’s children did their part to populate Illinois, Wisconsin and Kansas, but it fell to the offspring of George Manlove to fill the new State of Indiana. George and Rachel (Dunning) had five kids. The oldest, Hannah, married Edward Trotter, and they moved to DeKalb County, Missouri sometime after 1825 - both appeared in the 1850 US Census. George and Rachel's remaining four children were boys and they all settled in the Hoosier State.

William Manlove, the oldest son, first landed in Preble County, Ohio, and then moved on to Fayette County Indiana - probably about 1814. A local history of Fayette County stated that.. “William and Prudence (Cook) Manlove, natives of South Carolina, who, with their two children, took up their residence in what is now Posey township, about 1812. After a short residence …William went to Cincinnati, with a team, for supplies, and while there contracted the cholera, from which he died on the way home. His widow and six children were thus left almost destitute in a new and wild country, but the former managed to keep her family together.” The couple had six kids at William’s death in 1819 - two daughters and four sons.

John probably got to Indiana about the same time as his brother William - maybe a year before. He settled in Henry County and lived to a ripe old age of 96. His wife, Jane Wheeler, and he produced five boys and two girls. They each had a gaggle of their own, and all seemed to have stayed in Henry County.

George W. Manlove was my Third Great Grandfather (G-G-G-Grandfather). He died in 1832 while driving hogs to market in Cincinnati. He had sired eight children (six boys) at his death at 45 years of age. His two eldest sons, John and William, being 19 and 17 years of age were old enough to keep the farm going. His wife, Mary Caldwell lived on the place until her death at 83 years in 1878.

Mark, the youngest, was probably the last to arrive in Indiana. He was in Ohio for more than ten years, but eventually settled in Tippecanoe County by 1840 with his wife (Jane Hodgson) and their seven children (5 boys). It’s a curious coincident that he should have settled in the area in which Tecumseh established Prophetstown, and where the Battle of Tippecanoe was fought in 1811.

I figure nearly 30 grandchildren of George Manlove were seeded across several counties of Indiana - no wonder I had so much trouble in unraveling my line of descent when I first began tracing my ancestors. It seemed like several counties had nothing but Manloves.
GO TO: Part 9

Manlove Origins, Part 6 - On to Indiany

George W. Manlove’s journal is the only artifact surviving these two hundred years to indicate when and how the Manlove family got to Indiana. Since his is the family’s earliest writing to come down to us it is tempting to conclude that George W. was the family point man, the first to make the trip. That may be so, but his father and three brothers also went to Indiana about the same time, and we don’t really know who got there first.

George W mentioned in his Journal that he took the Crab Orchard road (The Logan Trace??) on 17 Oct to visit his father. It is therefore likely that George senior had already moved from North Carolina, but it’s a mystery as to what he was doing in that part of Kentucky or how long he stayed.

George W.’s older brothers, William and John entered the Indiana territory before 1820. William died in the early part of 1819 of cholera. He was living in Fayette County, as was George W. John lived in neighboring Henry County. These two counties, along with Rush and Wayne are four clustered at the border of Ohio, and are the main ones into which the Manlove family eventually migrated.

I think Mark, the youngest brother was the last to come into Indiana. He originally settled in Highland county Ohio, but moved to Tippecanoe county after 1827. The brothers’ oldest sibling, and only sister, Hannah, was possibly the last family member to leave North Carolina. She, her husband, Edward Trotter, and family left after 1822 and probably passed through Indiana. They may have stayed a while, but eventually moved on to Missouri.

A year after he got to Indiana George W. Manlove wed Mary Caldwell. The Caldwell family was also from Guilford County, North Carolina, but had been in Ohio a few years. The marriage was performed in October of 1811 in Preble County, Ohio - which is just across the border and a short hop from his land on Lick Creek, Fayette County.

The newlyweds and Mary’s parents, moved onto their Lick Creek farms shortly afterward, but were forced to withdraw to Ohio as Tecumseh, the famous Shawnee leader, was actively organizing a confederation of Midwestern tribes. Things got really hot in the territory during the War of 1812. George W. Manlove’s father participated in the war, and probably came to Indiana country after it ended. The uprising failed after Tecumseh was killed in battle in 1813. The families returned to Lick Creek in 1814, and developed the land.

GO TO: Part 7